Trip Stats

Summary

Riding off a conditional qualification for ASC 2018, we started the day knowing that we either had to make it to the checkpoint at Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer before it closed, or make it to the stage stop on time without trailering MSXII. The goal for the day was to get qualification out of the way, so we didn't need to worry about it the next day. We could worry about fixing other problems with the car after we had qualified.

The stage start was pretty hectic, as we were busy taping up the panel gaps because of the rain that was on the forecast. There were a few last-minute changes that needed to be done, and the pedal calibration routine needed to be run after some changes the previous night that resulted in the pedal being moved around. The team scrambled around looking for a Camelbak water bottle for our driver, since it would probably be easier for them to stay hydrated that way (as opposed to using a regular bottle). Radio check was also a bit of a scramble, as we tried to sort out which radios were good and which ones needed new batteries. All this time, the officials were warning us that impeding the progress of another team was subject to penalties.

It's probably fair to say that a lot of us were pretty worried after seeing one of the other teams need a push to get out of the parking lot at Lewis & Clark Landing. However, we seemed to be fine and we managed to easily make it over the little bump. Unfortunately, during the disorganized scramble prior to starting, we had gotten our convoy seating arrangements mixed up, and ended up leaving Titus and Karl with the support vehicles. This was remedied after driving a fair bit before hitting our first fault of the day—a BPS fault—at which point the two moved into the chase car (which up until now, only contained a driver and observer). Throughout the day, we would deal with intermittent losses of throttle, which definitely made things interesting.

Our observer was a good sport, and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. We did forget to feed him, although he was eating his granola bars that he had brought. At one point, we were pulled over after losing throttle, and he managed to find some weed growing on the side of the highway and gave it to one of us. To be fair, we also forgot to feed ourselves as everyone in the convoy was quite overwhelmed that a car we had built was actually driving.

As the day progressed, we seemed to lose throttle more frequently as our pack voltage dropped. We concluded this was because we would be drawing more current as our pack voltage dropped, so clearly whatever was tripping would get worse, and would remain like this until we could triage and fix the problem. But still, we continued on and refused to give up. At about 2:30 pm, we were about 2 km away from the museum, and the most frustrating thing was that we could see it in the distance. We probably could've walked there in 30 minutes. And yet, we would seem to lose throttle about every 10 seconds, crawling and limping along.

It was pretty stressful for everyone in the convoy, since we all thought that the checkpoint closed at 3:00 pm. The actual number was something like faulting about 7 times in 200 m before we finally were able to keep on going and make it past the finish line. Our observer knew otherwise, but due to race regulations, he couldn't say anything to us to tell us that the checkpoint actually closed at 3:30 pm. But when we crossed the finish line, we were all super pumped and psyched that we had made it—we could deal with the other problems later as they came up.

After hitting the checkpoint, we had to wait for our mandatory 45 minutes in order to continue. Our Mechanical team decided to attempt to remove the hub nuts, but the wheel assembly just would not move. As a result, we ended up spending the rest of the day stuck in the checkpoint, before we ran out of regulation raycing time.

While we were waiting for the Mechanical team, a small group (Carmen, Karl, Taiping, Veronica) attempted to find accommodations for the night. Due to the composition of our convoy, we were looking for a campground that had an RV hookup, so that we could charge both the solar car and the Model X. Unfortunately, we were not able to find either, and so we ended up running the generator in the parking lot to charge the solar car, and left the Model X to fend for itself (we ended up supercharging in the morning).