Australian Mock Race

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 9:48pm by Steven Durbin
Today the Race Crew in Australia left the comfort of Prince Alfred College in Adelaide to begin a practice race across the outback. Over the course of this week, the team will race Infinium on The Stuart Highway from Adelaide to the border of the Northern Territory and back. The mock race will give them one last chance to practice caravan maneuvers, race strategy, and quick vehicle maintenance on the side of the road. Most importantly, it will confirm the team’s expectations of the vehicle as they will be in full race mode, ensuring Infinium is reliable for the World Solar Challenge. While the team is traveling through the outback, internet will be few and far between, but there should be an update every night on the team's progress. The team should already be on the road right now, so let’s wish them a safe and successful trip.

UMSolar and Ford Australia

Posted Tue, 09/22/2009 - 12:23am by Steven Hechtman

In order to meet the challenges of transporting our 20-person Race Crew and many of our spare parts across Australia, the Solar Car Team requires a fleet of versatile vehicles for its race caravan.  The University of Michigan team would like to thank Ford Australia for supporting the team by lending us four vehicles that satisfy even the toughest of the race's demands in the upcoming Global Green Challenge.


The team's semi trailer approaches Ford Australia's Head Office

During the afternoon of September 18th, Ford Australia hosted the team at its Head Office in Melbourne. Infinium and two of the four vehicles Ford Australia provided to the team were on display outside of the Head Office, and we had the pleasure of meeting with many Ford employees. Ford Australia's President and CEO, Marin Burela, joined us to see the solar car and to wish us luck in the Global Green Challenge. Mr. Burela, who previously oversaw Ford's small cars operations globally, spoke excitedly about the Ford Fiesta and Ford's other fuel-efficient vehicles that will be taking part in the Global Green Challenge's eco-car event. Our team is looking forward to competing alongside the consumer vehicles entered into the challenge.


Ford Australia President and CEO Marin Burela speaks with Solar Car Team members

Of the four vehicles Ford Australia is providing to the team, the Ford Territory SUV is a perfect fit for the needs of our Lead, Chase, and Weather vehicles. With three rows of seating, each Territory can carry either seven passengers or five passengers with ample room for extra equipment.  The 30 storage compartments in each car provide plenty of space for any spare parts or tools we may need. Our Chase vehicle even has an LCD screen mounted to the ceiling, so our strategists will be able to use the screen to display telemetry data coming from Infinium. The last of the four support vehicles, Scout, is a Ford Ranger pickup capable of hauling a large cargo load plus a full cab of team members. With these quality vehicles and the generous support from Ford Australia, our team caravan is well-prepared to respond to the challenges we will face in the outback.


Solar Car Team with Lead vehicle, a Ford Territory

In Adelaide

Posted Sun, 09/20/2009 - 1:16am by Steven Hechtman

Greetings from Adelaide, South Australia, where the team will call home while we prepare for next month's Global Green Challenge. Last week, our team left Michigan for the 10,000 mile journey to Australia. After some time spent overcoming jet-lag and moving our equipment through international customs, we have settled in to our workspace-away-from-home at Prince Alfred College (PAC) in Adelaide. We are grateful once again this year for the support of PAC, which has provided us the facilities in which we can work as a team. It is great to be reunited with all of our friends and supporters in Adelaide, and we are surely looking forward to the rest of our stay here.


Jeff Rogers and Josh Feldman wind wires in front of the semi trailer at Prince Alfred College.

Our arrival in Adelaide reminds us of how far we have come, and we must thank all of those who have allowed us to achieve so much. The efforts of all of our team members, advisors, faculty members, sponsors, friends, families, and other supporters have all been instrumental in the creation of Infinium.

Welcome Back to Michigan

Posted Fri, 09/04/2009 - 12:13am by Steven Durbin

On behalf of the Solar Car Team, I would like to welcome everyone back to campus.  I'm looking forward to meeting with all the returning team members and welcoming new students to the team.  The car will be visible on campus the first weeks of September.  If you are interested in joining the team, please look for us at the following events around campus:

EVENTS ON CAMPUS
9/10: Festifall 11:00AM-4PM
9/15: Central Campus Energy Fest: 11:00AM-2PM 
9/17: North Campus Energy Fest:  11:00AM-2PM 

The team will be having two mass meetings for student interested in joining the team.  Please see the information below for date, time and location.  

MASS MEETINGS
Central Campus:  Thursday, 9/10 at 6PM in R0230 Business School 
North Campus:     Thursday, 9/17 at 6PM in 1013 Dow

I would like wish everyone good luck for this upcoming semester, and hopefully I will see you at one of our events.

Go Fast, Go Smooth, Go Blue!

Solar Car Attends Traverse City Management Briefing Seminars

Posted Wed, 08/12/2009 - 10:20am by Steven Durbin

Last week the team was invited to attend the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, hosted by the Center for Automotive Research.  Members of the team were able to sit in on presentations created by the people that are reshaping the auto industry.   Every major challenge that today's automakers and suppliers face, from manufacturing to climate change, was discussed.  The team was also had the opportunity to meet and network with other conference attendees during the evening social hours.  Throughout the week, people stopped at the team's display to see Continuum and to learn about the project. Once special visitor was Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm.  Overall, the team members in Traverse City had a very productive week, gained insight into the future of the automotive industry, and met scores of interesting people.

(left to right) Steven Hechtman, Brian Pak, Julia Hawley, Governor Granholm, Chris Hilger,
Steve Durbin, David Kye, and Gabe Arroyo

Semi Trailer Begins its Voyage to Australia

Posted Tue, 08/11/2009 - 11:49am by runger

Last Friday, the team’s semi trailer left the port of Savannah, Georgia on a Wallenius Wilhelmsen vessel, and is now on its way to Melbourne, Australia. Prior to shipping, the team spent many hours cleaning, packing, organizing, and documenting the items in our trailer. We wanted to make sure that we will be prepared for almost anything while in the Outback--without the trailer we would not have access to the necessary tools and materials in Australia that we need to work on Infinium.

The team would like to thank all of our sponsors for making the transport of our semi trailer possible. This includes Wallenius Wilhelmsen, ASF Logistics, Penske Truck Rental, and America’s Transportation Resources.

Images from Mock Race

Posted Sat, 08/01/2009 - 1:21pm by Steven Hechtman


View of Infinium from the Lead, with Chase and the Semi Trailer in tow.


Lower surface of Infinium sits while the team charges at LeRoy JrSr High in LeRoy, Illinois


Team members (bottom to top) Eric Relson, Gerald Chang, Santosh Kumar, Dylan Keefe-Reitzell, and Sudeep Rohatgi hold the upper surface while charging at Saint Joseph's High School in South Bend, Indiana.

Mock Race Day 5: Back to Ann Arbor

Posted Fri, 07/24/2009 - 10:20am by Steven Hechtman

After four days of mock race, covering over 750 miles across four states, the team is now making our return trip to Ann Arbor. With less than a week until our semi trailer leaves for Australia by boat, we have elected to forgo the final day of practice in order to ready ourselves for shipping out to Australia. We are all very pleased by the way Infinium and the team have performed on our mock race. Over the course of the past four days we have ironed out many of the kinks in our daily routines, fine-tuned our racing strategies, and have almost doubled the miles on Infinium to improve its reliability.

After our semi trailer ships at the end of this month, we will have all of August to test Infinium before it leaves for Australia in early September. Once in Australia, we will have one more dress rehearsal for the World Solar Challenge in the form of an additional mock race through the Outback. After the intense racing practice of this past week, we are one giant step closer to being prepared for the World Solar Challenge; with 93 days until WSC, we will have plenty of time to make the final leap.

Mock Race Day 4: Update from the Weather Vehicle

Posted Thu, 07/23/2009 - 12:29pm by Steven Hechtman

After escaping some early morning fog, the team has made good pace down the road. We left LeRoy, Illinois in the morning and have already reached our control stops in Bloomington, Illinois, and Kankakee, Illinois. We pulled in to the stop in Kankakee just before 1:00 PM EDT and hope to make it to South Bend by the end of the race day at 5:00 PM EDT. Of course, we hope that the home of the Fighting Irish (Notre Dame) will treat us well despite the fact that we are wearing the colors of one of their biggest football rivals!

Update: We have ended the day in South Bend, Indiana, one block to the west of the Notre Dame campus, and only a few miles west of our control stop. We will spend the night in South Bend before leaving for our next stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mock Race Update: Day 3

Posted Wed, 07/22/2009 - 9:40pm by Steven Hechtman

After an abbreviated race day, the team is now in LeRoy Illinois, between our checkpoints of Effingham, IL and Bloomington, IL. In the morning, the team opted to start the day late for strategic reasons, then took advantage of the early afternoon to perform modifications and maintenance on the suspension and motor.

We set out from Effingham at 2:30 PM, but were met with cloudy skies and scattered showers. However, we were able to navigate the showers thanks to our Meteorologist, Chris McMeeking. On Tuesday afternoon, heading into Effingham, we managed to dodge storms on our way into the checkpoint:


The team dodges storms on its way into Effingham, IL (represented by the red dot on the map)

Tomorrow we will leave for Bloomington, IL with a careful eye on the weather. We hope to avoid any further rain while crossing back into Indiana and Michigan.