A Peek At Our 2017 Car Posted on - by Joe Miner

EDIT: Happy April Fools Day!

The 2017 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is quickly approaching, and we've been hard at work since arriving back in Rolla from the 2016 American Solar Challenge to design and build the most revolutionary solar car the world has ever seen.

We've been following the development of other teams, and reached the conclusion that none of them pose a threat to us in the upcoming race. Our new car is just that good!



You have given us your feedback on our Suggest A Name form, and have decided on a unique name that will represent the future of our team: Solar McSolarFace.

Electrical

The design of Solar McSolarFace took several months of intense research and trial-and-error. The introduction of pre-synced cardinal grammeters to the car completely eliminated the need for a solar array! The only remaining solar panel is to power the driver's phone.

Instead, we have decided to use a total of 462 R20 batteries (datasheet), more commonly known as "D-Cells," to provide all the power we will need to travel the entire 3,000 km race! These revolutionary batteries are not only light-weight, but appear to last forever according to all of our test data.

The graph below shows battery pack data collected from an actual test drive:



Mechanical

We are most excited about the mechanical/aero design for Solar McSolarFace. Our brilliant members have worked rigorous hours to design this car. Using high-tech programs such as SketchUp and Microsoft Paint--we have designed what is without a doubt the most efficient solar car ever built.

We were able to reduce the rolling resistance of the car by replacing ball bearings with spurving bearings, which provide nearly zero resistance.

The new static suspension allows us to spend less time going up and down, and more time going forwards.

31-inch wheels provides us with off-road capability, which will be better suited towards driving in the Outback than the puny wheels found on most solar cars.