Update 8-20-19
A final rundown of how the racing went in Texas.
Day one of scrutineering:
I was incredibly tense, I had no idea the problems the judges would come up with on our car. I knew that if we couldn’t pass and weren’t able to race it would have been my fault. I started the team, this was my dream, my team, my car. As we’re unloading the car into the garage at the Texas Motor Speedway. I hop in, turn the car on, and there’s a huge spark right by my hip. We have no idea what caused it or why it happened. I go to get our scrutineering assignment and of course the first station we are assigned is electrical. Luckily, while going over the car at the electrical station we experience the spark again and determine the cause of the problem is some faulty heat shrink over a shunt. The judges have a couple of problems with our insulation but they’re all easy fixes.
The next station we are assigned is braking. At some point while taking our car apart and putting it back together during the electrical we accidentally short our supplemental system. We pass everything in the braking station except the brake light test because unbeknownst to us our supplemental system is shorted. We go back and take a look and see a disaster inside our supplemental system box. Wires fused together, bare wires where there’s supposed to be insulation. None of our supplemental systems are working. While we’re waiting to be assigned our next station we somehow manage to fix everything except our horn. The next station we’re assigned is mechanical and we manage to pass everything except a broken horn, on our first try which was a huge accomplishment. Our time runs out on day one and we headed back to the hotel, refuel, fix our insulation problems, and fix our faulty horn.
Day two of scrutineering:
We manage to get everything signed off on electrical and mechanical and electrical in about five minutes, pass the rest of the stations easily, and kill our presentation on how we built our vehicle to the judges. We end the day in the morning at about 11:30 as the third team through scrutineering. That evening, we were incredibly honored to win an award for our telemetry system. We were incredibly proud of next years captain who designed and built the entire system, Eric Andrechek.
Day three of scrutineering:
We’re able to sleep in a little bit, then head over for the all team picture. We make sure the car is ready to race the next day, I walk the team through any problems I could think of that might occur, and we then offered a hand to any teams who weren't through scrutineering yet.
Day one of racing:
We start with a lot of nervous energy. We had no idea if the car would run reliability or how long we could really go before we either ran out of energy or the car would break from a million different problems. We also knew that if anything went wrong, we knew how to fix it. Once we got out onto the track, things kind of clicked, the car was super reliable and much to our surprise we were passing people. The car ran super well the first day. We had no problems and we ended the day two laps out of first place.
That evening we are able to recharge the car and also replace the front tires. To the members of the team who had not experienced that fun process yet it was a great learning experience. We ended the night as last team out of the garage, but ready to race the next day.
Day two of racing:
We started with a lot of excitement, we knew that we were in it to win it and we ran the car pretty hard. We finished the day running 79 laps and winning the day which was super exciting. At the halfway point in the race we were winning by two laps. That night, we were having chain tension issues and ended up replacing both chains which was a total pain in the neck, once again we were on of the last teams to leave the garage.
Day three of racing:
We knew we had run the car a little too hard on Tuesday and then we drove maybe a little too conservatively in the morning. In the afternoon we were ready to go and drove hard. We ended up running 41 laps which ended up being a personal best for most laps run in an afternoon session. We finished the day with 76 laps total but our competitors ended up running 80, this putting us two laps out of first. After spending the past two nights working on the car too late into the night, we decided that the car was fine and didn’t touch it.
Day of four of racing:
We knew that it was going to be a close race. Our team was two laps back of winning a national championship in our first year ever competing. At this point everyone was coming over and trying to get a look at our car and determine why it was so well. Earlier in the week we had won an award for our telemetry system and between that and the fact that our car was doing so well, it seemed like everyone and their brother was trying to check out our car and talk to us. This was super cool because four days ago no one had seemed interested in us at all. The day started and so did the battle for first, the team we were fighting against started two minutes before us in the starting order, we slowly made up ground on them. Eventually pulling ahead, unfortunately we were performing a driver exchange every hour and a half and they were not. During our driver change they managed to erase the gap, we had pushed the car a little too hard and had to slow. We just managed to sneak in 39 laps in the morning but they managed 40, putting them three laps ahead of us. We knew that in the afternoon session we were going to have to push incredibly hard if we wanted to win.
I took off all the limiters on the car and for the first time during the race the car was fully opened up. Until this point, we could only discharge our batteries to 42 volts and pull 42 amps from our batteries. We were able to change this 38 volts and 80 amps. The team decided that I would be the one to drive the last shift which was only two hours instead of three like the past three afternoons. We ran the first hour fast but not super fast, and the team we were fighting against just went lights out. Their car just had a little more than we had. We gave it our best shot and took the batteries all the way down to 38 volts under load which is surely terrible for them. We ended up down by 7 laps finally or a difference of just 2.2% over the course of the competition. We were thrilled!
At the awards banquet we were incredibly honored to bring home the Lockheed Martin Engineering Award for the best engineered car at the whole competition. This was an unexpected and extremely exciting award. I also personally won an award for giving a speech at the closing banquet. Bringing our total number of trophies and awards to five. One telemetry, one day victory, one engineering award, one “order of the solar cell”, and one second place trophy. The team really came together and it was truly a special thing to see. I personally could not be more proud of the way the team or car did. We kicked butt!
A final note:
I wrote this with a heavy heart. This will be my last team update ever for the OSRC. Next fall, I will be a freshman at the University of Michigan. The past two years have been a roller coaster of success, failure, excitement, disappoint, and lots of long hours. I started the OSRC with a dream and all of you bought into that dream and for that I cannot thank you enough. When I first started I had no idea the time, dedication, or sacrifices that would be required to build a real life solar powered race car, take it all the way down to Texas, pass an extremely difficult tech process, and then actually race and compete against teams from all around the country. I cannot thank everyone enough who bought into this crazy dream and has gotten us here. Looking towards the future, the dream is going to continue to race and hopefully win. We need your help to get there.
Next year the OSRC is going to try their best to win a national championship and we want you to continue to be apart of it. We will have two seniors leaving, myself and Kyle Samluk. There will be a bit of a learning curve but I have no doubt that the OSRC is going to kick butt next year in Texas. The plan is to take a month off then get right back into it, the team already has a long list of improvements they want to make in order to have the car more competitive next year. I have no doubt that we will be able to run significantly more laps next summer. Go chiefs!
Sincerely,
Will Jones and the Okemos Solar Racing Club
Day one of scrutineering:
I was incredibly tense, I had no idea the problems the judges would come up with on our car. I knew that if we couldn’t pass and weren’t able to race it would have been my fault. I started the team, this was my dream, my team, my car. As we’re unloading the car into the garage at the Texas Motor Speedway. I hop in, turn the car on, and there’s a huge spark right by my hip. We have no idea what caused it or why it happened. I go to get our scrutineering assignment and of course the first station we are assigned is electrical. Luckily, while going over the car at the electrical station we experience the spark again and determine the cause of the problem is some faulty heat shrink over a shunt. The judges have a couple of problems with our insulation but they’re all easy fixes.
The next station we are assigned is braking. At some point while taking our car apart and putting it back together during the electrical we accidentally short our supplemental system. We pass everything in the braking station except the brake light test because unbeknownst to us our supplemental system is shorted. We go back and take a look and see a disaster inside our supplemental system box. Wires fused together, bare wires where there’s supposed to be insulation. None of our supplemental systems are working. While we’re waiting to be assigned our next station we somehow manage to fix everything except our horn. The next station we’re assigned is mechanical and we manage to pass everything except a broken horn, on our first try which was a huge accomplishment. Our time runs out on day one and we headed back to the hotel, refuel, fix our insulation problems, and fix our faulty horn.
Day two of scrutineering:
We manage to get everything signed off on electrical and mechanical and electrical in about five minutes, pass the rest of the stations easily, and kill our presentation on how we built our vehicle to the judges. We end the day in the morning at about 11:30 as the third team through scrutineering. That evening, we were incredibly honored to win an award for our telemetry system. We were incredibly proud of next years captain who designed and built the entire system, Eric Andrechek.
Day three of scrutineering:
We’re able to sleep in a little bit, then head over for the all team picture. We make sure the car is ready to race the next day, I walk the team through any problems I could think of that might occur, and we then offered a hand to any teams who weren't through scrutineering yet.
Day one of racing:
We start with a lot of nervous energy. We had no idea if the car would run reliability or how long we could really go before we either ran out of energy or the car would break from a million different problems. We also knew that if anything went wrong, we knew how to fix it. Once we got out onto the track, things kind of clicked, the car was super reliable and much to our surprise we were passing people. The car ran super well the first day. We had no problems and we ended the day two laps out of first place.
That evening we are able to recharge the car and also replace the front tires. To the members of the team who had not experienced that fun process yet it was a great learning experience. We ended the night as last team out of the garage, but ready to race the next day.
Day two of racing:
We started with a lot of excitement, we knew that we were in it to win it and we ran the car pretty hard. We finished the day running 79 laps and winning the day which was super exciting. At the halfway point in the race we were winning by two laps. That night, we were having chain tension issues and ended up replacing both chains which was a total pain in the neck, once again we were on of the last teams to leave the garage.
Day three of racing:
We knew we had run the car a little too hard on Tuesday and then we drove maybe a little too conservatively in the morning. In the afternoon we were ready to go and drove hard. We ended up running 41 laps which ended up being a personal best for most laps run in an afternoon session. We finished the day with 76 laps total but our competitors ended up running 80, this putting us two laps out of first. After spending the past two nights working on the car too late into the night, we decided that the car was fine and didn’t touch it.
Day of four of racing:
We knew that it was going to be a close race. Our team was two laps back of winning a national championship in our first year ever competing. At this point everyone was coming over and trying to get a look at our car and determine why it was so well. Earlier in the week we had won an award for our telemetry system and between that and the fact that our car was doing so well, it seemed like everyone and their brother was trying to check out our car and talk to us. This was super cool because four days ago no one had seemed interested in us at all. The day started and so did the battle for first, the team we were fighting against started two minutes before us in the starting order, we slowly made up ground on them. Eventually pulling ahead, unfortunately we were performing a driver exchange every hour and a half and they were not. During our driver change they managed to erase the gap, we had pushed the car a little too hard and had to slow. We just managed to sneak in 39 laps in the morning but they managed 40, putting them three laps ahead of us. We knew that in the afternoon session we were going to have to push incredibly hard if we wanted to win.
I took off all the limiters on the car and for the first time during the race the car was fully opened up. Until this point, we could only discharge our batteries to 42 volts and pull 42 amps from our batteries. We were able to change this 38 volts and 80 amps. The team decided that I would be the one to drive the last shift which was only two hours instead of three like the past three afternoons. We ran the first hour fast but not super fast, and the team we were fighting against just went lights out. Their car just had a little more than we had. We gave it our best shot and took the batteries all the way down to 38 volts under load which is surely terrible for them. We ended up down by 7 laps finally or a difference of just 2.2% over the course of the competition. We were thrilled!
At the awards banquet we were incredibly honored to bring home the Lockheed Martin Engineering Award for the best engineered car at the whole competition. This was an unexpected and extremely exciting award. I also personally won an award for giving a speech at the closing banquet. Bringing our total number of trophies and awards to five. One telemetry, one day victory, one engineering award, one “order of the solar cell”, and one second place trophy. The team really came together and it was truly a special thing to see. I personally could not be more proud of the way the team or car did. We kicked butt!
A final note:
I wrote this with a heavy heart. This will be my last team update ever for the OSRC. Next fall, I will be a freshman at the University of Michigan. The past two years have been a roller coaster of success, failure, excitement, disappoint, and lots of long hours. I started the OSRC with a dream and all of you bought into that dream and for that I cannot thank you enough. When I first started I had no idea the time, dedication, or sacrifices that would be required to build a real life solar powered race car, take it all the way down to Texas, pass an extremely difficult tech process, and then actually race and compete against teams from all around the country. I cannot thank everyone enough who bought into this crazy dream and has gotten us here. Looking towards the future, the dream is going to continue to race and hopefully win. We need your help to get there.
Next year the OSRC is going to try their best to win a national championship and we want you to continue to be apart of it. We will have two seniors leaving, myself and Kyle Samluk. There will be a bit of a learning curve but I have no doubt that the OSRC is going to kick butt next year in Texas. The plan is to take a month off then get right back into it, the team already has a long list of improvements they want to make in order to have the car more competitive next year. I have no doubt that we will be able to run significantly more laps next summer. Go chiefs!
Sincerely,
Will Jones and the Okemos Solar Racing Club
Update 2-25-19
We were excited to have a break from this rough Michigan winter, giving us an opportunity to test our car and see some of our hard work this winter pay off.
We are looking forward to an exciting spring testing our vehicle, and racing at the Solar Car Challenge this summer. We would like announce we officially submitted our registration fee and submitted our registration document. We would like to thank, AVL for donating an additional $2,000 dollars to our car, helping us pay for important spare parts and our registration fee.
Cheers!
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
Update 2-5-19
Dear Friends of the Okemos Solar Racing Club,
We have had a busy fall/winter and are excited to share our progress. Since we last shared a progress update, we have completely torn the car apart, painted it, performed some important gearing modifications, and some final touches on the welding.
Our first stop after our last update was taking our car to the Impression Five Museum. We were excited to show off our car at a "Clean Energy Day".
Next, we took our car to Complete Battery Source. This was a great way to not only show off our car, but also thank one of sponsors, Complete Battery Source.
Finally, we drove our car during halftime at the Okemos football game. This was an awesome opportunity to show off our car in front of a crowd of people.
After showing off our car at all of these venues, we learned a lot about the car and decided to completely tear it apart and rebuild it, so it will be highly competitive this summer at the Solar Car Challenge.
The first thing we did was totally strip the frame so we could paint it. We did this because our bare steel frame was beginning to oxidize (rust) and we wanted to protect it.
While the frame was apart, we changed the gearing on the motor. This ended up being a huge project because it required us to install a jackshaft and to flip the motor over. Thank you very much to Mr. Pline, one of our Okemos math teachers who very patiently spent quite a few weekends with our president, Will, in his shop figuring out how to gear the motor lower.
The car is now being rapidly put back together and is currently drivable. However, we are in the process of putting the panels back on and a quite few other projects while waiting for some warmer weather to begin testing again.
We look forward to keeping you updated on our project, and expect to have some cool video to share soon.
Thank you for your continued support,
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
We have had a busy fall/winter and are excited to share our progress. Since we last shared a progress update, we have completely torn the car apart, painted it, performed some important gearing modifications, and some final touches on the welding.
Our first stop after our last update was taking our car to the Impression Five Museum. We were excited to show off our car at a "Clean Energy Day".
Next, we took our car to Complete Battery Source. This was a great way to not only show off our car, but also thank one of sponsors, Complete Battery Source.
Finally, we drove our car during halftime at the Okemos football game. This was an awesome opportunity to show off our car in front of a crowd of people.
After showing off our car at all of these venues, we learned a lot about the car and decided to completely tear it apart and rebuild it, so it will be highly competitive this summer at the Solar Car Challenge.
The first thing we did was totally strip the frame so we could paint it. We did this because our bare steel frame was beginning to oxidize (rust) and we wanted to protect it.
While the frame was apart, we changed the gearing on the motor. This ended up being a huge project because it required us to install a jackshaft and to flip the motor over. Thank you very much to Mr. Pline, one of our Okemos math teachers who very patiently spent quite a few weekends with our president, Will, in his shop figuring out how to gear the motor lower.
The car is now being rapidly put back together and is currently drivable. However, we are in the process of putting the panels back on and a quite few other projects while waiting for some warmer weather to begin testing again.
We look forward to keeping you updated on our project, and expect to have some cool video to share soon.
Thank you for your continued support,
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
Update 9/18/18
Dear Friends of the Okemos Solar Racing Club,
We have had an extremely busy summer and our super excited on the progress of our car.
June was a little bit of a wash for the SRC because of final exams and the start of summer. However, the break was a good refresh after a disappointing end to last year.
In July, Will Jones, our student leader, personally traveled to the Solar Car Challenge in Dallas, Texas. He acted as a judge during the “scrutineering” process and was able to look under the “hood” of every car at the competition. Of the experience he said, "It was incredible, I was able to ask tons of questions and make lots of connections. This was an invaluable experience to be able to participate in, and will undoubtedly make competing next year significantly easier."
After attending the Solar Car Challenge, we had to go back to the drawing board. There were several things on our car that we had to redesign. Unfortunately, this meant totally stripping our car and sending it back to our welder in order for the modifications to be completed.
Once again we would like to thank our welder, Stewart Woolard, for his continued support of our project and hours spent on our car.
After getting the car back from the welder, we quickly went to work rebuilding our car. A couple of weeks ago, we were able to drive the car out of the shop which was an extremely exciting moment.
After that energizing first drive, we excitedly finished our panel mounts and wired in the charge controller. This is the device that takes the energy from the sun and regulates the power so it can properly charge our panels. Note: Thank you Midnite Solar for your generous discount!. The car, as it sits now, is a true “solar car”. Energy from the sun is captured by the panels and then put back into our batteries or directly into our motor. Although we still have a lot to be completed before our car is ready to race competitively our team is very excited. If you would like to see our car/team in the “wild” we will be driving in the OHS homecoming parade on the 28th of September and as well as participating in a “Clean Energy Day” at the Impression 5 Museum on the 22nd of September.
This week ended up being a busy week for the Solar Racing Club. On Tuesday we welcomed some new members to the team at our first meeting for the new school year. This Saturday, we drove some test miles and created a little video.
We are very excited and looking forward to what this year brings. We would like to thank each and every one of you for your continued support of our team.
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
Status Update 6/26/18 **Summer Update**
Dear Friends of the Okemos Solar Racing Club,
It is with great disappointment that the Okemos Solar Racing Club will not be able to compete in the 2018 Solar Car Challenge. Our vehicle will not be ready in time to properly compete. We have been working as hard as we possibly can the past few months in order to prepare our vehicle. At this time the car is not “roadworthy.” At this point, we know we are rushing to compete and cutting many corners. Our vehicle needs to be safe, roadworthy, and have many miles under its tires in order to properly compete. In the time we have left until the competition begins in July, it is just not possible to safely compete.
In spite of that we are still working on the solar car to make it as efficient as possible. We are planning to race in the 2019 Solar Car Challenge. We are grateful for all of our sponsors and without them none of this would have been possible.
Since our last update we have progressed a lot. We have attached a steering wheel, a seat, a battery box and battery, throttle, and back suspension.
We are thrilled to be working throughout the summer till the upcoming school year. Have a great summer!
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
It is with great disappointment that the Okemos Solar Racing Club will not be able to compete in the 2018 Solar Car Challenge. Our vehicle will not be ready in time to properly compete. We have been working as hard as we possibly can the past few months in order to prepare our vehicle. At this time the car is not “roadworthy.” At this point, we know we are rushing to compete and cutting many corners. Our vehicle needs to be safe, roadworthy, and have many miles under its tires in order to properly compete. In the time we have left until the competition begins in July, it is just not possible to safely compete.
In spite of that we are still working on the solar car to make it as efficient as possible. We are planning to race in the 2019 Solar Car Challenge. We are grateful for all of our sponsors and without them none of this would have been possible.
Since our last update we have progressed a lot. We have attached a steering wheel, a seat, a battery box and battery, throttle, and back suspension.
We are thrilled to be working throughout the summer till the upcoming school year. Have a great summer!
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
Status Update 3/26/18
Dear Friends of the Okemos Solar Racing Club,
Since our last email we have made an incredible amount of progress on the construction of our solar car. We have purchased our motor, and now have almost all of the components we need to complete our car. Thank you to our sponsors for providing these necessary parts.
We would like to thank AVL for their financial contributions, without AVL none of this would be possible. Thank you also to Complete Battery Source for donating our batteries. Will''s mom is extremely happy to have the batteries removed from her dining room.
On the financial side we have been hard at work. We have secured food nights at local restaurants for the future and are still working on securing more food nights. Of course, we would accept any contributions. We have also continued to fundraise and work on the documentation necessary to race.
On the mechanical side, we have continued to work on the car's frame. We have mounted the front wheels and are finalizing the design for the rear suspension mounts. A large thank you to the Holder Corporation for helping us machine the mounts for the front wheels. We have also worked on finalizing steering mounting points and finalizing our battery box.
Lastly, we have received our motor and one of our teammates, Gal, has our motor spinning! Below, is a video of Gal firing the motor up. We hope to have a running and driving car after spring break. We are super-excited about the progress we have made and will keep you updated on our progress.
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
Since our last email we have made an incredible amount of progress on the construction of our solar car. We have purchased our motor, and now have almost all of the components we need to complete our car. Thank you to our sponsors for providing these necessary parts.
We would like to thank AVL for their financial contributions, without AVL none of this would be possible. Thank you also to Complete Battery Source for donating our batteries. Will''s mom is extremely happy to have the batteries removed from her dining room.
On the financial side we have been hard at work. We have secured food nights at local restaurants for the future and are still working on securing more food nights. Of course, we would accept any contributions. We have also continued to fundraise and work on the documentation necessary to race.
On the mechanical side, we have continued to work on the car's frame. We have mounted the front wheels and are finalizing the design for the rear suspension mounts. A large thank you to the Holder Corporation for helping us machine the mounts for the front wheels. We have also worked on finalizing steering mounting points and finalizing our battery box.
Lastly, we have received our motor and one of our teammates, Gal, has our motor spinning! Below, is a video of Gal firing the motor up. We hope to have a running and driving car after spring break. We are super-excited about the progress we have made and will keep you updated on our progress.
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
Status Update 3/9/18
We apologize profusely for the lack of updates on our progress. We have been working very hard and we have some exciting news regarding our progress on building our solar-powered race car. Since we’ve last touched base we’ve achieved a lot. Our team has been accomplishing goals from fundraising to assembling our car. We are confident that we will achieve our preconceived goals of racing this summer in the Solar Car Challenge. Here is a breakdown of everything we have accomplished thus far:
In terms of fundraising we have reached out to teachers, businesses, and family members, accounting for most of the money we’ve made. So, thank you for all of your support! All of your participation and help has enabled us to purchase crucial parts, and do more fundraisers. So far, we have done two deposit can/bottle drives, a bake sale, collected scrap metal for the junkyard, and done two food-nights at local restaurants. Also we have a food-night at Chipotle next Tuesday. Hope to see you there!
We have registered for the Solar Car Challenge this summer which we are very excited about. We attribute that to you, our sponsors! Also we have started the process of planning our trip and cannot wait to compete.
We have ordered our motor and we’re glad to announce that we have our solar panels thanks to Mid-Michigan Solar King, our batteries thanks to Complete Battery Source, our rear suspension thanks to Slicks, and our front suspension and tires thanks to Buena Vista Surrey. Thank you to all our sponsors for your support!
We have made good progress on the design of our car and have begun the building process. Shown below is the bare bones of our frame, our battery box, and our panels. We look forward to keeping you updated on the progress of our car and we will have much more news shortly!
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club
In terms of fundraising we have reached out to teachers, businesses, and family members, accounting for most of the money we’ve made. So, thank you for all of your support! All of your participation and help has enabled us to purchase crucial parts, and do more fundraisers. So far, we have done two deposit can/bottle drives, a bake sale, collected scrap metal for the junkyard, and done two food-nights at local restaurants. Also we have a food-night at Chipotle next Tuesday. Hope to see you there!
We have registered for the Solar Car Challenge this summer which we are very excited about. We attribute that to you, our sponsors! Also we have started the process of planning our trip and cannot wait to compete.
We have ordered our motor and we’re glad to announce that we have our solar panels thanks to Mid-Michigan Solar King, our batteries thanks to Complete Battery Source, our rear suspension thanks to Slicks, and our front suspension and tires thanks to Buena Vista Surrey. Thank you to all our sponsors for your support!
We have made good progress on the design of our car and have begun the building process. Shown below is the bare bones of our frame, our battery box, and our panels. We look forward to keeping you updated on the progress of our car and we will have much more news shortly!
Sincerely,
The Okemos Solar Racing Club