2009 Global Green Challenge
In 2009, Sunswift raced the newly built IVy in the Global Green Challenge, placing 4th overall and 1st in the silicon challenge class. 2009 Global Green Challenge Race Team: Drivers: Alex Boulgakov and Clara Mazzone Academic Supervisor: Professor Joe Wolfe Good bloke: Arthur Collins Strategy: David Snowdon General: Jono Pye, Campbell McLaren, Luke Bycroft, John [...]
2011 World Solar Challenge
Sunswift raced IVy again in the 2011 World Solar Challenge. She was improved with a new wheel motor, completely new top-shell with new silicon array and improved brakes and electrical systems. IVy and the team placed 6th overall, just in front of our mates Aurora. The team also took out 1st place in the production [...]
Dar-winning
It has been an action-filled four days since we arrived in Darwin Monday night. Here are the highlights: As soon as we hit Darwin pavement we unloaded the solar car at Hidden Valley Raceway and met some of the other teams such as Stanford, CalSol from Berkeley, and ETS from Montreal. Besides acclimating to the [...]
Drive by wire!
Driver controls are one of the critical components of any car. In a solar car, not only does there have to be a mechanical connection to the front wheels via a steering column, but also a connection to the drive train to control torque and velocity. There is no gas pedal in IVy, only a [...]
Testing & Training Update
During the last few weeks, on top of all the work going on at the workshop, we have been also been busy testing and characterising Ivy in preparation for the World Solar Challenge. We’ve been fortunate enough to get access to the Sydney International Regatta Centre, which has a beautifully flat stretch of road alongside [...]
FleetPartners: Official Fleet Provider of the UNSW Solar Racing Team
We would like to give a big thank you to our newest sponsor, FleetPartners, who are donating five vehicles, as well as fuel, to the team to use during the World Solar Challenge. Reliable fleet vehicles are critical for our safe passage through central Australia during the upcoming 2011 World Solar Challenge. We will be [...]
Thanks RS Components!
Last week, Simon and Sandeep from RS Components Australia arrived at our workshop with some invaluable equipment and components. This is the third year RS has supported our team, and we cannot thank them enough for this. Amongst a lot of goodies were: 2x Agilent USB capable multi-meters, a tap and die set, an awesome [...]
New Driver Display
Despite the complexity of most of Sunswift IVy’s electronics sometimes a simple change can make a significant difference. As a new member of the Sunswift team my first job was to create a new driver display to replace the older display which while still functional was designed to sit inside the steering wheel, a position that proved uncomfortable for [...]
Lighter Hubs for IVy Mk2
Sunswift Ivy Mk2 will be rolling on a set of new lightweight carbon fibre wheels for the upcoming World Solar Challenge. As these new wheels are geometrically different from the current ones, we worked on designing a new set of wheel hubs to fit the new wheels to the car. Design The design of our [...]
Tilt Sensor Upgrade
Since the start of the year, I’ve been working on the tilt sensor. Its purpose (as you are probably able to guess) is to measure the pitch and roll of Ivy mainly for use in roll down tests. These roll down tests are used to obtain a power vs speed curve for the car by [...]
