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WSC09: Day Three
The wheel motor issue was finally diagnosed,Arthur and Dave found a problem with the older wheel bearing. A solid attempt was made to remove it with no success, so, without a workshop and appropriate tools the decision was made to take it to an engineering shop to remove it carefully. Scout was given the task of ensuring this was done satisfactorily while the rest of the fleet headed off for Port Augusta where we arrived in time for shopping, testing the damage to the array power, that was far less than predicted, and continued the careful balancing of the batteries. The evening finished with a great steak dinner cooked by our chefs Claudia and Etienne and with the car all working again the team's spirits are high and ready to take on the Stuart Highway.
WSC09: Day Six
This morning the team got ready in record time and the solar car was on the road by 8am which will be the official start time during the World Solar Challenge.
We drove for an hour but then decided to pack it up because the motor was making some funny noises- we later discovered it was because one of the switches hadn't been turned on. It was annoying but a relief that there is nothing wrong with IVy.
We crossed the NT border, checked out our control stop in Alice Springs and stayed the night at Ti TreeRace 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.
IVy in the press again
IVy has been lucky enough to feature on the home pages of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
. The articles included an interview with Clara and footage from WSC07. She also appeared in Sky News, Sustainability Matters, China View, Seven News and NineMSN.WSC09: Day Four
Today was an exciting day clocking over around seven hours with Ivy rolling on the road. Alex, Yi Syuen and Clara all drove finding the car easy to handle at speeds of up to 100km/hr. Though fleet communication was a little rough coming out of Port Augusta by the end of the day our new team were getting used to radio protocol and becoming accostomed to the long hours on the road. As the day closed there was a slight dip on the left suspension so the team set up camp where they were and a full inspection was made of all the bolts and joints on the car. The brackets where the suspension mounted to the chassis rail had begun to dig into the carbon fibre and nomex leaving a serious looking crushed area. The crush tubes between the bolts had done their job beautifully however the sharp corners on the brackets had created a hole punch going through the carbon. So the trusty mech team (none of whome are drivers as luck would have it) had another late night reinforcing all of the similar mounts with thick carbon fibre plates to spread the force around. Tonight is the first night we have not slept in a caravan park, we are surrounded by the desert, enjoying being outdoors and the vast Australian night sky.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.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 shotCompetitions
WSC09: Day Five
With high expectations we started the day once again with the solar car on the road. It was a frustrating few hours checking the mechanical systems, stopping for spat rubs and finally another of our old wheels delaminating. We finally put the solar car back in the trailer and drove the final distance to Marla where the list of things required for scrutineering are being attended to including Etienne's rear vision system, electrical schematics and tow hooks. All day Dave has been working on the strategy software to integrate our extensive weather data from WeatherZone and trying to put together a map of power consumption of the car. A live feed of the car on the road (updated every 5 sec) is working on our local computers and with a little luck we can get it live on the internet whenever we have reception on the race. So things are slowly progressing and in solar car style new challenges presenting themselves every day. Media Resources
