Nick and Mike from the UK Solar Car Team meet with Gary Smrtic and Bill Smrtic from So-Komp. Their involvement in both racing and alternative energy is a great match for our project.
Gary discusses mold construction with Mike





We learned the effect of compounding overestimation as 100 sheets of XEPS (Styrofoam) arrived today, filling up most of the garage's main room. This should provide us with plenty of foam for manufacturing the shell and fairings for Gato del Sol IV.
The Solar Car Team celebrated Pi day by showing off Gato del Sol III at the Versailles Family Science Day at Huntertown Elementary.
models in the STEM fields (Science Technology Engineering and Math). We talked to over 100 students and their families about our trip from Texas to Canada and explained how a solar-powered car works. UK's SWE chapter was also on hand with a cool demonstration of paper rocket propulsion.
Anthony even got to fulfill his life-long dream of making an announcement over the intercom!Well in my last post I promised a quick update on the events surrounding the last day of the race, but it just seemed that my lack of sleep had finally caught up with me, for that is all I did whenever I had free time at the hotel. Well now we’re on the road again, halfway through
Being the last day of the race leaving from
Being in the back seat without a rear window did have its benefits, such as an unobstructed view of the solar car so that I can take this nice picture! Solar car meets oil derrick…
We then swapped out Scott for my turn to drive. Figuring that Nick got the starting line, Scott got the Canadian border, it seemed reasonably fair for me to take the finish line. But before I got in, I made sure that I brought my camera to take some action shots while I still had a chance.
Another troublesome part of our drive was the strong headwind that we had to plow through. To put the importance of aerodynamics of a solar car into perspective, we were driving around 30 mph in the middle of a blazing noon sun. Without the wind, we would either be charging our battery or we could choose to go faster, but on this day, we were actually wasting a significant amount of our battery power.
After dealing with that trouble, new problems lay ahead of us. We were approaching the edge of the city of
On Wednesday, we attended the awards ceremony that was hosted by the 

But now, like I said, we are in
| Rank | Team Name | Total Time | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Michigan | 51:41:53 | ||||||
| 2 | Principia College | 61:38:45 | ||||||
| 3 | FH Bochum Solar Car Team | 63:47:55 | ||||||
| 4 | University of Waterloo | 64:00:06 | ||||||
| 5 | University of Minnesota | 65:41:48 | ||||||
| 6 | University of Calgary | 75:42:53 | ||||||
| 7 | Missouri S&T | 81:20:36 | ||||||
| 8 | Iowa State University | 91:12:59 | ||||||
| 9 | Red River College | 92:15:02 | ||||||
| 10 | University of Arizona | 98:26:12 | ||||||
| 11 | University of Kentucky | 100:33:24 | ||||||
| 12 | Queen's University | 106:36:20 | ||||||
| 13 | Northwestern University | 113:58:11 | ||||||
| 14 | Durham University | 134:07:06 | ||||||
| 14 | Oregon State University | 145:20:00 |
Here is Gato at an intersection with canola in the background, also note the car's blinker, made with a row of LEDs.

That connecting rod that that is being held in the above photo should be straight. It is a solid 1/2 inch diameter rod that transfers the wheel's vibrations to the shock to the left of the picture. In our analysis of that part, it should have been able to handle some of the toughest shocks... well we had a heck of a shock for it...
That is Nick sticking over half of his hand straight into that crack, we were just happy that he was okay.
We have no idea what is in store for us the next coming days. We have been held back significantly because of this broken rod, and we had to cover that distance trailering the car, which comes with heavy penalties to our overall race time. But hopefully this hasn't taken us completely to the end of the pack, however, we are still dead set on finishing this race! Halfway done, halfway to go.
Yeah, I know this video is anti-climatic at best, but it was the best "drive-by" footage we have so far. Just so I can prove to everyone that the car is doing its thing.
A lot has happened since the previous update. I last posted when we passed scrutineering, but since then we have completed qualifying, and we are now on day two of the race itself. That was the last 4-5 days in a nutshell, now for the details.
Last Thursday and Friday were the days set aside for qualifying. The main reason that we were at the Texas Motorsport Rance was because we used their track for this event. Every team had to complete 60 laps of the 1.7 mile circuit, with every driver doing at least 15 laps. On Thursday we were able to get Scott and me qualified, with not too many problems. We had to pit a couple of times to problem solve some issues, but we were able to find the solutions needed to make the repairs.
On day two of qualifying, we started the day by charging in the morning sun, then we continued to race the circuit for about 40 more laps. We then called it a day so that we could continue to make repairs and adjustments to the car. By the end of the day we found out that we qualified for the fifth starting position.
Saturday was a busy day. Even though we were done with qualifying, we had to show off the car in a showcase of all the teams that was open to the public. And we knew after that we had to get race-ready for early Sunday morning. The showcase was fun yet exhausting. Our tent blew over early in the morning and was too damaged to use. So a hot day in the
Being in attendance on the first day of the race on Sunday was a gratifying experience to say the least. Every team was set off one minute apart, and it was soon after we were off that the roads were cluttered with solar cars. Unfortunately for everyone, we had our first overcast day since coming to

Today is now day two of the race. We’ve set off early this morning, and we have held on steady throughout the day. We took it slow to make up for all the battery power we lost on day one, but by the time we got to our destination we had recharged a large portion of our battery pack
Numbers under smiley face: order which teams earned all green


