Defense Against Rogue Australian Ecosystem
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.
October 23rd, 2009 - 13:49
Glad to hear that both DC and Marvin are doing okay. That sounds really scary.
Best of luck!
October 23rd, 2009 - 16:29
I was surprised that the Bocruiser is such lovely car! Is the team aware of the fact that Erika can prepare a
Strawberry Tofu pie? Yum! Hope all goes well racing day.
October 24th, 2009 - 01:11
Hi Team – This is all good news. Getting the whole team and the car at the starting point, with problems solved, serious illness averted, no dead kangaroos, and a successful scrutineering – well done. Nice to hear that you impressed the judges. God bless – Aunt Harlan
October 24th, 2009 - 05:34
Unfortunately, you don’t get to admire Bochum’s carbon fiber A-arms this year because they appear to be covered by carbon fiber wheel well covers.
It looks like they kept their stylish stagnation point driver ventilation system, or as John Shen liked to call it: “crotch vent”
A “heavy” 200kg is still very impresive — within 20 lbs of the design weight as I recall (a lot better than Equinox). Any close calls from scrutineering body sizing? I had many restless nights imagining that laser measuring system recording the width at 1801 mm or the eye height at 70.1 cm.
October 24th, 2009 - 11:39
I’ve concluded that the Germans didn’t get the memo.. and accidentally built an Audi TT out of carbon fiber.
although that’s better than last time, when they styled their car after a whale.