Posts tagged Shell Eco-marathon 2008
Race Update: Day 1
1856 days
PSR made it to California safely, but PULSAR suffered some mild damage as a result of shipping. The mounts holding the upper body and lower body together had sheared off, but that was a quick fix. In the evening, we were making some final adjustments to the electrical system in preparation for qualifications tomorrow. PSR has already made a good impression on the other teams. Many of them stopped by to admire PULSAR, one of only two solar-powered cars in the race. The rest of the cars are gasoline-powered.
Aerial view of the racetrack
PSR hard at work.
Live Race Update – Day 3 10:52am
1856 days
Good morning form all of us in sunny California! After an 8 am photo session the EE team began working on our power trackers to try to boost their efficiency. WE should start heading to the track soon for our first official run. The wind here is really strong today with regular speeds near 20 mph. Hopefully this won’t affect the car’s performance too much. We’re still having trouble posting pictures but we’re working on it so hang in there.
GO BOILERS!
Live Race Update – Day 2 10:08am
1856 days
After an early morning breakfast, the team headed to the California Speedway to continue work on PULSAR. Work on the electrical system is going smoothly and will be completed by this afternoon in time for tech inspection and practice. We were also interviewed by a local news station so if you live in the Los Angeles area be sure to check out the news. We have Wi-Fi access at the track so check back often for more updates throughout the day.
BOILER UP!
Jeff hard at work on the wiring
Mark and Eleanor give an interview to local news
Live Race Update – Day 3 1:29pm
1856 days
Purdue Solar Racing has finished its first official run!
On our first run of the day, we finished the race in 37 minutes and 53 seconds, but we used more power than we generated, so it didn’t count as an official run. Because we were off by only 8000 Joules, we decided to try again with slightly different driving tactics.
On our second run of the day we completed our first official run in 38 minutes 35 seconds, 15 seconds short of the max time. However, we generated 2000 J more than we used, so the run was good!
We’re still waiting for the leader-board to give us our equivalent mpg, but we’ll let you know as soon as we find out. We plan on doing more runs later in the day after we make some adjustments to the power trackers, so check back soon!
PULSAR on the track at Eco-Marathon on the first day of racing.
Live Race Update – Day 3 5:03pm
1856 days
We just completed our fourth and final run of the day. Although it did not count since we’re getting less sunlight, we’ve managed to lower our power requirement by over 20% since the first run. Now that the drivers have had more practice and we’ve tweaked the car’s setup, we should be ready to set even higher mpg’s tomorrow under the full noon sun.
PULSAR waiting for inspection right before our last run of the day. Yes, it looks rather strange without the fairings.
