Trip Stats

Summary

Overall, another smooth day. The team stopped once, and that was for a driver swap (5 minutes). We targeted a cruising speed of 75 km/h, but our average (including stops) was probably closer to 60 km/h.

At the start of the stage, we spent at least 10 km trying to organize a pass of Onda Solare. Minnesota was targeting something like 90 km/h, and so they passed us pretty early. Then Illinois passed us, and then we were just waiting to clear the Italians. It was definitely a new experience for us in the convoy, since usually we started near the back of the pack, and so we never really had to deal with passing people or people wanting to pass us. Also, our secondary radio was pretty shit, and so it made communicating with the convoy and other teams very difficult. Supposedly Cal's trailer attempted to radio us, but since we weren't responding, they decided to pass when they thought it was safe.

We probably could have pushed our pack a bit harder and made it there quicker, since we ended with about a third of our capacity remaining, but the convoy decided that we had come this far already, and so we might as well play it safe and get across the finish line in one piece. Otherwise, we were pretty confident that we could have pushed 85 km/h and still comfortably would be able to make it.

We spent over 5 minutes waiting for traffic to clear on the final left turn into the park, which was pretty dangerous—it was surprising that all the teams safely made it in without any incidents. We ended up having our lead take the turn first, and then having people in our lead car flag in order to warn traffic that we were crossing. Apparently Western Sydney had scouted the route, and said that the turn was insane—which was a fair assessment.

During the race, we talked with Spencer about motors in the chase car, and how Minnesota started designing their own motors. He encouraged us, saying that motors aren't actually as complicated as you might make them out to be. Building custom motors would allows us to customize the amount of torque we need, depending on the car's specs. He suggested starting by looking into building radial flux motors if we were interested in building our own. While they might not be as efficient as axial flux motors, they're significantly less work.

We also talked about what sort of hardware solutions are missing in the world of solar racing. You have a lot of options for MPPTs: Sam's company (Dilithium Power Systems), Nomura, Drivetek, AERL, to name a few. You have a few options for motors: Mitsuba, CSIRO/Marand, and if you can't afford those, getting NGM or Biel from other teams. Pretty much everyone uses the same motor controllers (Tritium WaveSculptor 20 or the 22), and pretty much everyone gets their cell encapsulations from the same 2 suppliers: Gochermann Solar Technology, or SunCat Solar. But now with the advent of cruiser class, he concluded that there was probably space in the market for an external charger that you could use to charge your car (instead of running a generator).

We ran across the finish line, and some of the parents brought us champagne. Then we traded race shirts with the other teams. Somehow in the middle of this, our Race Manager managed to get heatstroke after driving the trailer for the whole day. The ambulance had to be called, and he spent the afternoon in the hospital, before being discharged in time for dinner.

Results