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.
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 which led 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.
