Michigan Wins 2008 North American Solar Challenge 37
An anonymous reader writes "The University of Michigan Solar Car Team won the 2008 North American Solar Challenge, crossing the finish line in Alberta, Canada on Tuesday after more than 50 hours of racing over nine days. The team successfully defended their title from 2005, the last year the race was held. Final results have been posted on the North American Solar Challenge website and will be officially announced at an award ceremony later today."
Re:Distribution (Score:1, Informative)
The results are somewhat misleading if you are just thinking about speed & times.
For example, the University of Waterloo team crossed the finish line in 2nd place ( http://www.midsun.uwaterloo.ca/www [uwaterloo.ca] ) but finished fourth in the official standings. Not sure how that works but I assume there are penalty points for drinking too much Canadian beer en-route or something.
Re:Distribution (Score:2, Informative)
Bah, little secret: Michigan gets a ridiculous level of help from industry. Most of the other teams don't have it so easy.
Re:50 hours / 9 days (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry, but this race is not like Lemans.
It looks like they scheduled it in stages (city to city) over 9 days. I'm sure that they had all teams complete the stage each day before starting the next stage. They probably gave themselves plenty of time to deal with cars that broke down and what not.
Re:Distribution (Score:4, Informative)
The race is set up in multiple stages, so that cars can travel more or less together. The winner is determined by the total elapsed time between stages. The final stage was only 200 miles, so the finish order was pretty much determined by then.
Re:Faster than passenger train? (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, it's a 23 hour trip. And a nice ride, as long as you don't hit a fallen tree in east Texas at 60mph....
Who cares if they spent the most (Score:1, Informative)
I give them kudos nonetheless
These students do all of this on their own (18 - 21 year olds): they organize themselves, recruit, gather donations, etc... all as a student driven organization. The University and the College of Engineering give little support; it's all a fact their own determination that has gotten them where they are. And no, the auto companies don't get any kind of "kick-backs" from backing the team. I really think the fact that they do so well is a testament to the quality and involvement of the faculty and students. Why stop when you don't have to, always be the best you can.
Re:Seems to me... (Score:1, Informative)
As a member of the University of Michigan Solar Car team, I have heard too many people attribute our success purely to our "easily came by" funding.
First of all, there is nothing easy about being a well funded team. Members of our business team (and most of the engineering team) spend 40+ hours a week, in addition to classes and real jobs, working to secure our "easy funding." There are tens of thousands of telephone calls, emails and sponsor visits. The difference between us and other teams is that we have the people willing to put in this ridiculous amount of effort. As a result, U-M's solar car project is not an engineering project, but rather a much more complex engineering/business/marketing cooperative effort.
Secondly, It is clear to me that technical expertise determined the outcome of this race. Money certainly helps to have when building something, but money does not design a reliable, efficient car. A few of my teammates were amused at the finish line of the race when we overheard a competitor explain to a spectator that we won because our solar car was built by GM. I can assure you that the car was designed and built by undergraduate students at the university. I remember long nights in computer labs, carbon fiber layups, and soldering for 10 hours straight every day for weeks. My former roommate did most of the body design... My current roommate designed and assembled the battery pack. Our former engineering crew chief has an allergy to carbon fiber from working with it too much. I remember using a dremel at times so late at night to do things so hairy that it should not even be mentioned.
The University of Michigan car spent about 20 minutes total, due to a flaky electrical connector, on the side of the road during the race. Other teams spent hours and hours on the side of the road for various reasons, usually electrical. Having designed and built most of the electrical system inside the U-M solar car, I know that our car worked well because of good engineering, craftsmanship and understanding of its behavior, not simply because of our "easy funding."