June 2010 Archives

Yes, the 2010 American Solar Challenge is over. But we're already looking forward to the next race. Congratulations to all the Solar Miners for their remarkable achievements this year. This is one of the coolest things you could do in college, in our opinion.

If you haven't been checking out Experience This!, you're missing out on information about the final day of racing, a report on the Taiwan team, great photos, and a post about unsung heroes.

UPDATE: Missouri S&T crossed the finish line at approximately 1 p.m. The order of today's finish was Stanford, Germany, Minnesota, Michigan, S&T, Calgary, and Taiwan. Those are the teams that have made it in so far. Michigan is the unofficial overall winner.

UPDATE: Solar Miner VII is making its way through the Chicagoland suburbs. We haven't gained or lost any ground today. There's some chatter that Michigan has been passed by Stanford and Minnesota, but the Wolverines are going to cruise in for an overall victory.

Missouri S&T started the last day of racing as the fifth team to leave Normal. (The teams leave stage stops according to their overall position in the race, not their finish in the last stage.) We are half-way to the finish at Naperville. The team is getting closer and closer to the Chicago suburbs, running at approximately 50-55 mph. Everything looks good for a finish around 1 p.m. The standings appear to be: Michigan, Minnesota, Germany, Stanford, Missouri S&T, Calgary, Taiwan...

11 a.m. -- Made it to Normal ahead of Germany in third place for the stage. Right at two hours racing time today. Very strong performance. The finish line will be crossed tomorrow. Would be very cool to be the first team to cross the finish line, even though Michigan's got the overall race more or less locked up.  

10:45 a.m. -- We are almost to Normal. The stage stop is on the campus of Illinois State. Germany is behind us. Minnesota is fixing a blown tire.

10:36 a.m. -- Michigan and Stanford have arrived at the stage stop.

10:35 a.m. -- Correction! Our car is farther up the road than we thought. Germany and Minnesota went by the scout vehicle -- but S&T is a good 15 minutes further along. Sorry for the confusion. We're running in third for the stage.

10:30 a.m. -- Germany has been spotted up the road, nobody's quite sure when they got ahead of us. Anyway, heading into Bloomington/Normal, it's Michigan, Stanford, Germany and S&T.

10:10 a.m. -- Solar Miner VII is nearing Clinton, Ill. It's going to be a short racing day. Michigan and Stanford are up near the stage stop in Normal. S&T hasn't seen any other cars this morning. We are looking to be the third car to arrive in Normal.

Good morning. Michigan and Stanford stopped in Decatur, Ill. S&T is on the northeast corner of Springfield. Minnesota is about 30 minutes behind S&T. We assume that Germany and maybe a few other teams are also in the vicinity. Minnesota had some kind of problem yesterday that caused them to fall behind on this stage; not sure what happened. Today will be a sprint to Normal. It shouldn't take the lead cars long to get there. We'll pass along updates as we get them. Hopefully the information is helpful to some of you. 

4:25 p.m. -- Go over to Experience This! later for a wrap-up report and photos of river crossings, etc.

4:00 p.m. -- S&T is in Litchfield, Ill., flying along, racing fourth on the day. The team expects to make it to the Springfield area before they have to stop. Heard something about Minnesota having to pull over not too far from where we're at, but it could be misinformation.

2:48 p.m. -- Minnesota is tweeting that they just passed Michigan. Michigan folks on interweb chat are discussing a rumor that Minnesota has a brake light out.

2:45 p.m. -- Leaving Alton. Pulled out as Kentucky pulled in.

2:05 p.m. The top five cars have now made it to Alton. Today's order is as follows: Michigan, Minnesota, Stanford, S&T, Germany. The racing has been pretty tight.

1:40 p.m. -- Haven't heard from our team. Hopefully they get into Alton soon. A lot of the other teams have been chattering about this giant hill on 47 near Warrenton. Apparently it was just a killer for some of the cars.

1:35 p.m. -- Report: Michigan and Minnesota got into Alton back to back, then Stanford rolled in three minutes after the Gophers.

11:40 a.m. -- If you're looking for overall official race results, go here.

11:35 a.m. -- Lots of cars in the lead pack have crossed the Missouri River at Washington, most within minutes of each other. The teams to cross the Missouri so far (in order, we think) include: Michigan, Minnesota, Stanford, S&T, Germany, Taiwan and Calgary.

10:40 a.m. -- Minnesota is close to Michigan. Stanford is behind them. Then Calgary and S&T. Just turned north at St. Clair.

10:30 a.m. -- No new reports at the moment. But Tommy Tran got interviewed on KY-3!

10:15 a.m. -- S&T briefly stopped to reset the drive electronics. Now we need to pass Calgary again, but Solar Miner VII is back up to 55 mph. For awhile, we were running in close proximity to our new SUNY friends.

10 a.m. -- S&T passed Calgary between St. James and Cuba. Taiwan is stopped on the side of the road in downtown Cuba. Back in Rolla, Germany lost about 15 minutes at the start.

The cars just left Rolla. Germany got a late start for some reason. We have photos of the departure to post. We're working on it...

OK. Here you go... (Plus, there are more awesome photos after the jump.)

Campus photographer B.A. Rupert captured in images some of the activity surrounding Missouri S&T's Solar Miner VII this afternoon at the Rolla checkpoint. Here are a few photos.

4:20 p.m. -- Kentucky and Northwestern apparently made it in. Not sure about SUNY, etc.

3:40 p.m. -- Remember: the cars will all be leaving from the parking lot of the multi-purpose building starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. The departures are staggered a few minutes apart in order of the standings (the first place car leaves first). If you're in town, you can watch them race away from Rolla via Bishop Ave./Hwy. 63.

2:20 p.m. -- KY-3 just left town. There will be a solar car story on tonight. (They also stopped by to get a story for next week on Explosives Camp.)

2:20 p.m. -- How about leaving some comments so our team members know you're rooting for them?

2:15 p.m. -- Taiwan made it into Rolla about a half hour ago. So the teams to arrive so far (in order) have been Michigan, Minnesota, Germany, Stanford, S&T, Calgary and Taiwan.

12:30 p.m. -- Missouri S&T rolled in to town as the fifth car of the day to make the Rolla checkpoint. Calgary arrived a few minutes later. Check back later for photos from today's event.

11:06 a.m. -- We just passed U of Calgary.

10:51 a.m. -- S&T is in Sleeper, Mo., just this side of Lebanon, going 45-50 mph, about a minute behind Calgary. The Germans and Minnesota are further ahead. Minnesota was cruising at the speed limit with no problems. They should be in Rolla soon.

10:48 a.m. -- Goal!!! USA! USA! (OK. Now back to the solar car race.)

10:23 a.m. -- Michigan is here. It will be awhile until other cars start arriving. Minnesota should be next.

10:00 a.m. -- Solar Miner VII is in Camdenton, rolling along nicely. Michigan should be in Rolla any minute.

9:30 a.m. We had to change a tire already this morning. We are running in close proximity to Calgary and Stanford through the lake toward Camdenton.

9:10 a.m. Minnesota and Germany are reportedly in Osage Beach this morning, so they're not too far ahead of us.

8:50 a.m. -- Solar Miner VII is getting ready to leave Area 51. They anticipate arriving in Rolla around 1ish.

Yesterday, our racers apparently stopped for the night in Eldon. (The route goes through the lake area, down to Lebanon, and back up to Rolla.) You probably know by now that a passing motorist called police to report a broken down spaceship by the side of the road. The lead car, Michigan, will start the day in the Waynesville area. They'll probably pull into Rolla between 9:30-10 a.m. Then there will be a gap before the other lead cars start arriving later in the morning and early this afternoon.

Missouri S&T's Solar Miner VII in front of the Missouri State Capitol Building in Jefferson City. The Solar Miner gained ground on Tuesday, June 22, the third day of the American Solar Challenge, and arrives in Rolla on Wednesday, June 23. (Photo by Bob Phelan.)

We'll just use this post for today's short (but hopefully frequent) race updates...

End-of-day coverage from MissouriNet: Missouri S&T gaining ground as solar car race runs through Jefferson City:

As the "Solar Miner VII" made its way up the hill to the state
Capitol, to become the fourth team to check in, the team of students got
ready. Once it reached its spot in the circle drive, they lifted the
top of the car off to let driver Jeremy Clemens from Branson out. He'd
been behind the wheel for about six hours, but passed Stanford's car on
the leg of the race.

"We caught up one today, one position. I don't know about time wise,
but we caught one position. We had gone back and forth kind of the whole
day," Clemens said.

4:55 p.m. We'll be doing this at this site again tomorrow. The cars in the lead pack should start arriving in Rolla some time after 10 a.m. A group of them should probably be here around noon, depending on how things go.


4:50 p.m. We're still chasing Michigan, Minnesota and Germany. Michigan should make it as far as Lebanon.

4:45 p.m. Bob says he got some great shots of the cars in front of the capitol building in Jeff City. He's hoping he can post photos and a final wrap-up of what happened today later tonight over at Experience This!

4:40 p.m. There's some speculation that Michigan might have pushed too hard today and that their car might be too heavy for the hills. But that's probably wishful thinking.

4:35 p.m. -- Most of the teams backed off a little today to conserve energy for the hills. S&T took advantage of other teams taking it easier in the morning, but had to sacrifice some ground as they approached Jeff City. Now it's full steam ahead.

4:30 p.m. -- S&T is leaving Jeff City right now, got a good charge during the stop at the checkpoint, expect to make it to the Lake region by the end of the racing day.

2:50 -- We made it to the Jefferson City checkpoint about 10 minutes ago, just ahead of Stanford. So S&T was fourth from the capital of Kansas to the capital of Missouri. More info when we get it.

1:57 p.m. Our team is too busy to blog/twitter from the road. We are monitoring things from Rolla, using various contacts, and we're using this site for updates as best we can. You can also get daily (nightly) updates at Experience This!

1:50 p.m. Crap. We just got a report that Minnesota has passed us outside of Jeff City. They said they (Minn.) were doing 60 mph and we were going 30 mph. Something must have happened.

1:30 p.m. Somehow we got passed by Germany again. We'll know more when Solar Miner VII gets to Jeff City.

12:30 p.m. Sailing along near Sedalia at 55 mph. About 9 miles between us and Michigan.

11:55 a.m. OK. This is getting crazy. Minnesota took a wrong turn. We followed them, realized the mistake, and got ahead of them. Meanwhile, Germany got in front of us again. But then we blew past them. This all happened near Lone Jack, Mo. We are in second for the day! Now it's wolverine season.

11:20 a.m. -- From Minnesota's Twitter feed: "s&t is right behind us, soon to pass." !!! We (S&T) already passed Germany.

10 a.m. -- S&T is rolling through Lawrence. They have already passed Calgary this morning. Hopefully they can catch the Germans next. Solar Miner VII is running really well. Jeremy Clemens is driving. Like Tommy Tran, Clemens is from Branson. The next stop will be in Jefferson City. Tomorrow's overnight stop will be in Rolla. 

We don't want anyone to question our loyalties, but we are impressed with Minnesota's ability to keep up with Michigan (more or less) so far. Plus, when we read "Go Gophers!" on a Minnesota site, we were reminded of that incredibly tacky cartoon that used to run back-to-back with Underdog ("Go Go Gophers, Watch'em Go Go Go!"). Go ahead, You Tube it. OMG.

Anyway, S&T was the fifth team to arrive in Topeka, so they made up some ground today. None of the teams can advance past Topeka until tomorrow morning, when racing resumes.

We'll see if S&T has any secret strategies once a brutal leg of the trip through (and up and down and around) the rugged home state starts tomorrow. We are betting that this race is won or lost in the hills of Missouri. Go Go Solar Miners!

Here are the very unofficial arrival times in Topeka:

Michigan -- 11:25 a.m.

Minnesota -- 11:50 a.m.

Germany -- 12:05 p.m.

Calgary -- Some time between Germany and S&T

S&T -- 1:20 p.m.

Others to arrive behind S&T (in no particular order): Stanford, Taiwan, SUNY New Paltz, Kentucky, Northwestern, Iowa State...

P.S. With Michigan and Minnesota doing so well, maybe there really is something to this Big 10 superiority that we've been hearing so much about. (But it makes you wonder how Nebraska's solar car program is coming along?)

P.P.S. Missouri S&T is still the premiere solar car school when it comes to technological research universities -- so we should still have an excellent chance to close the gap on the BCS leaders by the time this race is over.  

P.P.P.S. And it's not like we're not already beating Stanford and Northwestern so far. So there.

NOTE: Tommy Tran, a senior in mechanical engineering from Branson, drove the entire 4.5 hours today for S&T.  

It took about two hours for Bob to catch up with the Michigan team, which has reached Topeka. We have reports that our team passed Taiwan at some point this morning.

Minnesota's Twitter account appears to be very active. They are reporting that they arrived in Topeka at  11:52 a.m. and that Michigan got there at 11:25 p.m.

More to come as soon as we hear about Solar Miner VII's arrival in Topeka.

Solar Miner VII is expected to reach Topeka this afternoon for a mandatory overnight stop. Bob Phelan is traveling ahead of our car this morning, trying to see how far ahead Michigan and Taiwan are. While we're waiting on an update from the road, here are some links...

You can get updates via Twitter directly from the American Solar Challenge.

Iowa State's team has a blog.

A Tulsa TV station has footage of yesterday's start (the first car you see is Solar Miner VII).

Michigan's car can apparently top 100 mph.

Here's the Joplin Globe story.

P.S. We've seen reports that this race is a direct shot up I-44 to Illinois. That is obviously not the case, as today's stop in Topeka will prove. 

Solar Miner VII ended Day 1 of the American Solar Challenge south of Butler, Mo., amid a pack of several other teams, including Stanford, Northwestern, Iowa State and Bochen. According to unofficial reports, the University of Michigan and Kaohsiung (the team from Taiwan) have pulled away from the pack.

The teams left the starting line in Broken Arrow, Okla., this morning. Missouri S&T started in the No. 7 spot, and according to the Michigan team's race-tracking site, was the seventh team to arrive at the first checkpoint along the route, at Neosho, Mo. According to the Michigan website, the estimated, best-guess, unofficial times of arrival to the Neosho checkpoint are as follows for the top 10 racers:

1. Michigan -- 2:37:??        
2. Bochum -- 2:49:??       
3. Minnesota -- 2:55:??        
4. Kaohsiung -- 2:56:??        
5. Calgary -- 3:??:??
6. SUNY New Paltz -- 3:25:??
7. Missouri S&T -- 3:38:??
8. Stanford -- 3:51:??
9. Kentucky -- 4:37:??
10. Northwestern -- 4:37:??

Keep in mind that those numbers are all unofficial and are not adjusted for penalties, etc. Plus, this is just the first day of a grueling race, and anything can happen. Check the ASC site for more official information.

Next stop, Topeka, Kan.

P.S. - Check the S&T Student Design Center's Experience This blog for additional updates and photos.

Solar Miner VII seems to be performing well in testing and qualifying so far -- although a sensor warned that the car was on fire yesterday (it wasn't). To officially qualify for the American Solar Challenge race (which starts Sunday), teams must demonstrate they can go 170 miles (100 laps around a track course) in one day or 255 miles in two consecutive days. A few teams made it 170 miles yesterday. S&T is confident they'll finish qualifying today.

When the cars leave the starting line at the Broken Arrow (Okla.) Bass Pro Sunday, S&T figures to be toward the front of the pack. (Take a guess which team will start in the pole position.)

This just in: The German team had a wreck during qualifying/testing. Details (and photos) are available here.

We'll be ramping up our coverage on this site once the race starts.

Don't forget that the cars will be stopping in Rolla next Wednesday.

The team reached Cresson, TX Friday night and quickly made friends with the neighboring teams in the pit area.  Scrutineering started bright and early, with the team moving through most of the stations within the first day.  Small hiccups kept the team from breezing through inspections, but in the second day of inspection we have solutions for all of our inspection issues either made or on order.   Within 24 hours of being here we have already caused a rule change because of our unique rollbar padding setup.  The team quickly modified the setup to meet the rule change, but we still take pride in pushing the limits of creativity.


You can check out the team's qualification status on the ASC website here.  We were cleared to begin dynamic qualifications this morning and completed the figure-eight portion within a few passes.  All of our drivers have completed the slalom portion, but our car is unable to complete the brake test.  We've made it so light the car simply does not want to quit; it just wants to keep driving.

Our egress method left numerous teams speechless.  When our drivers began to prove their egress prowess(all under 6 seconds) several teams crowded around to applaud the team.  We're all very pleased with our vastly different egress method, and other teams have definitely begun to rethink their designs.