Solar Car: National Champions
The Michigan Solar Car Team has just won the American Solar Challenge and their 6th National Title, including the last three in a row. Official results have not been released yet but I believe Minnesota finished 2nd and Bochum (aka Solar Whale) finished 3rd. Both teams were roughly an hour behind Michigan.
Congratulations to the race crew and everyone involved in the Infinium project.
Leaders and Best!
Until they find Denard where the engine should be...
It's a solar car. I think you mean motor.
JOKE FAIL.
Crap, I couldn't think of what to call it. Neg away.
I would call this ridicule fail.
I think it is also their 4th championship in the last 5 races
Yeah, Michigan won the first two ('90, '93) and now four of the last five ('01, '05, '08, '10). We've won more of them (6) than not (4).
Well, thankfully, admissions did not cause any issues for this squad.
Go Blue!
speed!
...to the U-M Solar Car Team. What an awesome accomplishment.
Here's hoping that over time you continue to develop the technology that will allow solar energy to become a standard part of the creation of energy that powers passenger and commercial vehicles. We need you guys to keep innovating!
Hope I get to actually see more in some form on the Big Ten Network or in the least You Tube.
....engineering recruiting.
Yea, especially since it'll be a while until we can get them to campus for Tech Day. Obviously, they all say they're concerned about their "social lives," but that's only when their parents are in the room. We have a few 5-stars coming up from one of the hottest math team districts in Florida, they have really great AP and SAT scores from practicing in the mud all day. We're hoping to establish a pipeline since we already have an '09 graduate of the same school on campus, and I've facebook stalked to make sure they were all friends in high school. They've still been keeping in touch so that should help our chances, but one's father is an MIT alum and another one has been visiting mainly East Coast schools.
I'll let you know as soon as I find out who can make it up for Tech Day!
/couldn't help myself
What, there was no footage or interviews available? this should have been covered in detail on THIS site........let the World Cup get covered somewhere else.
I was at the finishing line in Naperville. There were an enormous amount of former team members there (I met two of the three drivers from the '05 car, one driver from the '08 car as well as members of the Comp Sci and Weather teams). It's a very tightknit group and all members are exceptionally proud of the tradition they've helped to establish. The fit & finish on the UM car makes a lot of the other teams' cars look like erector sets. The Bochum (Germany) car was also very cleanly executed. I will be sending the pictures I took to Brian. I'm hoping he decides to recap the race and post the images. It was a great day to be a Michigan Wolverine (fan).
Is the approximate 1 hour lead huge or is that normal?
...from the ASC website. Michigan's margin of victory over second place Minnesota was 2:12:09. That's a huge margin of victory.
|
Team |
Elapsed Time |
|
2 – Michigan |
28:14:44 |
|
35 – Minnesota |
30:26:53 |
|
10 – Bochum |
30:34:50 |
|
16 – Stanford |
31:59:44 |
|
42 – Missouri S&T |
32:53:56 |
|
65 – Calgary |
33:35:26 |
|
95 – Kaohsiung |
36:25:00 |
|
28 – New Paltz |
47:10:30 |
|
3 – Kentucky |
47:11:27 |
|
11 – Northwestern |
53:52:39 |
|
9 – Iowa State |
67:29:55 |
|
88 – Texas Austin |
68:56:32 |
|
5 – Illinois State |
70:09:19 |
Here's some news coverage of the finish:
on my part. Sorry. A 2 hour margin of victory is very impressive, considering how short this race was.
No rest for the weary though. As the Infinium project comes to a close, it's time for the Quantum project to kick into gear.
...crossing the finish line.
Truly the Leaders and Best!
should photoshop the "Go Blue M Club Supports You" banner into this photo so it looks like the kid in front is touching the banner.
congrats to the leaders and best!
It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!
Can someone please explain this link claiming that Stanford won? Is our information more accurate, or is theirs, or is everyone correct because, maybe, there were two separate "classes" of races (I seem to recall a previous brush-in with that idea)?
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/06/27/Stanford-wins-solar-car-road-race/UPI-90941277658758/
From that article it sounds like Michigan won the final stage, but Stanford had the lowest combined time from all the stages making them the overall winners. But the actual ASC website clearly shows that Michigan was the first place team from the combined stages, and seems to have actually won every stage.
You can check out the site here, http://americansolarchallenge.org/events/asc2010/
Yeah, I looked into it. Stanford didn't win. They just crossed the finish line first, which this journalist, the likes of whom apparently knows little of the ASC, confused with their having won the race. As it turns out, Stanford entered the final day knowing full well that they couldn't win, couldn't even improve their standing (fourth place), and couldn't fall to fifth place even with excessive penalties. So, they decided to do all they could to be the first to cross the finish line for posterity's sake. And this journalist took the bait.
Apparently the Chicago Sun-Times took the bait too. They didn't outright say Stanford won the whole race, just that they won the Final Stage (they got 2nd). Oddly they had a picture of the Michigan team, without any mention of them in the article.
My favorite bit:
The race was part of the Naperville Sustainability Challenge, an energy fair featuring eco-friendly vendors and educational displays.
Right...the race only existed to support the Naperville Sustainability Challenge? I imagine it's more likely that since the race happened to end in Naperville, they took the opportunity to throw an energy fair.
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/2437228,CST-NWS-SOLAR27.article
Bob Stoops is going to coach Notre Dame's Solar Car Team next race.
Wait, what?
That paper continues its downward slide. I read the same article and couldn't believe how it was worded. Quite sad.
Stanford incurred daily penalties because their roll bar foam was too close to the driver's helmet. It seems they purchased the incorrect roll bar padding and didn't realize it until they went thru scrutineering.
As for the finishing order on Saturday; Naperville is a densely populated western suburb and a lot of the teams were caught in traffic. UM played it ultra-conservatively and decided it wasn't the risk to try to zip thru traffic just to finish first in the final stage.
And yes, 2+ hours on the second place team is a beatdown considering that the margin of victory for the 2005 race (Austin TX to Calgary AB - more than double the distance of this year's race) was 11 minutes.
I have often been surprised that my alma mater, The University of Toledo, isn't involved in this event ever. UT has quite the engineering school, especially in solar materials engineering. They have had a major hand in developing some of the biggest advances in solar cells that have come about.
Are the teams all required to use the same, widely available classes of solar cells, to even the race up?
Current regulations allow for 6 m2 of any solar cells (gallium arsenide) or 9 m2 of approved cells (silicon). The 2011/2012 races have changed this regulation to 6 m2 of silicon cells or 3 m2 of gallium cells.