Thursday, August 31, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: August 31st

(EDITED Sept 1 to include Antakari's unveiling, Michigan's arrival in Adelaide)

One more team off the official team list this week: Cairo has withdrawn from the Cruiser class, which isn't a huge surprise.

A bunch of teams unveiled this week - Antakari, Adelaide U, Western Sydney, Tokai, and JU. See each of their headings below for some thoughts.

UiTM, and ANU have scheduled their unveiling dates, leaving CUER as the sole challenger team that hasn't shown off their car OR announced a date. But apparently CUER has already shipped out Mirage without a public unveiling or launch, or even a single photo of the car...

The list of yet-to-be-shipped cars is getting increasingly small as well:
  • Antakari, Tokai, UiTM, MDH, KNUT, RVCE, Goko, and Blue Sky are the 8 non-Australian Challenger teams that we have no information about shipping or packing status. NWU, Sonnenwagen, and ITU haven't shipped yet but are all working hard on packing.
  • On the Cruiser side, we haven't seen any shipping information from SunSPEC, Tehran, or Siam Tech. Bochum and PrISUm are just about to ship (or perhaps already have).

I won't be doing my usual long-form update on all the teams for the next 2-3 weeks (although I will be providing a quick update digest). Instead, stay tuned for a few posts giving an overview and analysis of how the Challenger and Cruiser classes are shaping up, and what MostDece's picks are for the top contenders in each class.

Challenger Class

2: University of Michigan

Status: In Australia! The team and Novum have arrived safe and sound in Adelaide.

No other news this week.

3: Nuon

Status: In Australia! Both the car and a large portion of the team are on the ground in Australia.

The team had members present when both Adelaide University and WSU unveiled their new cars on the 29th. Along with Twente and Eindhoven, Nuon announced that film crew will be following along for the race and doing daily updates.

4: Antakari

Status: Unveiled! With very short notice, Antakari announced and unveiled Intikallpa IV on September 1st.

(image source)

7: Adelaide University

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Lumen II on August 29th.

(image source)

Some more photos from the launch event can be found here.

The team also posted a video onto their Facebook. At around 1:17, one of their drivers sits in the car. I realize that the car is unfinished in that video and the rollcage isn't installed, but that canopy looks... cavernously large.


8: Punch Powertrain

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Punch Two out to Australia on August 23rd.

Not much news this week - the team posted a video showing how they packed the car for shipping, and discussing some of the logistics that dealing with international customs entails. The also posted a bunch of photos of packing & shipping the car to Flickr; one of the photos reveals that the real array is not installed yet. I recall that they installed the array in Australia in 2015 as well. Installing the array late minimizes potential damage to the array during testing, but it also limits the amount of "race simulation" type testing that the team can do before the race. Punch's biggest weakness in 2015 appeared to be in the operation of the team, not in the car itself...

10: Tokai

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled the 2017 Tokai Challenger on August 29th.

This is the big news this week. Like Michigan, after two cycles of asymmetric catamarans, Tokai has switched to a narrow monohull bullet car with the driver on the centerline. Unlike Michigan, they're sticking with a monocrystalline silicon array.

(image source)
(image source)

A pair of articles were published in Japanese car blogs, and they offer a surprising amount of detail about the car. The 2017 Tokai Challenger is 4.98m long x 1.2m wide x 1m high; it has a 0.61m wide track width and 1.7m long wheelbase. That's a super narrow track! Reg 2.3.2 states that both the front and rear track can not be less than half the maximum width of the car, and Tokai is within 10mm of that. Additionally, that's getting down into the range of CUER's 2013 Resolution, which didn't manage to keep the rubber side down.

The motor-fan.jp article also states that the car weighs 140kg, the battery layout is 17P/24S, and their solar cells are 24.1% efficient. These are a new variant of the Panasonic HIT cells - note that they don't have a top contact and appear much darker in color, just like the Sunpower cells.

The most notable difference from Michigan's car is the very pointy nose (all following photos from car.watch.impress.co.jp):


Compare to the photos of Michigan's Novum back from when we covered their unveiling.

Even more than Novum, this car makes me think of Kogakuin's 2013 Practice with the sides cut off.

It's really interesting to see the top 5 teams from last year split so dramatically - two teams doing narrow monohulls, two teams doing miniature short/wide catamarans, and one doing a long/narrow catamaran. Two teams with silicon arrays, and three with multijunction arrays. It's going to be really exciting to see which design philosophies pay off! Summed up pretty well here:


The blue box at the bottom left translates to "The majority of teams concentrates on conventional extension!"

No more comments for now, just enjoy a few more photos:


12: Cambridge University

Status: Shipped! The team claims their new car Mirage will arrive in Australia "shortly"

In the shipping announcement post, the team published a newer, rendering of the car. As far as I can see, the main change from the previously published one is that it includes sponsor logos now:

From the WSC teams page back at the start of July
(image source)
Almost two months later...
(image source)

Reading between the lines on that blog: it really screams to me that the car is still quite incomplete, but they hit their shipping deadline and had to send it off anyway if they wanted a chance of competing. I can't come up with any other reasonable explanation why they would publish what the car is supposed to look like, the fact that it has a tracking array, etc - but not publish a single photo of the car even after it has shipped.

15: WSU

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Unlimited 2.0 on August 29th, with a whole crowd of solar car team guests.

Articles on their unveiling were posted on news.com.audailytelegraph.com.au, and their university news service.

Unlimited 2.0 is a long, narrow catamaran - 4.58m long and 1.4m wide - with a very large, thin front overhang. Stanford's 2011 Xenith is the first comparison that springs to mind, although the front overhang on WSU's car isn't quite as radical in length.

(image source, Photo Credit: Sally Tsoutas)
(image source, Photo Credit: Sally Tsoutas)
Obligatory Xenith photo

NIT's Horizon 17 is a little longer and wider, while Twente's Red Shift is a little shorter and narrower, but the three cars are proportionally very similar. All three are much longer/narrower than the 4.5m x 1.8m formula of the past two WSCs, and even longer/narrower than the old 5m x 1.8m formula.

Meanwhile, Unlimited 2.0's array doesn't extend any wider than the wheel fairings on the back half - very similar to Stanford, NIT, and Nuon this year - and there's no aft array overhang at all, which is extremely similar to Nuon.

(image source)

This is a really sleek car. WSU finished in 10th in 2015, and three of the teams that finished ahead of them aren't competing for the Wilson Cup this year. I called WSU one of the most improved teams in 2015; let's see how much they can move up in the standings this year!

Finally, a little bit of silliness.

16: Stanford

Status: Shipped! I've heard through the grapevine that Stanford shipped Sundae out to Australia over the last weekend in August.

The team is posting race crew profiles to Instagram this week.

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team said in a Facebook comment that they'll be unveiling the car on September 5th.

Not much this week. I spotted a very complete looking chassis on their Instagram "story", but that's mobile-only, so I can't link to it here.

20: Durham

Status: Shipped! Durham shipped their car to Australia on July 18th.

No news this week.

21: Twente

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Red Shift to Australia on August 16th.

Some of the team has departed for Australia and is already practicing their victory pose at the fountain in Adelaide. Twente also announced that a film crew will be following the three Dutch teams (Nuon, Twente, and Eindhoven) to produce daily updates over the course of the race.

22: MDH

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled way back on May 31st.

No news this week.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Status: Shipped! NIT shipped Horizon 17 to Australia on August 9th.

No news this week.

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Woong-bi on June 25th.

No news this week.

32: Principia

Status: Shipped! Principia shipped Ra X to Australia on August 1st.

No news this week.

34: RVCE

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Arka on August 5th.

No news this week.

37: Goko High School

Status: Car Complete! We've seen several photos of the completed 2017 Musoushin.

No news this week.

38: NWU

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Naledi on August 22nd.

The team is currently packing the car to ship. One interesting photo can be seen here:

(image source)

You can clearly see in the shape of the support below the wing, and how it will rotate/tilt on the back of the center body. The array portion comes off the wing; the blue dots underneath are 3D printed supports for the upper half.

43: Australia National University

Status: Unveiling Scheduled. A team member mentioned in a Facebook comment that they are planning to launch the car on September 19th.

Not much news this week. It sounds like manufacturing is really coming down to the wire, and they're having some issues.

46: Jonkoping University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! The team unveiled Solveig on August 28th, and shipped it on August 30th.

(image source)

The car clearly has a different chassis than the one I criticized a little here - it really wasn't clear if that was a test chassis or not. By my count they've done at least two test chassis before the final one: The square tube chassis (12), and the round tube chassis (12). That's a hell of a lot more prototyping and iterating in hardware than most teams do.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Huawei Sonnenwagen on July 20th.

At least some of their equipment has shipped, but it may be having trouble in Singapore.

71: Istanbul Technical University

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled B.O.W (Bees On Wheels) on August 9th.

ITU has completed road testing and is ready for the race. The team is preparing to ship.

77: Blue Sky

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Polaris on August 14th.

Blue Sky has been testing the car and is getting ready to ship.

82: Kookmin University

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Taegeuk to Australia at the end of July.

No news this week.

88: Kogakuin University

Status:  Shipped! The team shipped Wing to Adelaide on July 31st.

No news this week.

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

Status: Unveiled! Singapore Polytechnic unveiled SunSPEC 5 on July 21st.

No news this week.

9: PrISUm

Status: Unveiled! Iowa State unveiled Penumbra on June 2nd.

They announced two weeks ago that they're planning to ship tomorrow, but I haven't seen any updates on packing/shipping.

11: Hochschule Bochum

Status: Unveiled! Bochum unveiled Blue.Cruiser on July 5th.

The first team members have arrived in Australia and attended WSU's unveiling. The rest of the team will be traveling down under on September 7th.  If I'm translating that post right, the car hasn't shipped yet, but it will very soon.

The team posted that the interior of the car is upholstered in pineapple leather. Bochum is raising the bar for fit&finish in the Cruiser class, as always!

Bridgestone also posted a video about the team.

14: Flinders

Status: Unveiling scheduled? Someone on Twitter (a team member?) claims that the car will be unveiled/launched on September 11th.

The frame of the car is taking shape.

23: University of Tehran

The car looks more finished every week, but they still have a long way to go.

30: Team Arrow

The team is working on their solar array.

33: Cairo University

Status: Withdrawn.

Cairo was removed from the WSC 2017 team list on Tuesday. Given the lack of visible progress, I can't say that I'm too surprised.

35: IVE Sophie

Status: Shipped! IVE shipped Sophie VI out to Australia on August 28th.

No other news this week.

40: Eindhoven

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Stella Vie to Australia on August 19th.

No much this week - the team announced (along with Twente and Nuon) that a film crew will be following along on the World Solar Challenge and attempting to do daily broadcasts.

42: TAFE SA

No news this week.

45: Lodz

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Eagle Two to Australia on July 17th.

The car has made it to Singapore.

49: Siam Tech (Nikola)

Status: Unveiled! The team held a joint unveiling event for both Edison (Challenger) and Nikola (Cruiser) on August 14th.

No news this week.

75: UNSW Sunswift

Status: Unveiling scheduled. We've been told by a team member that the unveiling is scheduled for the morning of September 14th.

No news this week.

94: University of Minnesota

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Eos II out to Australia over the last weekend in July.

No news this week.

95: Apollo

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Apollo VIII to Adelaide on August 23rd.

Sometime in the past week or so, "& St. John's University Solar Car Team" was appended to their WSC team page. There are several institutions named Saint John's University, but this is likely referring to the one in Taiwan.

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Argo out to Australia at the start of August.

No news this week.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

No news this week.

Friday, August 25, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: August 24th

Sometime around Wednesday we lost another team off the official teams list; it's down to 43 total. Siam Tech's Challenger class team - #29 Edison - has been removed.

It's been another pretty quiet week. A few teams shipped their cars (Michigan, Nuon, Punch, Eindhoven, and Apollo), and NWU unveiled Naledi. Next week will be a busy one for unveilings: JU on the 28th; Adelaide University, WSU, and Tokai(!) all on the 29th.

Tokai is the last of the top-5 from 2015 to unveil, and I'm crossing my fingers that it won't be a silicon-array asymmetric catamaran. That's what most of the field is doing, but 3/4 of 2015's top-5 unveiled so far chose to do something different.

After next week, we'll be left with a very short list of Challenger teams not yet unveiled; 4 teams out of 28: Antakari, CUER, UiTM, ANU. Only UiTM has a scheduled unveiling.
  • Antakari is visibly making a lot of progress, frequently posting to their FacebookInstagram, and Twitter.
  • CUER - Pretty much dead silent, which is worrying. 
  • UiTM - Not a lot of visible progress, but not a lot of social media in general, historically. Some progress visible in the print version of this news article. They're planning to unveil on September 5th.
  • ANU - They're in Australia already, so they have some breathing room that other teams don't.
On the Cruiser side, we see a much higher proportion of teams not unveiled; 6 teams out of 15: Flinders, Tehran, Arrow, Cairo, TAFE SA, and Sunswift
  • Four of the six (Flinders, TAFE SA, Arrow, Sunswift) are Australian teams with less schedule pressure - no trans-oceanic shipping to deal with. Flinders reportedly has their unveiling scheduled for September 11th, and a Sunswift team member has told me that Violet will be launched on September 14th.
  • Tehran is making a lot of visible progress.
  • Cairo is a big ol' question mark - zero photos of progress.

WSC posted this neat little video with clips from the first 1987 World Solar Challenge. I'd love to see a longer version!

Challenger Class

2: University of Michigan

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Michigan unveiled Novum on July 7th, and shipped it out to Australia on August 18th.

Here's an article the school posted about shipping the car.

3: Nuon

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Nuon unveiled Nuna 9 on July 25th, and shipped it out to Australia on August 23rd.

Both the car and trophy are on their way down under.

4: Antakari

Not too many updates this week - mainly a shot of their completed front suspension. Note the wheel and tire, the chassis should be rolling now...

7: Adelaide University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced that Lumen II will be unveiled on August 29th.

The team has been busy this past week installing the solar array.

8: Punch Powertrain

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Punch unveiled Punch Two on June 21st, and shipped it out to Australia on August 23rd.

No news other news this week.

10: Tokai

Status: Unveiling scheduled. Tokai finally announced that the 2017 Tokai Challenger will be unveiled on August 29th.

No news other news this week.

12: Cambridge University

CUER continues their streak of zero updates on the state of the car.

I'd wonder if they were just being secretive and planning on surprising everyone with something radically new, but their WSC team page tells us straight-up that their car is just going to be a refinement of their 2013/2015 concept. I'm honestly kinda worried about this team - a workshop photo or two takes literally seconds to post to the internet, and they had a very robust social media presence in 2015.

 Folks, your crowdfunding is usually more successful when people can see that their money is actually going to go towards something... And as ScientificGems points out, a solar car team's value to sponsors is higher when the team showcases their sponsors early and often!

15: WSU

Status: Unveiling scheduled. WSU announced an official unveiling date: August 29th.

The team has a 5th episode of Grill the Grid this week. All kidding aside, I'll forgive Mario for forgetting about Race the Sun . It is a terrible movie, and best watched drunk.

16: Stanford

Status: Unveiled! Stanford unveiled Sundae on July 1st.

The team wrote a short blog post about their Central Valley testing. It looks like they were testing again over the weekend.

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team said in a Facebook comment that they'll be unveiling the car on September 5th. Although it's not unusual to see Australian teams unveiling that late, it seems super late for a team that has to deal with trans-continental shipping and international customs.

No news this week, but they're showing off their old car Stingray at an event this week. Those windows haven't aged well...

20: Durham

Status: Shipped! Durham shipped their car to Australia on July 18th.

No news this week.

21: Twente

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Twente unveiled Red Shift on June 23rd, and shipped it to Australia on August 16th.

Just after our post last week, Twente posted that the car had made it through Kuala Lumpur on the way to Sydney.

The team has made a blog post about their telemetry and data acquisition setup.

22: MDH

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled way back on May 31st.

No news this week.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Status: Unveiled, and shipped! Horizon 17 was shown testing at Bridgestone's test track on July 15th, and was formally unveiled on August 6th. The car shipped to Australia on August 9th.

No news this week.

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Woong-bi on June 25th.

No news this week.

29: Siam Tech (Edison)

Status: Removed from team list - Withdrawn? Edison was unveiled without solar cells on August 14th, and was spotted with solar cells around the 22nd. But Siam Tech's #29 Challenger team was missing from the team list on the 23rd of August.

(image source)

The team posted several videos to Facebook, showing the interior (featuring a lot of cameras...), a road test, and a test at a local airstrip. The team also posted a blog about the airport testing. They posted another test drive video just hours ago!

I've heard through the grapevine that the team withdrew their Challenger car, but I can't find any explanation on their social media at the moment.

32: Principia

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Principia showed off Ra X for the first time at Formula Sun in Texas, July 3-8. The team shipped the car to Australia on August 1st.

No news this week.

34: RVCE

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Arka on August 5th.

No news this week.

37: Goko High School

Status: Car Complete! We've seen several photos of the completed car.

No news this week.

38: North-West University

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Naledi on August 22nd.

(image source)

There's a pretty good walk-around video of the car on their Facebook. The little slider on the left side of the canopy for the driver to pass things in and out is an interesting detail... I'm very curious to see the array actually tilt!

43: Australia National University

No news this week.

46: Jonkoping University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced that Solveig will be unveiled on August 28th.

No news this week.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Huawei Sonnenwagen on July 20th.

On Friday, the team held some sort of second unveiling event/sendoff event. The full recording of the presentation can be seen here on their Facebook.

They haven't shipped yet, though - they're out doing some track testing with Bochum.

(image source)

Should be a good drone shot, I want to see it!

71: Istanbul Technical University

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled B.O.W İSTKA on August 9th.

The team is doing some road testing right now.

I've driven a solar car in the rain, and I've driven one at night, but never in the rain at night.

77: Blue Sky

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Polaris on August 14th.

No news this week.

82: Kookmin University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Kookmin unveiled Taegeuk on July 7th, and shipped their car to Australia at the end of July.

No news this week.

88: Kogakuin University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Kogakuin unveiled Wing on June 29th, and shipped the car to Adelaide on July 31st.

The team posted a photo where we can see the reflective coating on the underside of the wing.

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

Status: Unveiled! Singapore Polytechnic unveiled SunSPEC 5 on July 21st.

At the very end of last week, the team posted a pretty neat drone video of testing the car.

9: PrISUm

Status: Unveiled! Iowa State unveiled Penumbra on June 2nd.

It looks like the team is going to be using a big crate on a flatbed at WSC, similar to how Nuon has done it in the past. The car is scheduled to ship on September 1st.

11: Hochschule Bochum

Status: Unveiled! Bochum unveiled Blue.Cruiser on July 5th.

The team posted a small blog post about the track testing they did with Sonnenwagen Aachen.

In one of the photos, you can see more of the rear wheel fairings that the team was testing in the wind tunnel a few weeks ago:

(image source)

14: Flinders

Status: Unveiling scheduled? Someone on Twitter (a team member?) claims that the car will be unveiled/launched on September 11th.

The team posted a small teaser image of body panels being fitted,  as well as a large spread of suspension components.

23: University of Tehran

Some more Instagram updates this week -  complete-looking battery pack, and a much more complete looking car body. A translation of the second post reveals that it is designed to seat 4 people.

30: Team Arrow

Some very small updates this week - a post on Instagram about software development, and a Twitter post with a photo of the current progress on the car. Looks like the chassis is sitting on wheels and tires; ready to roll!

33: Cairo University

No news this week.

I can't find a single photo of progress on the car, other than this chassis mockup from 3 months ago. I would not be surprised if they don't make it to the event.

35: IVE Sophie

Status: Unveiled! IVE unveiled Sophie VI on July 1st.

The team is doing their final tests before shipping the car.

40: Eindhoven

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Eindhoven unveiled Stella Vie on June 21st, and shipped it to Australia on August 19th.

At least some of the team is currently in Australiadriving north along the race route in reverse. The team received their road legal registration and license plate before departure.

42: TAFE SA

No news this week.

45: Lodz

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Lodz unveiled Eagle Two on July 14th, and shipped to Australia on July 17th.

The team posted a location update - the ship that their car is on is currently in the Red Sea

49: Siam Tech (Nikola)

Status: Unveiled! The team held a joint unveiling event for both Edison (Challenger) and Nikola (Cruiser) on August 14th.

The team haws been testing Nikola at a local airport.

75: UNSW Sunswift

Status: Unveiling scheduled. We've been told by a team member that the unveiling is scheduled for the morning of September 14th.

The team made a Facebook post with some some very small glimpses of the car herehere, and here.

94: University of Minnesota

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Minnesota unveiled Eos II on July 11th, and shipped it out to Australia over the last weekend in July.

The team made a small post of Facebook about their custom motors.

95: Apollo

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! KUAS unveiled Apollo VIII on June 29th, and shipped it to Adelaide on August 23rd.

No other news this week.

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Argo out to Australia at the start of August.

No news this week.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

No news this week.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: August 17th

Challenger Class

Status: Unveiled! Michigan unveiled Novum on July 7th.

The team's school has been going on a blog blitz this week, making posts on the composite manufacturingsolar array, and recent wind tunnel testing.

Note that these are the first pictures I've seen with the solar array installed, and the last paragraph of the wind tunnel article notes that Novum will ship out to Australia on August 18th.

Status: Unveiled! Nuon unveiled Nuna 9 on July 25th.

Not much news this week - just some more testing. Their newsletter last week claimed two weeks left before shipping, so expect so see Nuna9 ship to Australia around August 24th.

4: Antakari

A few progress photos were posted this week - some suspensions work, some battery work.

(image source)

All the solar car folks out there reading this: do not stick your hands into a battery pack with a big metal watch on your wrist! I have seen this go very badly before - and more than once! 2nd degree burns all the way around your wrist are no fun. Eye protection would also be advisable...

7: Adelaide University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced that Lumen II will be unveiled on August 29th.

No news this week.

8: Punch Powertrain

Status: Unveiled! Punch unveiled Punch Two on June 21st. It will ship for Australia around August 20th.

The team recently took their car to a wind tunnel, and is wrapping up testing. They also posted a bunch of photos to their Flickr, including two interesting photos of their steering.

The first one shows that they're doing a capstan-and-bowstring style steering mechanism:

(image source)
closeup

This isn't unheard of - Twente successfully used a steering mechanism like this in 2015, and I know other teams have in previous years. However, we couldn't tell what was going on inside that 3D printed housing until recently:

(image source)
closeup

Now I have a whole bunch of questions. Why are there two sets of wires? If it was just for redundancy in case one breaks, why wouldn't you just put both capstans on the same shaft; why is the second set running on a countershaft? Also, how is the countershaft driven? You can see in this photo that there aren't any gears on the driver end...

And what's with that thing sticking up and to the left off the main shaft in the last photo? What's the big circular flange in that location on the 3D-printed housing all about?

Here's my silly theory: I'll bet Punch Two has 4-wheel steering. The capstan on the main shaft steers the front wheels, and the capstan on the countershaft steers the rear wheels. The thing sticking out is part of a linkage or cam setup that provides a variable steering ratio for the rear wheels.

...Am I reading too much into this? Got any bright insights of your own? Sound off in the comments.

10: Tokai

No real news this week. A team profile was published on the Bridgestone WSC website.

Still no unveiling date from the team. If they unveil at the same time they did two years ago, we might see their car unveiled before next week's post - we'll have to wait and see.

Still no news on the car or the team's progress. The team announced that they've "brought on" a PR firm for their WSC coverage, and that they're working on designing t-shirts for their crowdfunding supporters.

15: WSU

Status: Unveiling scheduled. WSU announced an official unveiling date: August 29th.

The team published the 2nd and 3rd of their "Grill The Grid" team member pop quizzes. They're short and sweet; take a look!

16: Stanford

Status: Unveiled! Stanford unveiled Sundae on July 1st.

The team has been out testing in California's Central Valley. Even the roll hoop is painted pink. I'm really, really not a fan of these cantilevered-over-the-driver's-head roll hoops, but since the regs don't require anti-decapitation elements in front of the driver's head, they actively push teams towards building questionably-safe stuff like this. Sigh.

Note that their car this year has a standard removable upper shell, rather than the unibody/monocoque design they utilized in 2013 and 2015. This was probably driven by the new rules that only allow the driver to normalize the array at control stops.

(image source)
(image source)

The team also might have adopted a kitten.

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

No news this week.

20: Durham

Status: Shipped! Durham shipped their car to Australia on July 18th.

No news this week.

21: Twente

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Twente unveiled Red Shift on June 23rd, and shipped it to Australia on August 16th.

The team published a timelapse video of the packing process.

22: MDH

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled way back on May 31st.

Not much this week - a short workshop video.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Status: Unveiled! The car was shown testing at Bridgestone's test track on July 15th, and was formally unveiled on August 6th.

No news this week.

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Woong-bi on June 25th.

No news this week.

29: Siam Tech (Edison)

Status: Unveiled! Kinda. The team held a joint unveiling event for both Edison (Challenger) and Nikola (Cruiser) on August 14th - although Edison wasn't quite complete at the time.

(image source)

Even though Edison sin't complete yet, it does drive.

32: Principia

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! There wasn't a formal unveiling event, but Principia took Ra X to Formula Sun in Texas, July 3-8. The team shipped the car to Australia on August 1st.

No news this week.

34: RVCE

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Arka on August 5th.

No news this week.

37: Goko High School

Status: Car Complete! We've seen several photos of the completed car.

No news this week.

38: North-West University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. Public unveiling of Naledi is scheduled for August 22nd.

Not much news this week. It looks like unveiling is still right on schedule, so we should have some interesting photos to discuss in our update next week.

43: Australia National University

Not much this week - a post about visiting their solar cell sponsor.

46: Jonkoping University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced that Solveig will be unveiled on August 28th.

No news this week.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Huawei Sonnenwagen on July 20th.

It sounds like the team is preparing to ship the car at the end of next week.

71: Istanbul Technical University

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled B.O.W İSTKA on August 9th.

It sounds like the team is planning a test drive for next week. They've also posted a pretty silly video...

77: Blue Sky

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Polaris on August 14th.

(image source)

82: Kookmin University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Kookmin unveiled Taegeuk on July 7th, and shipped their car to Australia at the end of July.

No news this week.

88: Kogakuin University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Kogakuin unveiled Wing on June 29th, and shipped the car to Adelaide on July 31st.

No news this week.

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

Status: Unveiled! Singapore Polytechnic unveiled SunSPEC 5 on July 21st.

No news this week.

9: PrISUm

Status: Unveiled! Iowa State unveiled Penumbra on June 2nd.

No news this week.

Status: Unveiled! Bochum unveiled Blue.Cruiser on July 5th.

The team recently took at trip to a wind tunnel.

They've also posted some fun facts about Blue.Cruiser. Interestingly, they claim the battery "has the energy content of about 30 pineapples" and "stores enough power to run a hairdryer for over 10 hours".

Assuming this website is correct and the average pineapple contains about 1904kJ of energy, 30 pineapples works out to 15.87kWh of energy. Hair driers come with a variety of maximum power levels, but a fairly typical one will be in the 1500W to 1800W range - yielding a value of between 15kWh and 18kWh for their battery pack. Any way you slice it, it sounds like Bochum is running a bigger battery than Eindhoven (who has a 12.5kWh pack).

14: Flinders

Flinders posted another photo of their chassis.

23: University of Tehran

A few more Instagram updates this week. You can see that the car has a large tunnel underneath. Based on the position of the steering wheel, we can see that the occupants will sit down in the bottom of the fairings on either side of the tunnel.

30: Team Arrow

No news this week.

33: Cairo University

No news this week.

35: IVE Sophie

Status: Unveiled! IVE unveiled Sophie VI on July 1st.

No news this week.

40: Eindhoven

Status: Unveiled! Eindhoven unveiled Stella Vie on June 21st.

This week the team did some teambuilding training.

42: TAFE SA

No news this week.

45: Lodz

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Lodz unveiled Eagle Two on July 14th, and shipped to Australia on July 17th.

No news this week.

Status: Unveiled! The team held a joint unveiling event for both Edison (Challenger) and Nikola (Cruiser) on August 14th.


(image source)

75: UNSW Sunswift

We don't expect an unveiling until September.

The team posted a few photos of progress on Facebook. Apparently the team has begun testing the car.

94: University of Minnesota

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Minnesota unveiled Eos II on July 11th, and shipped it out to Australia over the last weekend in July.

Not much news this week. A very brief team profile was posted on the Bridgestone WSC website.

Status: Unveiled! KUAS unveiled Apollo VIII on June 29th.

No news this week.

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Argo out to Australia at the start of August.

No news this week.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

No news this week.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: August 10th

We lost another team off the official teams list this week: Proton (the new team from Sudan) has been removed, so we're down to 44 entries.

Three teams unveiled this week (RVCE, NIT, and ITU) - and Siam Tech took their Cruiser car for a public test drive.

We also have five more scheduled unveiling events on the calendar: Blue Sky on August 14th, NWU on the 22nd, JU on the 28th, and both WSU and Adelaide University on the 29th.

Challenger Class

Status: Unveiled! Michigan unveiled Novum on July 7th.

No news this week.

Status: Unveiled! Nuon unveiled Nuna 9 on July 25th.

Not much news this week; the team has been posting some testing videos to Facebook.

The team posted a nice photo of Nuna8 and Nuna9 together, with the big trophy lurking in the background...

Photo: Jorrit Lousberg
(image source)


4: Antakari

No news this week.

7: Adelaide University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced that Lumen II will be unveiled on August 29th.

No news this week.

8: Punch Powertrain

Status: Unveiled! Punch unveiled Punch Two on June 21st. It will ship for Australia around August 20th.

The team has been doing a fair amount of testing, including a fair amount in the rain; they've posted a video to their own YouTube. I also spotted a news article with a video - there's a shot around 1:27 that gives a clear view down the tunnel:


There's a very strange structure in the driver compartment right now - a galvanized pipe structure around the driver's head. You can see it starting at 1:15 in their YouTube video, and again at 1:38. It's apparently hinged at the top, to allow the driver to get out. You can see how it fits around the driver for 10 seconds starting at 1:30 in the news video.

On the one hand, I like to see teams make a bigger commitment to protecting the driver's head - and if there's any team that knows why, it's Punch. On the other hand... it's an extremely crude part, and I really doubt that it's a part that will be installed on the car in Australia. While I hope they show up to WSC with a better version of it, I suspect it's just a temporary measure to comply with requirements of the circuit that they're testing at.

Finally: Look, Michigan! A team showing off their wheel spats!

so secret!

10: Tokai

No news this week. With Proton out, this is the very last Challenger team for which we have zero details. They unveiled their car on August 27th (a Thursday) in 2015 and didn't announce the date until two days ahead of time, so I don't expect any news for at least two more weeks.

No news this week.

15: WSU

Status: Unveiling scheduled. WSU announced an official unveiling date: August 29th.

Not too much news this week - more car painting, and the first of what appears to be a series of team member interview/pop quiz videos.

16: Stanford

Status: Unveiled! Stanford unveiled Sundae on July 1st.

The team is really going all-in on the ice cream sundae theme. They've also been out doing their first test drive. In a comment on this Instagram post, the team mentions that the car is scheduled to ship at the end of August.

(Crow's landing airfield! Geez, that takes me back...)

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

Not much this week - the team was featured in a news article, but there aren't really any details about the team's progress. However, it looks like there were some construction photos in the print version that didn't make it onto the web version.

20: Durham

Status: Shipped! Durham shipped their car to Australia on July 18th.

No news this week.

21: Twente

Status: Unveiled! Twente unveiled Red Shift on June 23rd.

The team has been doing a lot of testing - they posted a video featuring some shots when the car was at a wind tunnel back in early July, as well as some newer driving shots. They've also posted a video from a race simulation, including some driving on public roads. It was a full simulation, up to and including fake control stops with fake timing sheets. Maybe I shouldn't read anything into how they ordered the teams ;)

Protip, everyone: talk to your videographers! Tell them about what you do - and don't - want them to shoot. When you don't talk to them, you'll end up having to blur out a quarter of the frame on large parts of a finished video (I'm really curious what they think we could make out inside the car from this drone shot that got blurred as well).

Finally, the team has announced that the car will ship to Australia around August 17th - near the end of next week.

22: MDH

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled way back on May 31st.

Last week, I missed a video on both their Facebook and Instagram of the chassis doing a slalom test - apparently from earlier in the spring. The video quality on Facebook is potato-like, and while the Instagram one is much crisper, IG defaults to cropping to a square format so the best views of the front suspension are missing (general request to everyone, host your videos on a real video platform, please?)

Video issues aside, we can see a lot of details. The battery is mounted low and behind the driver. The rear suspension is a swingarm setup with each swingarm cantilevered out and down into the bottom of the fairings. Dual rear motors, too, if I'm not mistaken. I'm scratching my head a little over the front suspension, though. It looks like a un-suspended upright, perhaps with a leading swingarm mounted to it? And although it has a fair amount of positive caster, it looks like the axle is raked far enough forward that the steering has negative trail. Really strange...

Finally, the team also posted a photo from when they were manufacturing the chassis utilizes a welded tube steel structure for the driver compartment, but also makes use of bolted-together rectangular aluminum tubing for the cantilevered suspensions mounts.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Status: Unveiled! The car was shown testing at Bridgestone's test track on July 15th, and was formally unveiled on August 6th.

Last week, the team competed at Suzuka with their previous car, Horizon Z. They tied for 3rd in the Olympia Class, with 60 laps overall. After the race, the team unveiled their new car, Horizon 17. With the array on, we can see exactly how dramatic the "surfboard" shape on the top is. It's definitely more dramatic than Stanford's Sundae, and I think it's (proportionally) narrows further at the rear than Nuon's Nuna9.

(image source)
(image source)
(image source)

Looking sharp!

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Woong-bi on June 25th.

No news this week.

29: Siam Tech (Edison)

The car looks more complete every day, and the team is posting a LOT to Facebook. The team was test driving the chassis late last week (in the dead of night, as is tradition for a first drive). This week the lower shell has been installed.

32: Principia

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! There wasn't a formal unveiling event, but Principia took Ra X to Formula Sun in Texas, July 3-8. The team shipped the car to Australia on August 1st.

No news this week.

34: RVCE

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Arka right on schedule on August 5th.

Arka
(image source)

It's not a particularly noteworthy car, but it's a huge step up from where the team was two years ago.

37: Goko High School

Along with NIT, Goko competed at Suzuka this past weekend with their older car - the version of Musoushin that competed at WSC in 2015. I didn't manage to find a good image of it, but you can see it on the starting grid at 5:18:17.

38: North-West University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. Public unveiling of Naledi is scheduled for August 22nd.

No news this week.

43: Australia National University

The team posted a small video of a team member spinning around their CAD model. Notably, the driver is now placed on the right - the previous rendering had the driver on the left. Another change is that the gap between the rear right wheel fairing and pod for the front right wheel + driver appears to be much smaller than in the previously released renders. It's narrow enough that I'm really not sure what the point is anymore...

46: Jonkoping University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced that Solveig will be unveiled on August 28th.

No news this week.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Huawei Sonnenwagen on July 20th.

Not much news this week - a pair of posts about donations from sponsors on their social media.

71: Istanbul Technical University

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled B.O.W İSTKA on August 9th.

(image source)
(image source)

The team published a really nicely produced video on their YouTube, featuring some test driving at a race circuit.

(Oh man, is than an old X61 at 0:54? Great laptop; I never should have let mine go)

72: Proton

Proton is no longer listed on the official WSC teams list. Although disappointing, I'm not super surprised. Better luck next time.

77: Blue Sky

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team announced on Facebook that their new car will be unveiled on August 14th.

No news this week.

82: Kookmin University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Kookmin unveiled Taegeuk on July 7th, and shipped their car to Australia at the end of July.

No news this week.

88: Kogakuin University

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Kogakuin unveiled Wing on June 29th, and shipped the car to Adelaide on July 31st.

No news this week.

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

Status: Unveiled! Singapore Polytechnic unveiled SunSPEC 5 on July 21st.

The team took SunSPEC 5 for it's very first test drive over the weekend.

9: PrISUm

Status: Unveiled! Iowa State unveiled Penumbra on June 2nd.

No news this week.

Status: Unveiled! Bochum unveiled Blue.Cruiser on July 5th.

Not much news. The team posted a few interior detail photos.

14: Flinders

23: University of Tehran

The team has continued their multi-week streak of frequent Instagram updates after months of silence. I really like this mashup of a drawing of the finished car overlaid on top of their real work-in-progress car - it's a neat concept for a photo that I'm not sure if I've seen before.

30: Team Arrow

No news this week.

33: Cairo University

No news this week.

35: IVE Sophie

Status: Unveiled! IVE unveiled Sophie VI on July 1st.

The team has posted two videos (12) of test driving the car. You can really get a sense of how long and low it is.

40: Eindhoven

Status: Unveiled! Eindhoven unveiled Stella Vie on June 21st.

According to their latest newsletter, the team is doing final testing and preparing to ship.

42: TAFE SA

No news this week.

45: Lodz

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Lodz unveiled Eagle Two on July 14th, and shipped to Australia on July 17th.

No news this week.

STC2 took Nikola for its first test drive this week!

(image source)
(image source)

I'm going to be honest: When I saw this post six weeks ago, I was pretty sure we wouldn't be seeing this team in Australia - but I've been incredibly impressed with how quickly this team has finished the car since then. It's not going to be competitive (lol aero), but does that matter? You don't build a car like this because you want to win; you build a car like this because you want to drive a life-sized hotwheels car. Awesome.

Now it just needs a solar array...

75: UNSW Sunswift

We don't expect an unveiling until September.

No news this week.

94: University of Minnesota

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Minnesota unveiled Eos II on July 11th, and shipped it out to Australia over the last weekend in July.

No news this week.

Status: Unveiled! KUAS unveiled Apollo VIII on June 29th.

No news this week.

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Argo out to Australia at the start of August.

In their blog post about shipping the car, the team noted that they got some help from the University of Minnesota team - it's always good to hear about teams helping each other out.

A team member also made a comment on reddit about why they're racing in the adventure class - apparently the car was designed for ASC 2016, but wasn't completed in time for that race.

Finally, the team has dumped a bunch of photos to their Flickr from construction, testing, and shipping. Overall, it looks like a very well engineered and constructed car for a rookie team.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

No news this week.