WSC

Lucy’s Race Report

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Lucy Fielding

The 2011 World Solar Challenge officially began on Sunday 16^th October 2011. Unofficially, it began much earlier than that. It’s difficult to pinpoint when, and for each team it is different. The day the car is shipped away; the day it arrives; the day testing begins; the day the build begins; the day the design is finalised; the day the entry fee is paid; the day the decision is made to participate at all.

For us, I suppose, the race began the day it sank in that we would be able to get to Australia. For a while it was uncertain, and that uncertainty lost us a few good teammates. But once we realised we were going to make it – that’s when it started for us.

Officially, however, it started on Sunday 16^th October 2011 and ended a week later, and that’s all most people see. That’s where the focus is, and the detail around the edges is lost. But detail is important. Look past the media reports, flashy videos and posed photos – you will see another world. In this world, details matter. Tiny details, like what currency your shipping company wants to be paid in, or what…
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Dan’s Race Report

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Daniel Chambers

This is not so much a race report as a summary of the entire year’s efforts, challenges, disappointments and successes. The culmination of all this activity was Australia’s WSC 2011, so in non-chronological fashion I’ll start there.

The most frustrating thing for a group of enthusiastic engineers is to have their efforts and aspirations thwarted by bureaucracy. But that’s exactly what happened when our shipping company refused to give us our container or even accept any form of payment. We spent an unproductive and relaxing two weeks in Darwin without a car to work on. However, what we achieved in the following fortnight after we finally got our hands on the car cannot be overstated. The car arrived in a “working” condition (we’d done some driving back in the UK at Bourn Airfield) but getting the vehicle race-ready took a huge amount of proverbial elbow grease and midnight oil.

We successfully fitted new lights and LED drivers, tested new driver controls and telemetry, performed solar battery charging tests and re-wired a few things that we’d never got around to in the UK, including the rear-view camera. The mechanical guys chipped in with a new set of wheels, worked out…
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Alisdair’s Race Report

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Alisdair McClymont

To drive the Stuart Highway, the 3000km stretch of road which runs between Darwin in the north of Australia and Adelaide in the south, is a test of the endurance of any vehicle. For the World Solar Challenge, the objective is simple: to complete this route in a little over 6 days, using only energy collected from the sun. As an undergraduate starting university in 2007, I had little doubt that to be part of a team which would compete in this event was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to miss.
A little under four years later, I flew out to Darwin with 11 other recently graduated engineers from the University of Cambridge for the 2011 Veolia World Solar Challenge. By this point our team had already built a car which had competed in the 2009 race (the World Solar Challenge is run every two years), and we were using the same car again although we had made several significant changes. In 2009 the car had suffered major problems with its battery and the reliability of the electrical systems, so we had fixed these issues and also made major aerodynamic improvements to the canopy and wheel fairings. Nonetheless, we…
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Race part 3

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Oli Smith

Day 6 (~2178 from Darwin)

Missed Coober Pedy control stop, trailering onwards in thick cloud. All teams we see are in the same position, the fires, cloud and storm have ruined everyone’s race (other than those fast enough to finish before most of us got half way).

Day 6 (~2258km from Darwin)

We see a break in the clouds, so pull over for 45minutes to gather some charge in the otherwise still overcast conditions. Time constraints for the finishing ceremonies mean we decide to continue under solar power until the pack is virtually flat again. Emil is driving what will likely be the last solar stint of the race. Hoping for another 100km if possible.

Day 6 (~2275km from Darwin)

Its drizzling and cold, we maintain a stiff upper lip and drive through regardless, driver visibility ok for now.

Day 6 (~2276km from Darwin)

1km on and Emil looses drive power, we’re stationary in light drizzle, although the sky is brighter again.

Day 6 (~2276km from Darwin)

We’re on the way again having rebooted the car to clear whatever the issue was.

Day 6 (~2307km from Darwin)

Dense cloud and the rain drains the last of the charge in our…
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In Race Updates: Part 2

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Alisdair McClymont

Day 4 (~1190km from Darwin)

Sun is out, sky still slightly hazy due to smoke hanging in the air. Broke camp before 6:30 again to return to start position and gather energy from the rising sun. George driving.

Driver change to Emil good progress under solar power this morning. A few random power losses but the system recovers with a quick reset, cause unknown, it isnt really slowing us down. New bush fires seen starting about 1km to the west of the road. Other teams may get stuck if the fires spread much faster.

Day 4 (~1302km from Darwin)

We arrive at the (moved) control point under solar power and having put energy into the battery whilst driving. Unfortunately cloud rolls in during the half hour enforced break. We’d like to make it to Alice Springs by close of play, but if the light doesn’t improve we’ll probably stop short. George returns to the cockpit.

Day 4 (~1334km form Darwin)

O nly 32km down the road from the control point, George (aka Kobyashi) reports a complete loss of power. Cause as of yet unkown. Electrical team decide to trailer rather than sit in the clouds (losing sunlight and equivelant to losing power) to figure it…
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In Race Updates: Part 1

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Oli Smith

Scrutineering, qualifying, RACE!

WARNING, LONG BLOG POST!

The past week has involved further testing, some track time, scrutineering, qualifying, supply shopping and the start of the race. We have been so busy (along with fairly limited internet access) that finding the time to actually upload these posts has been a challenge and as a result this one covers a week and is being uploaded form the third control stop in Tennant creek, NT.

Scrutineering

We were asked to present Endeavour for scrutineering on Thursday 13^th at the Darwin showground. The process involves various experts, academics and volunteers, questioning the team and inspecting the solar car and its support vehicles. Passing the regulations laid out by the WSC, Northern Territory government and Southern Australia governments ensures a fair, safe and legal competition.

However as with any motorsport, the regulations are not explicitly clear and are open for interpretation to allow innovation. As a result many teams fail certain regulations unexpectedly when the scrutineer’s interpretation is different to their own.

Our results were mixed! The car was 7mm too wide and 10mm too long; we’d completely forgotten about presenting a lockable battery box; the convoy vehicles…
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1st test run

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Oli Smith

09/10/11 – 23:30 (GMT+9:30)

In the eight days since the last blog update, the car has undergone a transformation and driven further and faster than it has since the last race. On Thursday 6^th, with the car mechanically and electrically sound (and with clearance to road test from the NT authorities), we took a very shabby Endeavour II out for a spin. No paint, wheel covers, bare carbon fibre patches and no canopy meant we were not the most aerodynamic or prettiest of solar vehicles out on the road, but then we weren’t too worried about the car getting dirty or scratching our paintwork before the prerace events. We saw Nuon’s Nuna6 (odds on favourites to win by all accounts) along with cars from Twente and Umicore (who are running a 3m²Gallium Arsenide array with concentrators).

The purpose of testing the car before we finished all the work was to hopefully highlight any underlying problems. Mechanically the car passed the day without issue, electrically we found a few niggles. Dan, rather embarrassingly, had cross wired the rear indicators (attempting to signal right resulted in the front right and rear left indicators flashing!) and the brake lights were intermittent –…
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Work begins

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Oli Smith

01/10/2011 – 23:00 (GMT+9:30)

Sorry for the lack of updates… not much was happening (other than Alisdair’s comedic conversations with the shipping company). As of Thursday 29th WE HAVE THE CAR!

Wednesday saw Dan spend hours sweating whilst unpacking the container, as the dock workers were too… well built… to fit under the trailer. But his efforts got the container through customs faster than we could have wished for (two weeks ago).

George and Oli went to the dock yard first thing Thursday for a ‘four hour’ quarantine session; thankfully the officer assigned to our case convinced himself that we must work in a clean room so he didn’t need to look at everything, 50 minutes later we were done.

Sitting down to lunch we were greeted by a long-awaited phone call, the contents of the container were ours… but must be collected in the next two hours after also visiting the office on the other side of Darwin. We managed most of the stuff, with another trip required Friday morning. With Endeavour finally in the workshop, we began on the long to-do list. The new wheels also arrived from the UK.

Due to something about lectures and University we…
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Discussions with a Shipping Company: A Parody

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Alisdair McClymont

Unfortunately this is less of a parody and more an accurate reflection of conversations – hence the unfortunate ongoing delays in receiving Endeavour II.

Me: Hi, our freight handlers say you haven’t released the container to them yet. Is there a problem?
Customer Services: Certainly, sir. Do you remember the Shipping Instructions – the ones I told you were okay two weeks ago? Well, it turns out they weren’t okay – we need some more details. Can you fill in this form? [Attaches form]
Me: [Attaches complete form]. Okay, that’s annoying but never mind. Will you be able to issue the Bill of Lading now?
CS: Certainly, sir. It will be issued today.

The next day (Australian daytime)

Me: Hi, have you been issued the Bill of Lading yet?
Freight Handler: No, the shipping company say you haven’t paid them, so they can’t release the container to us.
Me: Well, that’s probably because they’ve not invoiced me… I think I’d better speak to them.

Later that day (UK daytime)

Me: Hi, I still need the Bill of Lading issued for this container. I understand there’s a hold-up because I haven’t paid the shipping fees?
…
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Waiting For Endeavour

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Daniel Chambers

With the shipping/forwarding company (we’re not sure which) still dragging their feet, the team in Darwin is still without a solar car to work on.

Time-filling measures began with a visit to Litchfield National Park. Our plan to set off at 8am was scuppered by half the team not being awake, but we were soon on our way. We decided to stop at the care hire company to drop off the police incident number for the car accident the previous day, in attempt to speed up the insurance claim process. While Alisdair and Oli went inside for a few minutes the rest of the team enjoyed the benefits of air conditioning inside the car, only to realise slightly too late that this drained the battery almost immediately and without warning. At least the car park of the car hire company is the most convenient place to break down.

Why don’t normal cars have warnings that the battery is getting low? If a bunch of students can build a solar car that does this (on a budget of £0) why can’t Mitsubishi build it into their Outlander 4×4 which we’re being charged a fortune for? At least we got a free…
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