2008-2009

Race Day 5 - Thursday

IVy on the finish line.

Summary

With 567km to go before the finish line, and MIT hot on our tails, we had a big day ahead of us. If we wanted to make it straight to Victoria Square we would have to arrive in Angle Vale before 3pm. We arrived at 3:08pm. Not only were we the first Australian team, we were the first silicon solar powered car to cross the finish line. We placed 4th overall, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with our result. We’re the highest placing Sunswift team ever!

Electrical

In the morning at Glendambo we noticed that 2 out of 33 battery modules were charging quicker than the other 31. There was a potential safety issue if the modules were to overcharge, and they could also potentially discharge far quicker than the rest of the battery. Should they overcharge, worst-case scenario, they could set on fire. Should they discharge too much, they could make the battery unusable. The prudent option was to bypass them entirely to mitigate any potential safety issues. This took about 2 minutes at the control stop, and the electrical team were happy that the battery was now safe.

Mechanical

No issues.

We could not have accomplished all that we did without the help of our supporters, friends, family and sponsors. We'll keep updating this page with more information and pictures as we get back to Sydney on Wednesday/Thursday.

Thanks for keeping up to date with our progress through the race. We're really excited about Sunswift.com's popularity lately.

Sunswift pretty happy at the 'end of timing' control stop.


Sunswift taking a celebration dip in the fountain in Victoria Square

It's picture time!

IVy going around the track at Hidden Valley the day before Scrutineering


IVy at the starting line of WSC 2009


The team enjoying their burgers at our campsite near Devils Marbles


Clara and Helga at the control stop at Kulgera


Around here we call this the money shot

Race Day 4 - Wednesday

Summary

We passed MIT at about 3pm and are now the number 1 silicon solar car in the race! We’re 5th in the whole race, and 4th in Challenge class. MIT are about 10 minutes behind us so we feel the pressure but are running the race how IVy needs it to be done. Tomorrow will be an intense day as we want to make it into Port Augusta by 3pm, in which case we can go straight onto Adelaide. Overall we travelled 663km today at an average of about 84km/h.

Mechanical

No issues.

Electric

No issues.

Camp

We made it to Glendambo control stop. We're camping at the camp site there and should be out of here by 8:20am. It's going to be an exciting day.

The fact that we have so little to update on mechanical and electrical is a testament to IVy and the technical teams. The car is running fantastically, with every component on its best behaviour. Merely the fact that we have reached this point is incredible, and we are having a great time.

Keep an eye on the WSC page for our placing at the next control stop sometime tomorrow.

Race Day 3 - Tuesday

Summary

We covered 681km today. No issues encountered at all, and we were cruising on average at 90km/h. We gained about an hour on MIT today and are hot on their tails for the top silicon car in the race.

Mechanical

No issues.

Electrical

No issues.

Camp

We managed to pull into the 10 minute control stop at 5:08pm at Kulgara, 2 minutes short of the 10 minutes grace given by the regulations. This meant in the morning we would begin the control stop and leave at 8:18am. We got a massive charge from the morning and this allowed us to run 2km/h higher than our previous estimate.

We had sausages with mash potato for dinner. It was awesome, and finished an overall awesome day for Sunswift.

Race Day 2 - Monday

Overall Progress

Off at 8:03am, 3 minutes late, we sped off from camp without a snag. We covered around 600km, over 100km more than yesterday. Throughout the day radio protocol was tight, the fleet was safe and strategy performed well. The array damage was tolerable, and we managed to gain 30 minutes on MIT. They are the only silicon team ahead of us and we have our sights set on another big gain against them tomorrow.

We also managed to overtake Principia about 4 minutes before the end of the day, their camp is very close, so much so that we can see their lights on the horizon. We’ve setup camp about 15km north of Devil’s Marbles.

Mechanical

About 10 minutes before the end of the day we had a tyre blowout. The wheel was changed in 3 minutes and 30 seconds, an impressively small amount of time considering a portion was used deciding whether to change it at all, or just make camp.
“Hopefully we have enough small things wrong at the moment to keep the gods at bay” – Campbell McLaren.

Electrical

No big issues, the issue of the damaged cells was worked on some more and we’re confident that we’re now at the maximum power we can get with the bypassed cells.

Camp

Sometime during last night our generator blew. Trailer was tasked for fixing or replacing it, which unfortunately meant backtracking a few hundred kilometres to Katherine. They left at 8am and finally met up with us at our Camp south of Tenant Creek at 6:30pm with a repaired generator. By this time however Scout had already gone ahead to buy dinner for the team (as trailer carries the cooking stoves). We had chicken and beef burgers from a pub in Devil’s Marbles.

[Note: I am posting this from Alice Springs. Then next place we can stop with internet the next batch of updates will be posted.]

Race Day 1 - Sunday

Summary

We started off without a hitch, so much so we decided to take a nap about 2 hours in just to give some of the other teams a fighting chance. In reality we stopped for a driver change and to fix up the telemetry data, which got knocked out. We managed to gain back our position and are currently in 8th place, with MIT being the only silicon car ahead of us. We’re optimistic our quality aerodynamic design and sophisticated strategy algorithms will narrow the gap tomorrow.

Another piece of bad news is that the solar car bumped up against our Lead vehicle on the way out of Darwin. It seems a little part of the array was damaged, which we’re very disappointed about. We’re just happy we made it out of Darwin okay, it is a very hectic scene with 30 solar car teams (and their fleets) making their way out on a public road. Lots of overtaking put a lot of stress on Control and the Solar Car lead to a small collision.

Mechanical

The Mech guys are very happy to report that the only mechanical issue encountered during the day was our spats coming loose. This happened because the tape we used failed from the heat. A quick 5-minute stop solved this issue for the rest of the day.

Electrical

We diagnosed the array damaged and only had to bypass 3 out of 400 cells. There was also a minor wiring issue, which caused some shorting, however that was fixed quickly after it was diagnosed.

Better Know a World Solar Challenge: The Fleet

We have 6 cars in the Sunswift fleet, who are all assigned to UHF channel 14. Their names and roles are as follows (and travel southbound in this order):

Scout aka ‘The Gopher’

Scout is responsible for ‘scouting’ ahead of the fleet for road obstacles and potential overtaking manoeuvres. Scout also tends to floor it ahead of control stops to scout for petrol stations so that the fleet can get refuelled and out of the control stop in the 30 minutes given by the regulations. Scout is quick and nimble and gets tasked with acquiring anything the fleet needs at a moments notice.

Lead aka ‘The Toolbox’

Lead has the tilter-trailer (the rig we use to attach the array onto and tilt towards the sun to charge the batteries – this tilting provides a massive boost in power after we have to top at 5pm each day to set up camp). Lead is responsible for calling oncoming traffic, and its presence required by regulations. It provides a controlled buffer between the solar car and the rest of the Stuart Highway. In addition they carry our generator and a lot of the toolboxes we need for camp.

Solar Car aka ‘The Pretty One’

You’ve seen the pictures and will see many more as internet connectivity improves. Our drivers are Clara and Alex, and have the arduous task of driving the solar car upwards of 70km/h on a highway in 30+ degree heat. Some air comes in to keep the car cool, but if too much did it would increase the drag of the solar car – which ultimately would mean they would be driving for longer to reach Adelaide.

Control aka ‘The Master of Ceremonies’

Aside from having the job of ensuring the solar car’s safety, Control direct the car at every movement. All radio communications goes the Control and they run the show. In addition our strategy guys are housed in the back of Control and provide the optimum speed for the solar car to travel at, taking into consideration sunlight, weather, topography, battery charge, amongst other things. They monitor the telemetry systems to make sure everything inside the solar car is working as it should be, from the motor controller temperature to the tyre pressure, Control monitors it all.

Trailer aka ‘The Suitcase’

Trailer carries our trailer for transporting IVy, but also fills the important role of calling overtaking vehicles. It’s important that Control know there is a car wanting to overtake, and having Trailer 500m behind Control allows for some time to make sure it is safe. Trailer also carries all our swags, luggage and spare tyres.

Cavalry aka The Cavalry.

Sam, Tim and Scotty are affectionately called the Cavalry as this is the most appropriate name we could think of. They are not technically part of Sunswift’s WSC ’09 team however they travel along with us and provide advice and assistance with things like safety procedures. Tom and Scotty have both been on WSC ’07 and so having their experience around is invaluable. And Sam is just generally awesome to have around.

That’s it for now folks. I’ll try get a few more “Better Know a World Solar Challenge” posts up before the end of the race.

...And we're back!

Good day ladies and gentlemen, Dan here for an update on our progress. I’ve taken over the helm of web updates so you’ll be hearing from me a lot during the next couple of days.

Before I start this decidedly overdue update, I’d like really like to apologize for the media blackout. As you can imagine the entire team has been sleep (and internet) deprived in the lead up to the start of WSC 09. We wanted to fill everybody in as much as possible but work on IVy got the better of us.

As I type this we are 2km South of Larramah sitting 3 feet from a diesel generator surrounded by harsh but beautiful terrain of the Northern Territory. It’s quite a scene. John, Etienne, Claudia and Caitlin are preparing cous-cous stir fry for the team. The array has been on our tilter-trailer for about half an hour charging the battery for tomorrow’s start at 8am, and everybody else is unpacking and getting the camp ready.

Let me back up a bit and fill you in on how we made it here. Scrutineering (the process of race officials signing off that your car follows the regulations, and is fit for highway driving) was tough. We had some minor but time consuming changes to make for us to qualify, and this left a lot of Sunswifters on very little sleep for way too long. We lived up at the Hidden Valley pits taking the occasional nap at Glen’s folks place, they treated us like royalty and we can’t thank them enough (Thanks guys!!!).

On qualifying day (this past Saturday), I’m happy to announce that IVy ran the track in 2 minutes and 16 seconds, placing us at 7th from pole position. The break test was a triumph for the Mechanical Team, whose breaks managed to pass the scrutineering test in a 6th of the distance required. On another positive mechanical note, after 8 hours sleep in 3 days the Mech guys managed to sort out the wheel alignment, angle of attack, a slight break run and fitted all the fairing properly. On the way up to Darwin the motor was pulling 2200W, and on the way down so far it has needed only 800W. This is a massive boost in efficiency.

Overall we were tired but thrilled with IVy’s performance during scrutineering. We left the pits at 8pm on Saturday and went to Glen’s for a BBQ, team meeting but most importantly sleep.

Following is an introduction to our fleet layout for WSC, and reports for each day we’ve been on the race as we’re able to post them. Not to worry, every one gets written, and sit ready to be put online.

WSC09: Day Nine - Arrival in Darwin

Today the team arrived at Hidden Valley racetrack in Darwin, where we spent the day. It was really exciting to meet teams from all around the world, check out their cars and here about their journeys to Australia. We met teams from Holland, Malaysia, Japan, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, France and the US and are looking forward to meeting many more in the next couple of days (we're still waiting to meet the German team who will be our next door neighbours in pitt lane).
IVy spent the day racing around the track and when we got back to Glen's house this evening we saw footage of her driving on the ABC. IVy will be undergoing rigourous static and dynamic scrutineering over the next few days, today the track was full of stories from teams who had been sent back to fix or change things. The team is confident that IVy will meet the excellent standards of the World Solar Challenge and is looking forward to showing off our design.

WSC09: Day Seven

The team awoke refreshed after a good meal at the Ti Tree roadhouse - the most central pub in Australia and a nice sleep using our brand new mosquito nets.
We drove to Tennant Creek where the Scout vehicle was sent ahead to prepare Darwin for our arrival on Wednesday afternoon.