10/30/2017 Heather Coit
Argo, the Illini Solar Car team’s vehicle, finished its approximately 1,800-mile trek across the Australian outback on October 14 at the 2017 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
Written by Heather Coit
Argo, the Illini Solar Car team’s vehicle, finished its approximately 1,800-mile trek across the Australian outback on October 14 at the 2017 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
The seven-day journey from Darwin to Adelaide was not without its challenges for the team’s debut.
“There were clouds, rain and sometimes thunderstorms for the first half of the challenge,” said Argo’s Byron Hopps, (BSE ’18) in ECE.
Jye Sze Lee, the team’s co-founder, added that a separation of the car’s latch, which held the bottom and top shells of the car together, was the result of crosswinds, a race to the finish and road trains. Lee described the latter as massive vehicles being the equivalent to three-to-four semi-tractor trailers in size and length. She said they traveled at 75 miles per hour.
“Thankfully, we were already pretty close to the finish line, which has less road train and gentler weather,” said Lee. “We were able to use an alternate way to hold the top and bottom shells together to drive the last leg of the journey.”
Perhaps nothing challenged the team more than finally crossing the finish line, which Lee called “surreal.”
“There was one aspect we couldn’t have prepared for, the feeling of finishing,” said Lee. “While we had some idea of how the competition would go, nothing prepared us for the end.”
Argo’s journey is far from over as the team reflects on lessons learned from Australia. Though pleased that their car survived the outback’s harsh elements and did well for its first run, Lee believes there is room for improvement.
“We recognize that had we been able to put more time in practicing aspects, like race strategy, we could have performed significantly better,” Lee said.
Amalia Dungey, (BSE ’19) in ECE and team member, said looking at the top teams’ cars and their strategies from this challenge is one way to focus on improving Argo.
“We’ve learned that while our team may not have been a competitor in this race, we have the resources, manpower and drive to put the U of I on the map for solar racing in future years,” Dungey said.
Bay Area Circuits, one of the team's first sponsors, was the exclusive PCB (printed circuit board) supplier for the Illini Solar Car and provided all of Argo's boards for free. https://bayareacircuits.com