Georgia Tech Solar Team Races With Sun Power

ATLANTA, GA — It wasn't a first-place finish recently for the Georgia Tech Solar Racing Team. But the team of 70 or so students from more than 14 different disciplines were still proud of a big achievement — becoming one of only eight squads to complete a cross-country race in a sun-powered car.

More than 40 teams had applied for the 2018 American Solar Challenge, in which teams raced their solar cars on a 1,700-plus mile route from Omaha, Nebraska, to Bend, Oregon.

Despite being relatively new to the competition, sporting a second-generation vehicle, the Georgia Tech team made it all the way to Oregon in the race, which wrapped up in late July.

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"Over the past two weeks, we have learned, we have struggled, and we have lost plenty of sleep, but we are coming home with an even greater drive to to surpass our current successes," team member Tiffany Chau, a mechanical engineering student at Tech, told Patch shortly after the race wrapped up.

Just finishing the race, in which competitors design and build their own vehicles from scratch, is quite a feat, race organizers say.

"Successfully completing the ASC competition is a hugely rewarding accomplishment, but it requires over a year of intense focus and hard work from every team that enters the race and there are no shortage of hurdles to overcome along the way," organizers say on the race's website.

The race is held every other year. Earlier this summer, the Yellow Jacket team made history when it competed in the Formula Sun Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. During the track race, which is a qualifier for the Solar Challenge, the squad finished more than 143 laps with a new car.

But taking their vehicle, the SR-2 Odyssey, out on the open road brought a whole new set of challenges, Chau said.

"The racing environment of ASC is a little different: the ever-changing terrain and weather not only tests the robustness of the car, but challenges the members of the team to work with a mobile workstation with limited supply, power, and shelter," she said.

The races are sponsored by the Innovators Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to hands-on learning experiences in the fields of science, technology and engineering. The solar races are a way of challenging college students to develop solutions for energy management and environmentally friendly travel, using high-tech materials.

All that innovating isn't cheap.

The Tech team launched a campaign on crowdfunding site GoFundMe this year, raising about $2,700 toward the cost of their sun-paneled vehicle.

They'll likely be doing the same in the future, as they begin work on a third-generation car they hope will glide across the country even faster and more smoothly. Design work on Tech's SR-3 — which could one day be soaking up the sun's rays on a roadway near you — already is under way.

Watch a video of the Georgia Tech Solar Racing Team in action at this year's Formula Sun Gran Prix below:

Photos, video courtesy Georgia Tech Solar Racing Team