The Real Awesome Australian Adventure. Part 1: The End
by Nathan
We're done!*
Most of the team comes over to fill up the solar car after a very long drive without gasoline. If you look really closely, you can see joy on the faces of the regularly emotionless engineers!
Today, we rolled into Port Augusta after 2,722 km of solar power!!!!! We didn't end up in Adelaide because of a police-enforced regulation preventing the driving of solar cars from Port Augusta to Adelaide on the weekend. We have gone as far as we're allowed to travel on solar power. It's been slow - we've been having issues with the solar array, resulting in a low-placing finish. In a traditional race, we're in last place: we will be the last solar car to roll into Darwin. Nevertheless, more than half of the cars broke down or crashed, placing us fourth or fifth in our class (silicon solar arrays). So you might call it great success. Even though the car didn't perform as well as we would have liked, I can't get over the
HOLY SH*T WE CROSSED A CONTINENT IN A SOLAR POWERED CAR!!!!!!!!
factor. It's pretty awesome. Maybe I didn't add enough exclamation points. I did use caps again. Regular readers will recall that this means that something important has happened. Anyways, just for good measure,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This will be a somewhat short post, as we're not technically done with the race. We have to trailer the car into Adelaide tomorrow morning. Eager log readers should expect more posts describing in gruesome detail how we singlehandedly battled MPPTs, kangaroos, flies, and Sasha on our trip across the outback.
Now for a smattering of photos of the solar car traveling at breakneck* speeds across the Australia. For lots more, check out the gallery.
*man it looks fast. It's traveling at around 40 mph. Apogee is still really really pretty.
all alone....all alone...all alone. There isn't much in the outback. Actually, the only interesting things there are solar cars. Which is why all our pictures are of solar cars. Because they're interesting.
Anyways, there will be many more posts; some humorous, others serious (ha). If you find anything that we write takes itself too seriously, send email complaints to lightenup@awesomeaustralianadventure.com.
*The race ends tomorrow. Also, for those who are old/wise enough to know this, the race never ends.
Stay tuned for the next enthralling part of the Awesome Australian Adventure!
WSC, day 5
by Ben
So we're currently driving south between the South Australia border and Coober Pedy. We've had a few problems with the array... it's theoretical maximum is 1360 watts at noon, we expected around 1200, and for the first three days we couldn't get more than 600. Now it's closer to 900, but that's still much less than we were hoping for. Our break even speed is about 56kph.
So currently we're in fourth place of the Silicon class. We're also in last place, in terms of cars that have made the checkpoints on time without trailering their cars. Some of the Gallium-Arsenide (GaAs) cars have already finished.
Photos:
Solarcar!
Rock
More in the gallery
The race is on!
by Ben
After a long night of awesome Belgian techno and rebuilding the entire array with Sasha, we finally have a solar powered solarcar.
This is good.
All the teams met up in a square in Darwin, conveniently located about four meters from our hostel, for the start of the race. All the cars had come together really well, although Cambridge were frantically seating a tire. It was pretty cool to see all the solarcars together.
Very official looking parking lot
We're now cruising down Stuart Highway at around 40mph, half way between Darwin and Katherine. We're behind a couple teams, and our array isn't generating as much power as it should, but in general things are going pretty well. More updates soon!
Hot laps at the race track
by Ben
Today was dynamic qualification. Basically this means thrashing the car around the track as fast as possible. We've been preparing for this stage of the competition for the past two years days- tweaking the car for more torque at the expense of efficiency, ignoring the solar array, doing laps, generally driving fast. Anyway, we woke up super early today and headed over to the track.
Typically, the first appointment was a safety briefing. This was exhilarating. Finally, after a brief skirmish with the (currently broken) driver display and driver selection (rock paper scissors against Nathan), I hit the track.
So at this point the car was configured to be horrendously overpowered in terms of torque, but with a top speed of about 60mph. I had a radio, but I couldn't hear it because the motor was making the sounds of a dying planet. We thought we had conquered the display, but it was merely biding its time and gave up about 3 meters into the lap. So I was in the car, with no idea what the battery level was or how fast I was going.
It was fun. I went very fast. It was pretty clear that we'd forgotten to build a solar car and had accidentally built a sports car instead. Apparently they announced over the intercom that I was drifting slightly in the hairpin... great success.
solarcar!
After the hot lap I was shunted onto the drag strip where they wanted to do some proper scrutineering. Basically this involved driving a slalom at 35kph and then doing a brake test. Of course I had no idea what my speed was, so I went as fast as I could. I think I took the slalom at about 60kph... at the brake test they told me I'd gone far too fast and had to do it again. I wasn't exactly sure why they thought my brakes would be worse if I was going slower... needless to say, Apogee passed without a problem.
Later they announced the lap times- we came fifth with a lap time of 2 minutes 8 seconds, after Aurora, Nuon, Tokai and an Audi TT. This makes us the first american team to start, one place ahead of Michigan. In 2007 we started one place ahead of Michigan. In 2007 we were involved in an accident where the Michigan solarcar hit their lead vehicle (so I'm told). I am hoping this does not happen tomorrow.
Audi TT
We were actually approached by a member of the Michigan team (I think she was doing interviews of the different teams... this is far more organised than we will ever be) who said she'd sacrifice herself to save their car, in the event of a repeat of last year. Brave girl. I think I speak for Marvin! and myself when I say that anyone on the Stanford team would happily sacrifice Apogee for a decent steak.
Marvin! weakened by spider 
More photos in the gallery
P.S. My lap time was 2:08. The lap is around 3km, so apparently I averaged a shade over 50mph. The car is limited in this configuration to 60mph. I am very proud of this.
Defense Against Rogue Australian Ecosystem
by matt
We have made great progress since we arrived in Darwin almost three days ago. We arrived, and were immediately attacked by the "tropical" ecosystem. It alternatively poured, then was sunny, then poured again as we drove through Adelaide River. This warning failed to scare us until DC Posch's stomach was ripped apart by food poisoning from the sandwiches he ate at the "rogue" bucking bull burger in Katherine. At this point, the right side of the Solar Car Van received some chunky brown decoration to match the yellow decoration from melted Canola spread.
At this point, we were legitimately scared. Upon arriving at the racetrack, DC started vomiting blood, so we took him to the hospital. Luckily, DC was able to game the system, just like he gamed the catalog computers at the City Library in Melbourne and turned them into a coding machines. He talked a nurse and got free medical advice, then took the next day to recover.
Next was Marvin!. We suspected that we had imported dangerous American species into the country when Sasha found a black widow in the undercarriage of our solar car van. Marvin! was bitten by a spider on our epic 35-hour drive from Cooper Pedy to Darwin. His foot swelled up, but he ignored it. To be fair, he had not eaten breakfast. At scrutineering, the judges decided that the problem with our car was that Marvin! had a swollen ankle. We agreed emphatically, and sent him to the hospital. Although our safety officer Lucie had treated him with antihistamines and an elastic bandage the night before, the doctors were able to one-up her and gave Marvin! antibiotics and a better elastic bandage. Once again, we were able to defeat the inhospitable "tropical" ecosystem of Darwin with science. To be fair, Marvin! had eaten all of the black widow's babies.
Speaking of babies and scrutineering, we passed scrutineering, with the exception of our American CB radios and legacy "skater" helmet. Once again, we learned that Australia likes helmets (did you know that it is illegal to ride a bicycle in this country if you don't have a piece of foam on your head?). Besides this we were told that our two massively strong steel rollbars were okay, but technically there should only be one and it should be constructed of a brittle, difficult to model material such as crabon fibre. The judges were almost as impressed with our door as they were with the hydraulic action of the banana slug car. However, our car paled in comparison to Bochum's newest car, the BoCruiser, which resembles a normal car more than any other solar car ever and has elaborate crabon fibre work including a beautiful crabon fibre throne.
Bocruiser at Scrutineering: Note the Crabon Fibre Throne.
Also note that the Bottom Shell Slopes upwards and is hollow in the back.
Speaking of crabon fibre thrones, we built the fifth iteration of our seating pad. The first two American ones were okay, but we left them in America. The pink foam cushion cracked in half, and my folded therma-rest attacked Ben's legs and made them go to sleep. The new cushion is a wedge of dual density foam, and proves's Nathan's superiority at designing beautiful and ergonomic creations out of materials that can only be manipulated with scissors. Also, we were able to fix our fairing crunch with some bent aluminum plate and a wet layup, which made our car seem heavier when it weighed in at 200 kg.
Another great success was some debugging of our array. Even the luck-bearing insect that we encapsulated into one of our panels was unable to ward away evil solar demons. We did, however, discover the issues that were preventing us from getting as much power as our array should theorhetically be producing. Between unwired cables, miswired cables, broken code, a short within a cell, and a short to the top shell, we have now diagnosed all of our problems, and even discovered solutions for most of them. Our electrical team has been working around the clock, and their efforts are both appreciated and vital to the success of our team.
In short, great success. Also, McDonalds has icee frozen drinks here, which is amazing, and well known by all solar car teams working on their cars at the Hidden Valley Racetrack.
Road to Darwin
by Ben
We made it through the night without incident and are now within 300km of Darwin! Since we set out yesterday morning, around 31 hours ago, we've covered over 1600 miles. It's much much warmer here.
Our beautiful car
These two cows were the only living things for 20 miles
Road train!
Disbelieve
Why the… What are we…
by Nathan
So we're on the road to Darwin. It's 11 pm. We just passed a place nicknamed 'kangaroo zoo'. Matt on the radio: "kangaroo left. Kangaroo right. Kangaroo right." DC on the radio: "My job is simple. If I see a kangaroo, I report it. If I hit a kangaroo, I keep going so I don't get rear ended by the fricking huge truck carrying the solarcar behind me."
So we got to Alice Springs about three hours ago. Alice Springs is the half way point between Adelaide and Darwin. This morning we did our final solarcar tests before Darwin- the array was generating about 75% the theoretical maximum at noon. Some of this is due to known broken panels that we'll replace. There's a couple other random problems we have to diagnose, but generally things look good.
We're not allowed to drive the solarcar in the northern territories until we get to the racetrack, so we're trailering it up to Darwin as fast as we can go. We're going to drive all night and all tomorrow. The last sign said 1290km to Darwin, and we're currently cruising at about 75 kmph so we expect to get there tomorrow evening.
More updates sporadically.
Solar Car Is Solar!
by Marvin!
At the moment, our caravan is cruising down Stuart Highway somewhere between Adelaide and Darwin getting some more mileage on the solar car. The scenery has not changed for the past couple hours. It is very, very empty. Not even drop bears live out here. There are no trees. We've seen a few roadkill kangaroos now and then, but I'm not sure if they exist in a non-roadkill state on the outback. We have yet to see a live one.
In other news, the solar car works! Great success!
After arriving in Adelaide a few days ago, Sasha, with his magical telephone powers, found us a place to work on the car at Tafe, a college with its own solar car team. Unfortunately, they didn't complete their car in time, but they were kind enough to lend us some workspace.
Work went smoothly for the mech team. We made a few minor repairs and strengthened SARS. Electrical work did not go so smoothly. Smoking boards and zapping noises were the theme of the day, which kept Ben and Sasha busy soldering and coding. After working into the night, we packed the car the next day and headed back to the road.
This did not go as smoothly as you might imagine. After many nights of following GPS directions into dark sketchy alleys while looking for a club, you'd think we would have learned not to trust its directions, but no. First, the gas station found by the GPS was under construction, and our caravan lost one of its members. After finding a different gas station, truck headed off while chase headed to Jaycar to pick up some electronics, and so the entire caravan separated. Then the Stanford van, following more GPS directions, turned on to the wrong highway and lost half an hour. Basically, everyone was out of radio range, confused about who was where, and driving extremely fast down the highway.
Only after two hours of furious overtaking did thrifty van start hearing radio babble and noise from truck, at which point Matt and I started speaking Russian and Chinese to each other, respectively. This failed to lessen the confusion, Nevertheless, the two vehicles met up, waited for the solar car van to catch up, and at last became complete. Insert solar car driving by Matt!
not yet solar powered
After much more driving and my disappointing discovery that thrifty van's max speed is 160 kph, we arrived in the little town of Woomera. We parked at a caravan park and prepared for the first of many nights of camping. With most of the team working on the tent, achieved a record tent erection time of only two hours. The rest of the night was filled with much productivity. Electrical team continued to fix the exploding bits of the car while everyone else helped make dinner. We had no meat. Erica cooked some fake meat people call tofu, and although delicious, it could not compare with the amazingness of dead animal. After dinner, electrical worked late into the night and NHS slept on the roof of the van. In the morning, he commented on how easily it caved in. It was a fine night.
Finally, we arrive at today. After more struggling to find a gas station, we departed from Woomera with the solar car out and drove and drove and drove. According to Nathan, we doubled the mileage of the solar car in one day. After the battery pack finally bottomed out, we stopped in the middle of nowhere and electrical team decided to fix the car on a rest stop by the side of the road.
Middle of nowhere
Since we had nothing to do, NHS and I walked out into the outback to do some exploring. There were scattered trees and shrubs about, but by the time we walked a mile out from the road, we confirmed that there was absolutely nothing out there except for birds making weird noises. There weren't even any poisonous things snapping at us. I was honestly disappointed. Every direction looked exactly the same. After sitting in the dirt for a while, we decided to head back and missed the stop by about half a mile. We almost died.
Meanwhile, the electrical team was making the solar array work! A bit after we got back, we got power running from the array and the solar car officially became a solar car. Great success. We drove the car for a while on solar power, packed it up, and headed towards our next stop. Here we come Darwin!
Sasha and his hat fixing the car
All of australia is one giant bathroom - sasha`
“Lead to Solarcar. Dropbears ahead.”
by Ben
We're currently half way between Melbourne and Adelaide. NHS, who is currently driving, describes the scenery as "Like Nevada only with plants. Exactly like Age of Empires." It's been exactly the same for almost 500km so he has plenty of evidence to support this conclusion. Marvin! and Matt are on the look out for trebuchets.
In an enormous boost to our confidence, we have discovered that the truck we hired to carry the solarcar is slower than the solarcar itself. Significantly. It tops out at 90... kph. Based on our calculations, this is not quick enough to evade an average dropbear attack. More importantly, it's not going to be able to keep up with the solarcar during the race, so we may have to make some... modifications.
DC and solarcar, working as one
The biggest problem we faced during the 1 hour test drive was the extreme inaccuracy of our weather prediction systems
"There's no rain anywhere between here and Adelaide"
Here's another photo of the Australian countryside. If you look closely, you might be able to spot the solarcar in the foreground.
I carefully managed to avoid shooting the rain clouds
Ready to Roll
by dcposch
This morning, we did something we do very rarely: we all got up before eight. That's because we had just one day to get the car ready to go, and we were guests at the mechanic school again, so our usual modus operendi of working nocturnally wasn't going to fly. No more late-night techno at the solar car shop, topped off with the delicious smell of strawberry pancakes when the IHOP finally opens at six AM. Today, we were all business. We connected the top and bottom shells of the car with "the umbilical"--a cable which carries power from the solar cells to the battery pack. We sealed the gaps between the panels with silicone, built some cargo shelves in the truck, aligned the wheels, slapped on some decals, accidentally fried and then unfried some electronics... in short, we're ready to roll!
...born ready. that in the back is us eating chinese takeout. it was spicy and delicious.
solar car is watching you.
In between the car work, we found time to wash the trusty old solar car van, probably for the first time since the 1990s, when it was manufactured. The car wash was one of those manual ones designed for maximum exercise: you throw in Australian dollar coins and each one gets you a minute of wash time. So I tried to scrub down a utility van in two minutes.
...while Ben took pictures. yes, it was that foamy. we ended up doing it in four minutes...
Tomorrow morning, we all breaking our routine again and waking up at six. All of us except Sasha, that is, who is a cyborg whose usual routine involves waking up at five. He doubles as our collective alarm clock. We'll hit the roads while they're still empty and drive to Adelaide. Next stop, the middle of nowhere, and after that, Darwin.
With luck, all this will be our "dress rehearsal" for the race back down to the bottom of Down Under. Wish us luck!