After 5 days, 1800 miles, brush fires, dust storms, heavy winds, rain, and extreme temperature swings, Quantum finished 3rd in the Veolia World Solar Challenge. It was an extremely close race, as for 3 days we kept pace with 1st place Tokai, and 2nd place Nuon. To put this in perspective, we camped out …
Gerald Chang, Quantum’s crew chief, knows all about commitment and its value. Gerald has dedicated countless hours to the Solar Car Team since the Fall of 2007. At that time, he was looking to join a team, and a friend steered him to one of the Solar Car meetings. Thereafter, Gerald attended the mechanical division …
After 3 hard fought days of racing, Day 4 brought with it a key decision to make. With roughly 1200 km of racing left, and first place Tokai gaining ground, we decided to make an aggressive strategy call, by increasing our set speed, to move from 3rd to 1st. Quantum performed very well for the …
Chris Hilger, the team’s business director, confidently considers joining Solar Car to be his best choice in college. He joined on the first day of freshmen year and never looked back. His interest lay mainly in the hands-on nature of the team’s projects, especially that which related technology to the business world. Chris, a chemical …
4:45 AM – some of the team woke up in our large maize tents to the sound of a drum accompanied by a soft pipe or whistle. We weren’t out of the tent fast enough to investigate whether the music was being made by the local Aborigine people who live in Wachope, where we were …
Read about the delays due to bush fires on Day 2 of the World Solar Challenge and how it will effect the team in the New York Times Check out other recent coverage on our In the News and Press Releases pages
Produced by Evan Dougherty
Produced by Evan Dougherty
“Today was the most exciting day of racing in my solar car career”, said our Crew Chief, Gerald Chang during the evening team meeting. This is a very powerful statement given that Gerald is our most experienced member, having been on Race Crew for over four years. The day was filled with heavy traffic, strong …
Just a little over 3 months ago, we launched the 100 Days to Win the World Campaign. The goal was to make the final push in funding that we needed to access to top technology and enter the best solar car into the Veolia World Solar Challenge. I am honored to announce that today, we …
Today was a great day for the maize and blue! Quantum qualified in the top of the pack, placing 3rd overall. This is a very strong start to our goal of winning the Veolia World Solar Challenge. The top qualifying times are separated by only 0.8 seconds. 1st Twente (Dutch): 2:02.20 2nd Nuon (Dutch) : …
The team successfully completed scrutineering, which is essentially an inspection process. All systems on the car are inspected to ensure they comply with regulations. This includes checking the size of the array, weight of the battery, electrical isolation switches, and other safety items. Overall, the process was very smooth. We are very satisfied to have …
One of the major obstacles the teams will encounter during the Veolia World Solar Challenge will be cattle grids. There are over 100 grids in total spanning the 3000 km stretch of the Stuart Highway. All teams must be prepared to traverse them successfully. See below for a short video explaining their purpose, and to …
The team made it into Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia yesterday evening. Darwin marks the start of the 3000 KM Veolia World Solar Challenge, which will begin on the morning of October 16th. In the mean time, the team will be at the Hidden Valley Raceway for Qualifying and final preparation of Quantum. …
Today was a very successful day on the road. Despite some cloud cover, Quantum still managed to cover over 700 KM during the course of the day, with zero time on the side of the road. The team is becoming acquainted with the race environment, solving challenges that come up quickly and effectively. With the Northern Territory roughly 50 …
The team is currently on day two of our four day drive up to Darwin for the start of the 2011 Veolia World Solar Challenge. We decided to use the first two days of our drive for some additional on-road testing before we get into the Northern Territory, in which we aren’t allowed to drive …
One feature of the World Solar Challenge that is different from the North American Solar Challenge is that racers are allowed to charge their vehicles’ batteries beginning at sunrise every morning and ending when the sun sets every night, rather than having to pack up at a designated hour each evening. The perk of this …
Tomorrow marks the start of our Australian Mock Race. This will be the final round of testing before the World Solar Challenge. This event will be similar to our US Mock Race, except Quantum will be raced in its final configuration, and weather and road conditions will be similar to that experienced in the World …
It’s been more than a week since the Solar Car Team first took up residence at the Adelaide Backpackers Inn. The Inn is a hostel near the city’s center where travelers from all over the world visiting Adelaide can rent space for several nights while they explore the city and surrounding area. For the 16 …
As the Strategy Director, part of my job is to oversee the characterization of Quantum and model its power consumption. I look for trends and patterns in our observations and try to formulate equations to predict behavior. In the past few days or so since I’ve been in Australia I have noticed a trend in …
Prince Alfred College is an all boys prep school hosting students age 2 through high school, and it is also houses a workshop that will be the Michigan Solar Car Team’s home for the next couple of weeks. Located close to the heart of Adelaide, it is an easy drive or walk from the team’s …
This past weekend, the team members making up our Advance Crew took the newly borrowed Ford Australia support vehicles on the long drive from Melbourne to Adelaide. Once Quantum’s crate and the team’s semi trailer had cleared customs, our work in Melbourne was done and we packed up to move our operation to Adelaide. The …
Last Sunday afternoon began the international travels of the team’s Advance Crew. Wave 1 was made up of approximately half of our Race Crew. Members of the Operations and Strategy Divisions left Detroit Metropolitan Airport around 5pm on Sunday, taking various routes to arrive at LAX by midnight. From there they got on a large …
The car is in Australia. Our supplies are in Australia. There’s just one more thing we need in Melbourne before we can begin final testing – The Team! Yesterday, Ann Arbor said goodbye to the first wave of the Race Crew. At the time of this post, our advance crew is in flight over the …
