Solar Car Is Solar!
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`
October 19th, 2009 - 05:03
Glad to hear the car is in!
Re: the kangaroos
“Oh my god you guys, it’s the Schrodinger theory of Kangaroos! It’s impossible to prove they exist, until they’re dead, then their state is determined.”
- the venerable Nick Meyer