July 2008 Archives

Oh Canada
We played all night
I really hate to leave you now
But to stay just wouldn't be right.

-- Neil Young (again)

Well, Michigan won the race. Principia finished a game second. Missouri S&T placed seventh, behind Calgary. The Germans, Waterloo and Minnesota came in third through fifth in some order. (Iowa State and a bunch of others finished behind S&T.)

Tomorrow (Wednesday), the S&T team will already be on the road back to Rolla. Fortunately, however, they are taking a different and (probably) more scenic route back: thru Montana. Meanwhile, we are going to jump on a big jet airplane and fly to St. Louis via Chicago.

Calgary is a big city that reminds us of the Pacific Northwest, without the water. Flannel seems appropriate right now, even in July. The University of Calgary was home to some events during the Olympic Games. Today we saw the Olympic flame and the oval where speed skating took place.

We might get a chance to put some kind of fitting wrap on this blog tomorrow or in the coming days. Or maybe that would just be overkill? Right now, our solar brothers (and sisters? we need some female team members!) are busy contemplating and celebrating a successful journey from Texas to Winnipeg to Moose Jaw to Calgary. We're sure the stories they now have to tell will last until they're old and embarrassingly successful and new sources of energy are available to all.

Drop of the hat and it's already started
Just like that and the deed is done
What I'd give for that hat to be medicine
The time is now to be on the run.

-- Son Volt

We made it to Medicine Hat, Alberta, where multiple native Indian tribes used to gather for meetings. Maybe they still do. Somebody's actually playing "99 Red Balloons" really loud in the parking lot here, over and over, probably out of respect to the Germans. Solar Miner VI ran about 200 miles from the eastern outskirts of Regina to the middle of nowhere today -- and then they trailered the rest of the way to Medicine Hat in order to reach the final checkpoint/stage stop before Calgary.

We finally reached the Canadian West today, lots of arid western features and scrub brush. It's hot.

Michigan (obviously), Waterloo, Germany, Minnesota, Calgary and Iowa State have reached Medicine Hat under their own solar power. Principia is still out on the road, we think. They hit a big pot hole late yesterday and have been having some problems out there, according to sources.

Most everybody (we think) is sick of "competing" against Michigan. It's one Big Market team versus lots of Small Market teams, which is no fun. Having said that, we may be biased about these kinds of things based on our (my) allegiances to the Kansas City Royals.

Also: Our team is having a rough go of it, which is making us punchy.

Tomorrow we hit Calgary! No more of this trailer business, if the team can help it. They plan to drive Solar Miner VI across the finish line. Then we'll ALL have something to celebrate. It will be a great achievement for our intrepid band of S&T solar car brothers, which has battled through electrical problems, a house fire, stubborn clouds, slaughterhouse stench, at least one sketchy motel and miles and miles of tedious landscape.

Calgary is actually not far from here. Can you believe it?

According to the latest official rankings posted last night on the North American Solar Challenge website, Missouri S&T begins the final full day of racing in seventh place. The standings and time are as follows (standings for elapsed time only and not taking into consideration other factors, such as penalties):

1. University of Michigan, 34:14:01
   
2. Principia college, 35:35:37
   
3. FH Bochum, 40:59:51
   
4. University of Waterloo, 42:05:46
   
5. University of Minnesota, 42:58:22
   
6. University of Calgary, 51:09:39
   
7. Missouri S&T, 53:19:54
   
8. Red River College, 59:19:39
   
9. Iowa State University, 63:52:37
   
10. University of Kentucky, 66:55:55
    
11. University of Arizona, 67:05:08
    
12. Northwestern University, 69:51:30
    
13. Queen's University, 73:16:45
    
14. Oregon State University, 83:03:21
    
15. Durham University, 90:56:48
    

Our car is currently charging on the outskirts of Regina, Saskatchewan. The team will likely camp tonight and head into town in the morning.

This morning, the team decided to trailer Solar Miner VI out of the rain clouds near Winnipeg to the harmless puffy clouds over Brandon, Manitoba. From there, they ran well (from 35 to 55 mph) through a flat scenery of surreal yellow canola and bright blue flax fields.

At one point, we thought we were approaching a big lake, but it was a huge flax field. The Canadian prairie appears to be much larger than its U.S. counterpart, believe it or not. We must be somewhere north of the Badlands or Montana right now, but no sign of a western landscape yet. Until we reached Regina, there wasn't much sign of human habitation apart from the cars and trucks and solar vehicles on the Trans-Canada Highway.

Michigan made it to the checkpoint in Regina and has already headed out toward Moose Jaw. The other teams will have to make it through Regina and all the way to Medicine Hat tomorrow, no matter how they have to get there. We haven't really heard what the current standings are, other than the fact that Michigan continues to build a big lead over everyone, including, we think, over Principia, which wasn't really keeping up today.

For most if not all of the teams that don't have a wolverine football insgnia on the side of their car, this thing has pretty much turned into a gritty and determined challenge to get to Calgary somehow.

Some S&T team members did have a little fun last night at the Dinosaur-themed water park inside our hotel in Winnipeg. There was this really big slide and our big kids were anxiously waiting their turns to go down it along with a lot of little kids.

P.S. Now we wish we would have paid more attention when our third grade teacher tried to explain why it was important to learn the metric system. Fortunately, our real team members seem to know how it works.

P.P.S. The U.S. Dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on up here, at least not compared to what it used to be worth. And the Canadians use a bunch of coins instead of printed money for everything up to $5 dollar bills.

P.P.P.S. It's Canadian Football League season up here, and some of the folks in Winnipeg and Regina seem to be into that.

When we got to Winnipeg
I checked in to school.
I wore white bucks on my feet,
When I learned the golden rule.

Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.

-- Neil Young

MIchigan got to Winnipeg around 12:30 p.m. Principia followed about an hour later. The rest of the teams limped in, or, like S&T, were trailered most of the way through the cloudy, flat terrain of North Dakota and Manitoba. (Our car was actually trailered across the border.) We won't know where things stand until tomorrow, but it's clear that the S&T team won't be challenging the leaders any time soon. The idea is to make it all the way to Calgary, which would be a big deal. (Trust us, driving a regular car all the way to Calgary is a big deal.) As one team member put it earlier today, it's called a challenge for a reason.

Hopefully the weather will give us a break tomorrow -- haven't seen the forecast yet. The S&T team was able to charge in some good sunlight this evening in the parking lot of Red River College before calling it a night.

Now that this incredible journey from south to north is over, it's time to take a left turn and head west.

While awaiting the arrival of Solar Miner VI at the U.S.-Canadian border, our intrepid reporters join up with a team member to salute our neighbors to the north.

We're on a road to nowhere/ Come on inside/ Takin that ride to nowhere/ We'll take that ride

-- Talking Heads

The car made it to the Fargo checkpoint at 5:45 p.m. The team was required to stop for 30 minutes; so they just decided to charge and call it a night. Tomorrow morning, we'll all head up to the border with weary eyes on the weather. BTW, it's cool up here. The motel we're staying at hasn't even opened its pool yet. (Apparently the swimming season is in August.)

We assume the first cars to arrive in Fargo were Michigan and Principia. We tried to catch up with them all day in our independent, gas-eating vehicle, but we never found them. They probably went substantially beyond Fargo by the end of the day. The other teams to arrive at the checkpoint as of 5:45 p.m. (in order) were Waterloo, Germany, Minnesota, Calgary and S&T.

We spent most of the day traveling in western Minnesota (which is a state we didn't even know was included on the route). So far, we've passed thousands of square miles of corn and soybeans since Kansas. Surely we can feed and power the world with this much dedicated farmland. Or maybe not.

You can plainly see the impact of receding ice age glaciers up here, smooth rock outcroppings poking up out of fields, lots of lakes left behind, etc. Otherwise, the landscape was very flat today.

We've also been passing lots of wind farms. It seems as though a lot of these high-tech windmills must be going up in these vast fields overnight.

P.S. The next time one of our design teams orders Polo shirts for their official uniforms, we're calling the fashion police. This coming from someone who has been wearing plaid shorts for the entire race.

P.P.S. This morning, back in Sioux Falls, the team was staged very close to a meatpacking plant/slaughterhouse. We heard animals screaming! No kidding. The smell was overwhelming. We're thinking about going on a fish diet for the rest of the trip. Thank God for Canadian walleye.

P.P.P.S. If we don't make a big comeback by Calgary, we're prepared to challenge the field to a race on to northern Alaska. It would be just like Ice Road Truckers, only different. (We're not speaking for the team here.)

The Missouri S&T Solar Car Team began the day Friday in sixth place, according to the official standings from the North American Solar Challenge organization.

The team is taking off from Sioux Falls, S.D., this morning and heading north toward Fargo, N.D. Bob has more details (and cool photos, like the one below) over at Experience This! and Lance is certain to post some Talking Heads-inspired observations about this long, strange road trip right here on Solar42, so stay tuned.

"Many hands make light work." The S&T Solar Car Team lifts the solar array during a stop at Sioux Falls, S.D. Photo by Bob Phelan and borrowed from Experience This!

We should have better information tomorrow, but according to our very unofficial road calculations, the standings are as follows: Michigan, Principia, Germany (these first three are pretty much a sure thing), followed by Waterloo, Missouri S&T, Calgary and Minnesota. None of the other teams are really in the picture at this point. We saw Iowa State driving through town today, way behind.

Right now, the teams are traveling in three packs: the leaders, our pack, and the rest. As far as day-to-day racing goes, we've been back and forth with Waterloo, Calgary and Minnesota (pretty much in that order). So, depending on any penalties handed out by judges, S&T should currently be tied (more or lesss) for fourth place -- or at least fifth place. (At any rate, fourth thru sixth place should be tight.) How's that for accurate reporting? Sorry we can't be more exact right now.

(The reason this is so hard to figure out, in addition to the fact that race officials don't really make the information public, is because teams essentially start over after each stage stop. A team could do very well one day and pass a lot of other cars, but the elapsed time from previous days still counts against them in the long run.)

Anyway, we'll try to clear this up tomorrow. We'll be following the car to Fargo in the morning and hopefully up to the border in the afternoon. Do you think the Canadian border agents will let us interview them about the solar cars coming through?

Reminder to self: Change cash into Canadian dollars in Winnipeg.

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure: Michigan is way ahead of us (though Principia is allegedly within an hour or two of them). Race conditions can always change, but Michigan is a monster.

P.P.S. Our team moved across the street to the Ramada. Good for them. Meanwhile, we were too lazy to move all of our stuff, so we're still making friends with the cockroaches at the flea bag motel.

P.P.P.S. In case you haven't already checked, there's lots of new stuff up at Experience This! We're so dedicated to this race that we're double-blogging it.

Did we already mention that we are really proud of the way the team ended up racing today (now yesterday)? We took some photos that we hope to share tomorrow.

We also want to mention that John Tyler was one of the big heroes last night. He's the one who threw the burning chair out the door. And Bob Phelan has been keeping this all together like the staff design czar/star that he always is. Those guys are busting their humps.

One of today's two drivers was Nathan. We'll try to do a better job of telling you who the drivers are. Unfortunately, we're still learning last names; and there's something like 50 Johns on this team. These guys REALLY need nicknames.

Also this: Eastern Nebraska and South Dakota are beautiful.

P.S. Jupiter is shining brightly just to the left of the full moon. Is this a good sign?

The team did make it to Sioux Falls, just as racing was about to end for the night. S&T came in behind Calgary but ahead of Minnesota, which is still on the road somewhere. After Omaha, Solar Miner VI was really covering ground under heat-soaked skies. It was quite a comeback, given how the day started. The team is exhausted, so much so that they probably won't even notice the 1-star accomodations at a motel that gives Budget a bad name. More later after we find some grub.

Update @ 5;25 p.m. July 16, 2008: First, thanks to everyone for all the kind comments regarding the team's little mishap. The great news is that at last report, Solar Miner VI has an outside chance of reaching Sioux Falls tonight. The team members have pulled together to show how they can overcome adversity and continue to focus on the goal of running the race.

Below is an audio interview with Ray Luechtefeld, an assistant professor of engineering management and one of the team's advisors, from this morning's Omaha stop.

An electrical fire caused by overcharged batteries gave members of the Missouri S&T Solar Car Team a scare early this morning. But all team members are OK, and Solar Miner VI was scheduled to resume its participation in the North American Solar Challenge this morning.

The Missouri S&T team was spending the night in the basement of a Nebraska City, Neb., home and charging a set of auxiliary lithium ion batteries when the smoke detector went off at about 1:15 a.m. today. Team members called 911 and team safety officer Letha Young, a member of the Missouri S&T police department traveling with the team, retrieved a fire extinguisher from the team’s trailer. Young and other team members extinguished the fire before the Nebraska City Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene.

Six team members were taken to St. Mary’s Community Hospital in Nebraska City and evaluated for smoke inhalation. All six were released, and the team was set to resume the race at 8:08 a.m. from Auburn, Neb., in hopes of reaching Sioux Falls, S.D., by the end of the day.

Team members also notified race officials of the situation.

The fire occurred in the basement of the home of Bryan Kreifels of Nebraska City. Damage to the structure and contents amounted to $6,000, according to the fire department.

The batteries were used to power an on-board computer system that monitors the vehicle’s performance. The batteries were not part of the main battery pack that is powered by the vehicle’s solar cells.

We made it to Auburn, Neb., 50-some miles south of Omaha. The team is camping in the parking lot of a grocery store called Sun Mart! Between Topeka and here, we passed Minnesota and Calgary. Baby steps. We're going to try to get more audio and video tonight. Sorry about the delay on posting video. It's coming; we promise.

P.S. What does the "N" stand for on Nebraska's football helmets? Answer: Nowledge.

We couldn't resist.

P.P.S. Here are/were the "official" standings as of Neosho per Michigan's front-running team, which would know about such details:

Behind Principia stands Minnesota in third with a total time of 9:07:45. FH Bochum stands at 9:57:26. Missouri S&T is in 5th with 10:00:22. Next up Red River has 11:30:56. Waterloo is at 11:35:01, Calgary is at 12:30:34, Kentucky is at 15:29:56, and Iowa State is at 17:49:09. Next up at 11th is Queen's with 18:16:36. Right behind is Arizona at 18:17:18. Lastly Northwestern is at 19:09:09.

You can read Michigan's solar blog at http://www.engin.umich.edu/solarcar/blog/.

P.P.P.S. Waterloo had a good day today. We should pretty much be sharing fourth with them right now, depending on what is happening with the Golden Gophers of Minnesota.

P.P.P.P.S. We keep seeing these big trucks hauling HUGE wind turbines/blades up and down the race route, which is basically transversing North America's wind corridor. It must have something to do with T. Boone Pickens.

ONE LAST P.S. Bad weather is moving in -- though probably just for the night -- and some members of the German team just showed up at our motel, very groggy (we're not camping at all with the S&T team because we're not students and we're old). They (the Germans) think they made it closer to Omaha, but they came back down here to get some shelter. Also: Our team changed camping locations to the yard and house of a staff member's relatives up the road a bit. They'll still have to start tomorrow's leg back at the Sun Mart, which was the original stopping location for the night.

Solar Miner VI made it to Topeka at 3:30 p.m. The best news of the day so far is that pit stops have been very limited and the car seems to be running much better (one of the stops was right at the beginning of the day and the other was at a Casey's General Store in some Kansas town to change drivers; both stops were very brief). The bad news is that Michigan got here (to the Topeka checkpoint) at 1:15 p.m. The Wolverines were followed by Principia, Waterloo, Germany, Minnesota and Calgary. (We were ahead of Minnesota and Calgary for the day until the stop to change drivers.) Iowa State just pulled in, so S&T is still ahead of them. The rest of the cars are still out on the road somewhere.*

The S&T crew hopes to make it to Nebraska before racing is done for the day. The skies have been very sunny, but most of the teams running with the Solar Miners have been doing about 45 mph. Michigan and the other leaders must be going quite a bit faster. Hopefully S&T can pick up the pace in coming days. Or maybe we're just sandbagging, waiting for other teams to run out of juice, waiting for bad weather to change race dynamics?

The mood is pretty serious and we don't really have anything funny to report. But we promise to keep you updated as much as possible and we'll let you know when something interesting happens.

*We also saw Queens and Red River out on the road today; not sure if they've been here yet or not.

Good to see all of the green in Neosho.

The team is rested (more rested than before, anyway) and ready to head back out on the road to Calgary via Omaha tomorrow. They'll start out in either fourth or fifth place, which, in retrospect doesn't seem so bad. Everybody will be chasing Michigan and Principia -- but there are a lot of cars that will have to catch up to S&T if they hope to run with the lead pack.

By tomorrow evening, this site should be populated with some fresh MULTI-media updates, including new audio and video. In the interim, Bob has posted some new photos and a Foxworthy-like list of reasons you know you're on a solar car adventure over at Experience This!

Solar Miner VI got to Crowder College this morning about 9:30 a.m. and the team will rest here (this is an official stage stop) until Tuesday morning.

So the teams to arrive in Neosho (in order) are: Michigan, Principia, Minnesota, Germany and Missouri S&T. The rest of the pack is presumably still in Oklahoma.

Functionality and performance are always going to be the primary concerns of engineers, but looks matter. And in the aesthetic arena, Michigan and the team from Germany are in a class by themselves (no doubt aided by really big budgets). The Michigan car is sleek with a wolverine football helmet design painted into the canopy, while the German car looks like a huge fishing lure or a yellow humpback whale. And when it's charging, the German vehicle opens up like a big clam. These cars are very impressive and wonderfully designed, but we'll see if they have been built to withstand the stress of the long haul.

Meanwhile, the S&T team is relying on the kind of old school engineering that once got American astronauts to the moon and back. It reminds us of Tom Hanks in Apollo 13. Sure, the Solar Miners have GPS and all kinds of sophisticated equipment, but we're pretty sure they're also relying on plenty of duct tape, wire hangers, shoelaces and possibly transistor radio parts.

Day one for the Missouri S&T Solar Car Team ended in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store on the outskirts of Vanita, Okla., about 70 miles short of Neosho, Mo. The team was beset by technical problems -- blown fuses, issues with the fairings -- that limited Solar Miner VI's speed to 40-45 mph.

"Tonight's going to be a real engineering night," says Lance Feyh, who is traveling with the team to post updates and interviews on this site.

Solar Miner VI just rolled into the first checkpoint about an hour behind race leader Minnesota. The car apparently blew a tire or had some kind of glitch that delayed progress for 10 minutes not long after crossing the Texas-Oklahoma border. Still, S&T is in third place behind only Minnesota and Michigan. Principia arrived at the first checkpoint right behind Solar Miner VI.

Earlier, Kentucky was in third place -- but no sign of them right now.

It's not clear if S&T is going to make the first stage stop in Neosho this evening, but they should be able to get there early tomorrow.

So far, it's been cloudy with a few sprinkles. "Once we get a day of open sun, we'll be able to fly," says team member John Clay.

Western Michigan failed to qualify, so they're loaning us three team members for the race.

We'll try to check back later this afternoon and/or, if we get a motel room, later tonight.

From Plano, Texas: A new audio interview with some parents of Missouri S&T Solar Car Team members.

Testing...Interview with Solar Car Team members on the eve of the North American Solar Challenge.

Solar Miner VI ran flag-to-flag this afternoon in its final test before Sunday's big race, but not without a lot of suspense. Last night through this morning the Miners were plagued with circuit board problems that defied explanation, but just before lunch the crew found the crossed circuits and headed to the track. More.

Solar Miner VI is in Texas preparing for the epic journey, which starts Sunday. Our crew leaves Saturday to join up with the team, and we'll be posting regular updates to this site directly from the road. We'll keep this brief for now, but we might start to get a little wordy and crazy as the race unfolds. We are hoping to avoid heat stroke, high winds and road turtles. Check back often starting next week.

P.S. The Fargo headline was totally wasted on this post, which is why we're going to use the same headline again at some point when the race starts and we actually get closer to Fargo and have lots of neat things to report. We're also going to have fun with places like Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw.