OSU's Solar Vehicle Team to compete in national competition

The North American Solar Challenge allows OSU Solar Vehicle Team to try their hand

By: Candice Ruud

Posted: 5/13/08

The OSU Solar Vehicle Team is gearing up to compete in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge, a 2,200 mile race from Dallas, Texas to Calgary, Alberta which starts on July 13 and will run through July 22.

This race is the longest solar-powered car race in the world and is 500 miles longer than the World Solar Challenge, according to the team's website.

There are more than 20 universities competing in the race, including prestigious schools such as MIT and Stanford, whose solar powered cars cost around $1 million to construct.

By contrast, the underdog OSU's Solar Vehicle Team's car cost about $60,000 to make, all thanks to various sponsors and a significant fundraising effort by the team.

While excited to compete, the members of the team are merely hopeful that they will be able to keep their car, the Rain Dancer, running the duration of the race. The team members admitted that they will be thrilled to make it all the way to Canada without any trouble.

"Our goal is to survive the race," said the team's co-captain Hai Yue Han. "If we survive the race without breaking down and running out of power, we've won in our eyes."

The idea to fundraise for and create a solar-powered car for this race was spawned in 2005, when the team began planning for the project and recruiting members to help put their plan into action.

After three years of intense labor to see their dream realized, the Rain Dancer is currently about 85 percent completed, according to Han.

The solar-powered car runs off of about 1200 watts, which is less energy than is used to power a hair dryer. In other words, these cars run off barely any energy at all, but can go up to 90 miles per hour.

"The biggest challenge is the sun does not provide a lot of power, you get about the same amount of power from the solar panels as you get from a hair dryer," Han said.

Similar to relay events like the Hood to Coast Relay, during the actual race, there are four different drivers who take turns in the Rain Dancer's cockpit and four cars involved in the caravan.

The lead car, the solar-powered car, the chase car and the support car all serve specific purposes and carry the alternate drivers and the members of the team who are making calculations about the sun's energy.

Each driver stays in the cockpit, which can be up to 110 degrees, for about two to three hours at a time, depending on their body temperature.

Both body temperature and hydration are tracked by team members making constant calculations in the chase vehicle.

While in the cockpit, the drivers are hooked up in such a way that those in the chase car can read their body temperature statistics. If a driver's temperature goes above the normal body temperature of 98.6 degrees for more than ten minutes, they are switched out for another driver.

The OSU Solar Vehicle Team consists of about 15 members from majors such as botany, history, engineering and philosophy - they are a diverse team.

The Rain Dancer itself is extremely lightweight, weighing in at around 700 pounds. It is 16 feet long, six feet wide and is made mostly from titanium, fiberglass and carbon fiber.

The goal of the Solar Challenge is to push the limits of technology. Solar-powered cars are not feasible on the large scale because of the extremely small amount of power they run off of at one time, which would make luxuries such as radio or air conditioning impossible. Battery-powered cars, however, operate much in the same way and would be possible on the large scale.

"We're hoping to push the envelope of technology so that battery-powered cars become more feasible in the future," Han said.

Candice Rudd, senior reporter

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