Media Release - Final Results Updated

The final results have been updated to reflect an error in sorting. This affects the listed placing for the Adventure Class, 14, 15 and 16.

http://wsc.org.au/results

Leeming Senior High School Final Student Blogs

Days 13 – 15. I have to apologise for the last few days. It's been very full on and we've gotten back to the hotels roughly at 10:30, meaning we've had very little time to blog. Although, this just means that I have a lot more to write today. We have gone through quite a bit in the last few days and are now in relaxation mode.

Day 13 was by far one of the worst days we had the entire trip. Not long after starting, we started to experience a little problem. We could see dust storms in the background and there was very little sun to keep the car moving. This was very disappointing for most of us, as we had woken up very early in Coober Pedy to drive 60km to our ending point from the day before.

The night in Coober Pedy was an interesting one. We stayed in a place called the Dugout Motel. Basically, it was a whole underground back packers motel. The guys stayed in an area called "The Dungeon" while the girls were in "The Digger's Cave". It was very interesting, as we had to bring all our own sleeping bags and a pillow. This meant that at first, all you could see were these bunk beds without bedding, surrounded by rock.

Later that night, we all went across the road to a Pizza Restaurant. Yes, I said restaurant. It was all very nice and the pizzas were massive, but people quickly forgot that they were in fact in a restaurant. The teachers did as well, so it's not really a problem for anyone. Everyone got stuck into the pizza, and we held a competition to see who could eat the most. The most was by Trent Rule and I, who both ate seven slices.

When we were arriving in Port Augusta, the dust storms continued and were fiercer than before. It reminded most of us of the Apocalypse, as cliché as that sounds. Since there was so much dust in the sky, and it was also raining, there was mud rain falling from the sky. It turned our car and other vehicles completely brown. The drivers of the solar car were steering with one hand and holding the roof down with the other! We just couldn't drive in that weather, so we were forced to trailer the car.

We arrived in a smaller township, looking for a place to stay. Unfortunately, there were two major weddings on at the time. We were forced to move onto Adelaide. We left the township at 5, and didn't get into Adelaide until like 10. Everyone was completely shattered and pretty much unable to speak LOTG (Languages Other Than Gibberish). Once we all found our hotels, we all went out and grabbed Hungry Jacks or McDonalds.

Adelaide was full of partying and emos. It was very similar to Northbridge at night. This wasn't exactly a good welcoming for us, and we all thought Adelaide was a little bit dodgy… But the next few days in Adelaide really proved us wrong.

Day 14. After the first night spent in Adelaide, we were all ready to get up and escape the Shakespeare hotel. We were split up into two hotels, because they had to accommodate Willetton in one of them as well. It was a bit of a rude awakening, as we were all kicked out of bed by Mr Morgan. We simply moved to the other hotel, which was called the Blue Galah. It had Foxtel and a pool table, so that kept a lot of us entertained.

Later that morning, we went down to a car park where we were storing all our vehicles, and removed the solar car from the trailer. We charged it up and got it ready to cross the finish line. The rest of us all went to the finish line, eagerly awaiting the arrival of our pride and joy, the Hammerhead. Unfortunately, Willetton went before us, so it felt like they beat us despite the fact we drove further than them. When our car did arrive, we were all very loud though, and we managed to get the support of a lot of other teams as well. There were cameras for BTN there, as well as all of the officials.

After all the cars had been brought in, they were all set up on display. The cars from Greenfleet through to the cars from both solar classes were all there. They all had to go undercover though, as there were rain clouds rolling in from all directions. While all the cars were being scrutinised (by the public this time), there was two other challenges going on; the mini solar cars and solar boats. These were both very exciting, and drew very large crowds.

Later on that night, we all went to the official ceremony of the 2007 Panasonic World Solar Challenge. Here, the awards were presented and the teams were all given recognition for partaking in the event. Before this, everyone stayed down in the lobby and took part in another (unofficial) ceremony; shirt swapping. Basically, you take a few clean shirts and can trade them with other teams, so you can remember the occasion and whoever else was there.

The awards went on for a little too long, and finished up with a very corny song… Walking On Sunshine. It was a very good ceremony, however, and all the teams who won all of the awards were very deserving. For instance, the award for the Environment went to the Welsh team, which were a family of 5. They had a very low budget, much like ours; although they made our budget look like Michigan's.

Solar Car Blog Day 15 and 16.

These days were days of relaxation. That is the simplest way to sum it up. It consisted of us going into Adelaide city, Rundle Mall to be precise, and going shopping. Well, that was for HALF of us. The other half of us had to go back down to the park and retrieve the vehicles, so that we could get them washed. After a few hours in the dust storms around Port Augusta, our cars were looking a little on the dirty side.

The group that went down to the car wash were getting a bit irritated, waiting to get the support vehicles in, as they had to wait behind one tow truck which had been in there for about an hour. We did EVENTUALLY get in though, and hilarity ensued. When we weren't accidentally (I'm being serious) wetting each other, we were accidentally wetting Mr Sheppard. He wasn't too impressed, but he did realise it was an accident, so we lived to see another day.

After all the vehicles had been cleaned, we returned them back to the park with all the other cars, and just headed back to the hostel. We spent about an hour there having lunch, and then returned to the park. The next job was to simply clean the INSIDE of the vehicles, so that they were ready to return to the rental company. It was a fairly simple job, and it didn't take too long, but we somehow still managed to have fun doing it… And doing it properly!

The rest of the evening was really just slacking. Mr Morgan and Mr Sheppard cooked us all dinner, which was chicken with vegetables (such as coleslaw). We all gathered around the pool table and had a few games, which was a good throw back to the Alatai in Darwin. Once again, Mr Morgan and Mr Beattie cleaned us all up.

The next day, however, was slightly different… We were heading back to Perth. This just meant that we had to return all of the vehicles today and pack up our stuff. This was NOT exciting. Unfortunately, I ended up being the only one to stack it the entire trip. I tried to jump a fence and tripped, ending up on my behind. It was good comic value, and the only thing that was bruised was my ego.

When we got to the airport, it was pretty much exactly the same as when we got to the airport in Perth. We hung around for a bit and just waited. The plane trip wasn't very exciting either. Die Hard 4.0 was on, people slept and everyone chilled. We were all very tired, and most of us still are… As you may be able to tell.

The end of a fantastic trip, which a lot of us hope to do again in 2009. It's a pity it had to come to an end like it did, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

P.S: Thanks for all the positive feedback I've been receiving on my blogs; I hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as I've enjoyed writing them.


Written by Curtis Brand (Year 11)

Going Home.

Well we're on the plane, heading back from Adelaide to Perth. It's an enjoyable finish to an enjoyable trip; although a very stressful one as well. We're all very excited to be on the plane, to head back to Perth where all our families will be waiting for us. That is, unless they really enjoyed us being away.

Although we beat our old record, had two weeks away from school and had a lot of fun on the trip… I don't feel these things were the best things out of it. Students from year 10, 11 and 12 went on this trip. We all knew each other prior to this, although we weren't all friends. You wouldn't think that people from a range of years would be able to become such a close group, but the trip did strange things.

We grew to like each other, as we got to know each other. Of course, there were always our little arguments, as we did have to spend 15 days with each other, but these just made us grow closer in the end. Anyone who says that they did not make a new friend on this trip is clearly lying. We even became better friends with the people we were already friends with.

Finally, we got an understanding of how the teachers were involved in this. The emotions they felt when we had troubles with the car, to the joy they felt when we managed to get it working again. Our emotions tended to mirror whatever they were feeling at the time. It was full of great life lessons for all of us, and I know that I for one would do it all over again.

I enjoyed writing the blogs, and I hope you enjoyed reading them.

Thank you.

Written by Curtis Brand.

Leeming SHS: Leeming's last few days

We near the end.

Saturday 27 October: A small team, Morgan, Curtis, Ryan, Cavenagh and Doug, are up early to get the car out to the start position 57 Km south of Coober Pedy. The plan is to charge some more, before we head off to the Glendambo Control Stop. We got quite a good charge Friday afternoon as we stopped early.

The drivers head out to the car for an 8:00AM start. On the way we all notice the cloudy sky, its clear to the west and there are a few breaks further south but it appears to be getting thicker behind us. We get to the car and the strong northerly wind that accompanied us yesterday is stronger today and we consider how it will affect the car. As the wind is pretty much behind us we figure it will be okay and head out.

The clouds get thicker as we progress toward Gendambo, we notice the sky becoming hazy in the distance and the wind is getting stronger. Our goal for the day was firstly to make Glendambo. This would mean that we will have solared the whole way from Alice through two control stops and should see us reach the 1000km mark about 50 k's before Glendambo. Once we made the control stop we hoped to proceed on and clock up some more solar Kilometres, hopefully another 150 to 200 beyond Glendambo. The clouds are still thickening but we are advantaged by our large cross sectional area acting as a sail as the wind pushes us along. Array output begins to decrease and at times we are only seeing about 200 watts compared to the 1150 we saw at times yesterday.

The bus catches us as we pass the 1000Km mark. I radio the team with the news, the reply comes "and there was much rejoicing…. Yaaay".

We have had to slow down (about 45 kp/h), the clouds are thick and the haze that we saw in the distance is now surrounding us, you can taste the dust in the air and when we stop to change drivers we wipe the thick layer of dust from the array in the hope that we can get a better output. The dust is so thick that at times visibility is down to 200 meters I am beginning to become concerned about driving in these conditions. We are very close to Glendambo, less than half an hour, so we decide to continue and make the control stop just after midday we sit for the mandatory half an hour.

The wind is stronger and the haze increases we also feel some drops of rain and, after a brief discussion we decide it is too dangerous to continue. The batteries have also been used heavily to get to Glendambo and there is little charge coming in. We hope that we may be able to restart further south if the weather becomes clearer. A further 20 Min or so to load the car into the trailer and we head out.

As we travel south it becomes apparent that the weather is getting worse. David our observer, also a farmer on the York Peninsula, contacts two weather stations, one on Kangaroo Island and one further west, for the latest weather reports. It doesn't sound good. When I have phone coverage I contact Hedgie back in Perth and ask him to look up latest forecasts. The news confirms David's info and worse, there is a severe weather warning to the west of Port Augusta, and that's where we are heading.

As we travel we overtake other solar car teams, some trailering some solaring, I am glad at this point that our car is in the trailer and the team is safely in the vehicles. The dust in the air is incredible and the Northerly wind must be blowing close to 50 knots. I have never seen anything like it. Fortunately it is behind us so we are not burning fuel pushing into it like some of the trucks we see heading North. David our observer has been farming in the area since 1956 and he comments that he's never seen it worse.

We get to Port Augusta after 4:00pm and get out of our vehicles. The wind has increased and it is hard to stand up straight. We seek shelter and the two yellow shirts manning the control stop inform us that the race has been abandoned due to the weather. It seems our race is over.

We had originally planned to camp tonight and try and get a few more solar Kilometres tomorrow, but we won't be camping tonight and we won't be solaring tomorrow. We discuss finding accommodation in Port Augusta, but considering it is still early we decide to go another 80 Km South to Port Pirie. As we leave Port August it begins to rain mud. The atmosphere is full of dust whipped up by the near gale force winds coming off the desert. As the rain begins to fall it picks up the dust in the atmosphere and forms mud droplets. Our white support vehicles and bus are now brown. I continually use the washer and the wipers to keep the windscreen clear.

We arrive at Port Pirie about 5:30 but are informed by two different cabin parks that they are full. We are also told that there are two weddings and a couple of other functions on in town and we'd be lucky to find any thing but camp sites. One caravan park owner said that given the weather conditions, he wouldn't allow us to camp any way. I had no intention of doing so.

We decide to go to Adelaide. I ring Susan and Ross who have flown to Adelaide to see us cross the line and ask them to find us some accommodation, preferably in the form of a back packer or similar. They do well and organise the team to be spread over two back packers right in the city. We will be together tomorrow night.

We head to Adelaide and we expect to arrive around 8:30pm. Just North of Port Wakefield we spy the Willetton Sungroper trailer on the side of the road with no tow vehicle attached. I frantically switch to their UHF frequency and ask if they need help. They reply that the trailer hitch has snapped and do we have some tools? Our lead and follow vehicle turn around and we get out to assist. We assess the situation, It does not look like an easy repair job on the side of the road. Darren has headed into Port Wakefield to find a flat bed truck to tow the trailer. We help them to move the trailer further off the road by standing on the back of the trailer and raising the nose then pushing it. I tell Chris that our team in Adelaide can help them out finding some accommodation. They do and they end up staying at one of the back-packers that we are in. We hear that our bus has been in communication with the Willetton bus and that Darren has found a flat bed truck which is on the way.

We arrive in Adelaide about 10:00pm, manage to park outside one of the back-packers and get our gear off the bus. It rains heavily. Gear is ferried to the other back-packer and we split into two groups for dinner, Its Hungry Jacks for us at the Blue Galah and Macdonalds for those at Shakespears.

We go to bed close to midnight and lose an hour of sleep because of the change to day light saving time.

Sunday 28 Oct Day Something!?

We rise and those staying at Shakespear's pack up and move to the Blue Galah which is situated perfectly, halfway between the ceremonial finish line at Victoria square and the solar car mustering area at Torrens Parade ground. It's right near the west end of the Rundle Street Mall.

We move the support vehicles, bus and car to the parade ground which has free parking and 24 hour security. We prepare the solar car for our ceremonial trip across the finish line and to take our 15 min of glory however, our old nemesis the driver control board has decided not to play ball. We try many things and Doug notices a wire has de-soldered itself from the board. He repairs it but still no go. After much twisting and kind words of encouragement it eventually springs to life. After a 35 min wait we are cleared to go, Trent drives the final 2 kilometres. Our escort driver comments how well our car drives up the hill and how so many others have struggled. I smile. Trent rushes to the finish line and we are here. We choose not to jump into the fountain to celebrate.

That evening we attend the awards ceremony and don't go to the after party, it's in a pub. Instead we enjoy a Chinese meal at a local restaurant. Steve and Leonie have negotiated a good deal and all are happy. Home to bed, no early starts but still lots to do.

Monday October 29^th and Tue 30^th.

Packing trailers, cleaning vehicles and dropping trailers and hire cars at various locations. Last minute shopping for gifts for friends and family. Make it to airport and relax before boarding a slightly delayed flight. Tired but happy! Happy birthday Danyal.

Thank you to sponsors, supporters, Doug and the Treen boys and those who helped us to solve our problems whilst we were on the road.

2009?

You bet-cha. :-)

John Beattie

Team Manager

Leeming Hammerhead

Leeming Senior High School

Solar Car Team

Leeming SHS: Challenge Day 8: 28 October

This is the final day of the Challenge, or would have been, if it hadn't been called due to weather yesterday, which it wasn't.

The story, it turns out, is that the police asked the WSC to take solar cars off the road while a severe weather warning was in effect, with the intent that they could return to solaring later if the weather improved. But by the time this trickled down to the teams on the road, the story had chinese-whispered to become the end of solaring. For those teams that got the message, anyway: some only heard when they reached the finish line.

The finish line: that's our final objective.

We walk from our backpackers', in the Adelaide CBD, down to Torrens Parade Ground, the logistics area for teams. We roll our car out of the trailer, and turn it on.

Predictably, it doesn't go.

The driver controls board is deader than usual: we flex it, to no avail, and so I am forced to resort to the soldering iron and a few mumbled incantations. It turns out that a combination of soldering and flexing resurrect the board from always-fail to usually-fail. We get a good boot and leave it alone.

Last time, the WSC provided a lead bus that held our crew and a follow vehicle to escort our car. This time they provide the bus again, but it's not a lead vehicle: it just ferries us up to the finish line at Victoria Square, leaving only our driver in the solar car and our team manager in the follow vehicle. This is clever because this way, if anything goes wrong with our car during the drive (which is up-hill), we'll be unable to deal with it, and the car will be left stuck in the right lane of city trafic.

Most of our radio comms are either flat (because we're in a backpackers' rather than our regular camp, so radios were not charged overnight), or vehicle mounted, and we're away from our vehicles. We've got comms between the solar car and the team manager in the follow vehicle, but no more. Our radios don't work on the WSC's radio channel, and theirs don't work on ours.

We arrive at the finish line.

We wait. Nothing happens.

We wait. Nothing happens.

We wait. We receive word that Willetton's car, Sungroper, has left the parade grounds. They're a bit of a special case: their car isn't running, so they're simply going to push it by hand. They have a police escort to help them not get run over while they do this.

We wait. Strobe lights appear a few traffic lights away. With each cycle of lights, they get one intersection closer, then they cross the line. All cheer.

We wait. We receive word that our car has left the parade grounds. Probably. It sounds like it's working. Probably.

Strobes appear in traffic, and after a smaller wait, because our car can move faster than a hand-pushed car, we cross the finish line. All cheer.

Cheering and celebrations are much more subdued than in my two previous Challenges, possibly because we have been kept waiting so long.

We hang around the square for a while, looking at other cars, which are on display in marquee tents. We cheer one other car as it crosses the line. Cars are arriving only very slowly, even though there are several cars waiting at the parade grounds to come in.

There is a solar boat race, with small boats made by school students, going on in the fountain. There is a solar car race, with small cars made by school students, going on on the other side of the square. Each car has an egg as driver.

It rains. All retreat to marquees.

We give up waiting for other solar cars to arrive, and return to the backpackers'.

And that's it: the Challenge is over. We completed, by our count, 1050km on solar power. In the evening we go to the awards ceremony, then a team dinner. The following day we pack, and wash our extremely dirty vehicles, and the day after that we're scheduled to return those vehicles and fly home.

-- Doug, Leeming Hammerhead

Leeming SHS: Car Keeps Solaring.

Leeming Car Keeps Solaring.

Sat Morning 27 Oct

What a sensational couple of days. After starting at 8 AM Thur, after waiting for other solar cars still under solar power, the Hammerhead headed from Alice. After a nervous start with the controller having a little hiccup on the start line the car starts to behave.

We cruise out of Alice a little tentatively but as the day progresses the car keeps going without showing any signs of fault. We have enough Telemetry to know what we are putting to the road but rely on the driver to relay current output from the array. We discover that on a good flat surface the car can travel at about 55kph on solar power alone. We are all pleased.

Toward the end of Thursday we have travelled approx 406km but batteries are low. We camp 45km north of Marla and charge the batteries. Willetton are just down the road but are having battery and array issues. They say they can manage about 70km per day. The Esteban team from Canada drop into the camp and we assist them to pump up tyres they too are having problems and say that they restarted from Alice too. I mention that we are ahead of them. The laugh and wish us well.

Friday morning a few of us drive to Marla to pump up the motor wheel. We can't get the bead to seat with our small pump. We head off 40 min late after serving a short time penalty for stopping late the previous evening.

The day progresses well, the car performs beautifully under the near perfect conditions. We targeted 275km to get to Coober Pedy. We have a forced half hour stop at Cadney Control stop and an unscheduled 18 min stop to change a tyre on the troopy and to repair the windscreen which was dislodged by the windblast from a large oncoming truck. Tom said the experience was interesting!

We pass Coober Pedy at 3PM and decide to drain the Batteries by going hard and then choosing to stop and charge. The car continues to travel exceptionally well and beyond expectations and we manage another 57 km beyond our Target Coober Pedy. We stop at 4:10pm and charge till dusk.

Meanwhile support has head for accommodation at Coober Pedy and when the car crew returns we head out for pizza which I highly recommend.

Targets reached:

Two Full days of Solaring.
Ahead of 2005 total.
Solaring complete distant between two control stops.

Cheers for now

John Beattie
Leeming Hammerhead.

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Leeming SHS: Student Blog Day 10 and 11

Solar Car Blog 10

Today, after a long (or not so long) sleep-in for some, we learned that we would be staying in Alice Springs for yet another day, due to a bit of confusion with what time the team were allowed to leave. This enabled us to get some much needed rest, and carry out some much needed repairs on the car.

In the morning, after a delicious breakfast of beans on toast, and several rounds of "Chicken Train" (by 'Ozark Mountain Daredevils' in case you'd like to have a listen) we all headed out to Alice Springs Mall. All the students went their separate ways to buy gifts for family and friends and numerous CD's and Magazines, while Mr Morgan and Mr Sheppard visited yet another Woolworths. Some of the boys then decided to climb to the top of the monument, while the rest of us took the bus. This proved to be a very academically positive excursion, as we managed to spot 5 different fast-food stores from the top, all in the same area.

When we got back, Trent, both Andrews and I (Curtis) all decided to climb the mountains of the McDonnell ranges. They are only about 200m high, but that's still quite a climb, due to near-vertical slopes. We managed to climb up it and down it in less than an hour, and it was good fun. No one slipped, and we had an excellent view from the top. Luckily, we managed to catch the Observer on the radio, as we had such good reception. On the way down, it was a lot more fun. There were a lot of various slippery steep rocks, about 3m long. They all had long, wide steps underneath them, so we were able to use them as slides quite safely.

We all decided it was about time for a swim, where a number of the boys (Flegg) "tried" to chat up some innocent girls in the pool, and we created a 12 person bombie line. We managed to completely drench Tom and Laura who were outside of the pool, when Gracie decided to bombie right next to them. This resulted in a rushed last minute wash, as lots of articles of clothing were soaked.

After we got kicked out of the pool, by Miss Tauber, we all went back to the camp. A couple of people put the solar car back in the trailer and got us completely ready for tomorrow, while everyone else cooked dinner. A couple of us also got in a bit of trouble when we hit the tent of an American lady with a football; but apart from that, all was good. We also all had a last minute pack, with lots of articles of clothing being thrown, lost and buried in sand.

All in all, it was a day well deserved, if not predicted. We got a lot of work done, and had a chance to relax and unwind. We all got to know each other a little better, and it was a great to experience Alice Springs.

By Curtis Brand (Year 11) and Laura Pilsworth (Year 10)

Special thanks to Danyal Cowasjee (Year 10) for helping

Day 11. I think we can call it a complete success. I promised we'd do better, and we sure did. Today we covered 407km with the solar car, which is pretty much 4 times the amount we'd done on solar in the last week! Our total is sitting at 519km now, not far behind our previous record of 798km, which we set in the 2005 Sungroper car. The team is ecstatic and we couldn't have hoped for much more. This is just one step forward to our goal of driving the solar car from Alice Springs to Adelaide.

This morning was a fairly enjoyable one, although very hectic. We all got up by 6:30, but were beaten by the Annesley College girls, who were driving a Greenfleet car. Some of the guys were disappointed and rushed out to say goodbye. I'm not entirely sure if it is a joke for some people or not, which is one thing I am hoping someone will clarify EVENTUALLY.

On top of all this, it was a really enjoyable day. Our team was also happy when we not only physically passed Willetton, but passed them in solar kilometres. They spent a few hours on their trailer unfortunately, while we were going solar from early this morning to 5:04 this evening. Of course, we're also cheering for Willetton, as it's not only our old car, but they're also a fellow WA high school. We would like to beat them though.

The other major thing that went on today was when we crossed the border from Northern Territory and South Australia. Amazingly, no one jumped from one side to the other doing the whole "NT, SA, NT, SA" thing. It was good fun though. We also saw the exact middle of Australia, which is located very closely to the Stuart Highway. We all thought this was a great novelty and took a lot of photos. We'd upload some, but they're pretty much just photos of ground and the bush.

One of the geniuses on the camp (Me) decided that maybe people are missing their families and friends, so one of those geniuses (Me) decided that we could all write a little message for our families down the bottom. Look out for your message below.

Laura says, "Hi to Hilary, Graham and Claire, and to all the people who are supporting me."

Tom says, "Hi Mum!"

Susan says, "Hey to friends and family, and to Daniel. Also Happy Birthday for the 26th to Stuart, hope you have a great day. Miss you all!"

Danyal says, "Hello to family and friends from somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Excuse me, you're in my parking space."

Angela says, "Ni hao ma ma he ba ba! We're spending the second night camping on the side of the road. Hello to all my friends reading this as well ^______^ wo zhen de ai ni, jie jian!"

Candace says, "A big hello to all my family and friends out there reading this, I'm missing you all and look forward to seeing you again. Love you all!"

Kai says, "Hello to anyone who cares about me… I'm fine. See all of you guys soon!"

Trent says, "Hi Home, hi family, hi Dora." :D

Declan says, "Hey everyone at home! We are camping by the side of the road… in the middle of nowhere."

Morison says, "hi parents and harry I saw road kill I saw it first so I got it, so when I get home I want it cooked, I got me a gold sticker for chopping dis darn tree down im special."

Ryan says, "Hi to all my relatives in England and parents, Nathan, Daniel and sister"

Curtis E Bear says, "Hey to everyone back in Perth. Hope it's not too quiet without me. Can't wait to get back and I LOVE YOU SUB."

Cavenagh says, "hi mum and dad, hey grandma (if you are reading this) I hope you all miss me because I will be home next week (I better start walking now) P.S. hey mum can you print a copy for grandma?"

Gizele says "Hey everyone! Miss you all and hope to see you soon. Love you lots."

Rhys Says "Hi Everyone, hope you guys are having fun, cause we are over here."

Flegg Says "Wow what an experience, loving it see you soon.

Michigan: Continuum Repair Pictures

See below for pictures from the World Solar Challenge. Included are pictures of the repairs done to Continuum.

Damage to the lower surface:

Damage to the concentrator canopy:

Damage to the upper surface:

Beginning repairs on the lower surface:

Repaired lower surface:

Repairing the upper surface:

Continuum back on the road!

Continuum charing at a control stop:

Michigan: Reflections

Dear Friends, Family and Fans of the Michigan Solar Car Team,

I am Bob Culver, one of the faculty advisors of the team and I have just returned from Australia and would like to share some perspectives with you.

I often say that the Solar Car experience is a self-awareness or awakening of sorts, allowing students to find their own limits – what they can do and what they cannot do. Well, I was half right. This team was tested often. It started with a structural failure in the bulkhead just a few days before they were scheduled to leave for Australia. The team quickly analyzed and fixed the problem such that the resulting structure was stronger than ever. Then came the dust devil in Australia that almost destroyed the array that you have read about in the blog. And then, of course, was the accident. After a short period of shock and a few tears, the team began the arduous task of rebuilding the front end of Continuum. No one needed any inspirational speeches as everyone was working with determination and purpose as soon as the car was back to the Darwin racetrack. It was truly amazing and inspiring to see the car rebuilt and ready for racing in about 10 hours. This team responded to everything and anything that was thrown at them. So, pardon the double negative, the Continuum team never found out what they couldn’t do!

During the qualifying week, the Continuum team continued the Michigan tradition of helping other teams. The team let the Venezuela team borrow a motor when many of their parts got stuck in customs. And the team, with Chito’s help, built a new wheel hub for the Malaysian team after an accident during a qualifying run destroyed their only hub. What goes around, comes around. At the accident scene, a local Darwin gentleman happened by to see the damage. When he saw the damage, he said he had a friend who was an expert in carbon fiber composites. We called the expert, Mr. Mike Butler, and he joined us back at the racetrack pits. Mike brought with him some fast curing resin which turned out the be critical to getting the repairs done quickly.

A special thanks to all the sponsors of this team. You have enabled an experience of a lifetime for a very special group of kids. They may not have finished first, but this team is definitely a group of winners.

Leeming SHS: 24th to 27th

Challenge Day 4: Wednesday

The part for the battery safety system arrives. I solder it in. It works.

We have a new observer today: we traded out our last one at the checkpoint.

James from Tritium has given me some solder flux and some hints on resoldering fine surface-mount components. I reflow solder on the bits of the driver controls board that I've not yet tackled.

We get another new observer: another team have left the Alice Springs checkpoint without one, and WSC send a vehicle to our caravan park to take our observer to chase them down, and drop us off a temporary replacement.

We take the car for a flog around the Mac Donnel Ranges caravan park's little service roads. It works. The problem with the driver controls board fails to exhibit itself.

In the afternoon, John goes into the Alice Springs control stop. The entire control stop, much bigger than any other because of the externally-imposed requirement to hold cars here, continues to be a giant temple to Eris, goddess of chaos, confusion and discord. He's going in to check that we really will be held here until 5pm this afternoon (which is to say 8am tomorrow, because there's no solaring between 5pm and 8am). He finds that the control stop have changed their mind: another car that has trailered has already been allowed to leave. And they haven't told us, until we actively chased them down and asked them about it. He phones us, but we figure out that by the time we get the car in the trailer, to the check point and out of the trailer again, we'd get maybe 10 minutes of solaring before the end of the day. So we sit.

We get another trade-out of our observer. That's three we've had today; four since our team has moved at all.

Challenge Day 5: Thursday

We take our car back to the Alice Springs control stop, in preparation for our 8am start. Several teams are still camped here, Heliodet and Willetton among them. I chat with Willetton for a bit.

A few minutes before 8am, we're on the line. We turn the motor controller on. It doesn't go.

Damn.

All my reflowing of solder and test driving at the caravan park has been to no avail. We strap a couple of cable ties around it, restart it, and it goes.

We solar out of town, and onwards the whole day. We finish at what the route notes tell us is the turn-off to Granite Downs homestead, after 406km of solaring, with a dead flat battery. We do the dusk charge, facing the array to the setting sun.

Mysteriously, the driver controls (and the entire rest of the car) have given us no trouble whatsoever since we started rolling.

The local copper stops by and trades phone numbers with us, giving us his home number against the possibility of us running into trouble. We camp, in the exact geographic centre of nowhere.

Challenge Day 6: Friday

Dawn charge, and then out on the road. After a few hours, we solar into Cadney homestead to serve our half hour at the control stop. This is the first time the Leeming team has solared all the way from one control stop to another. There are several other teams here, including Heliodet and Queens.

The homestead roadhouse is flat out serving lunches to the teams coming through; we just manage to get our lunches within our 30 minute limit. As soon as we are released, we zip over to the free air to inflate our tyres. Steve crawls around under the vehicle -- the wheels have been assembled with the valves on the inside face, and so a certain amount of grovelling is necessary to get an air hose onto the valve.

We solar out. Further down the road we run into a problem: a road train with an unusually large profile goes past unusually fast, and the bottom edge of the windscreen blows in. The driver pushes it approximately back into place, and we are able to continue a short distance to find a suitable place to pull over to repair. When we pull over we discover that the lead vehicle has a flat tyre. Half of us pop the windscreen back into place and gaffer tape and screw it in position, and half of us change the tyre. 18 minutes later, we're going again.

We continue past Coober Pedy, with the battery mysteriously refusing to go flat. We score 327 solar kilometres for the day, do the dusk charge, and trailer back to Coober Pedy for the night.

We stay at the same underground backpackers we stayed at in 2005; we eat at the same pizza shop we ate at in 2005. At the next table are some German and Dutch guys; it turns out that we've seen them several times on the road. They're motorbiking south along the Stuart highway at vaguely the same average speed as us, and they've given us a wave each time they've passed.

Challenge Day 7: Saturday

The lead vehicle, with the solar car in the trailer, leaves early and heads back to the point we finished solaring last night, 56km south of Coober Pedy. We set up to charge, but it's cloudy and windy. We get about 0.8A coming in, a tenth or so of peak.

We set out with a heavy tail wind. This saves us some energy, but the car is difficult to position on the road, and there's a lot of dust whipping up. With the cloud, we're only getting about a quarter of full sun. Weather forecasts are for cloud, cloud, cloud, with rain and possible thunder further south.

For the first time we're forced to put people outside the car whenever we're stationary: if the wind catches the hammerhead front that we lift to get the driver in and out, then it will flip up and forward, and destroy our front array. We had a latch mechanism, but it was destroyed in shipping to Darwin. So we hold it down when stationary, and improvise a piece of rope that the driver sits on to keep it down when driving.

We "solar" as far as the Glendambo control stop, though there's not a lot of sun involved. The dust continues to blow up; at one point we lose sight of the lead vehicle a couple of hundred metres in front of us.

At Glendambo, we concede defeat: the sky is getting dustier and the cloud is unrelenting. At the end of our 30 minutes, we put the car in the trailer, and drive on fossil fuel to Port Augusta. By the side of the road, we see other teams coming to the same conclusion: U Chile, Heliodet, Solar Fox. Under a thousand kilometres of dust and cloud, there's nowhere to go.

We trailer south, and the sky gets worse. We trailer past Malaysia and Gwawr doggedly refusing to give up: solaring ever slower as the batteries go flat.

At the Port Augusta control stop we are told that the Challenge has been called: the weather is too severe. Our observer, a local farmer, says he's never seen it worse.

We trailer to Port Pirie, seeking accomodation. Brown rain falls. Port Pirie is full, booked out by two weddings, so we trailer to Adelaide.

50km out, we come across the Willetton team pulled over: the draw bar on the Sungroper trailer has broken almost all the way through. We help them push it clear of the road, and loan them some tools. Phone and radio calls are made back and forth, and two Leeming staff who are meeting us in Adelaide find overnight accomodation for the Willetton team, to get them out of the storm.

We arrive, and do logistics. A new tram line has gone in in Adelaide, and the resulting string of "no right turn" signs mean that we take the very long way around to our accomodation. We're actually split across two backpackers: everywhere is full of solar car teams who got here before us. Nine of us stay at the first one, and the rest of us haul luggage a kilometre or so through the rain to the second one.

Shower.

Sleep.

-- Doug, Leeming Hammerhead.

Provisional Location - October 27, 2007, 3:37 pm

The information shown here represents control stop data and shows which vehicles are passed through which control stop. This is not the official time keeping list as certified by our time keeper and does not take any penalties into account. This page does not reflect actual time travelled. Further more, it shows the official departure time of each vehicle from a control and may have data entry errors.

Adelaide

• Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Umicore at 2007-10-26 09:13:00
• Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-26 09:54:00
• Ashiya University Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• University of Michigan at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• FH Bochum Solar Car Team at 2007-10-26 11:52:00
• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-26 13:21:00
• Aviva Southern Aurora at 2007-10-26 14:14:00
• Solar Team Twente at 2007-10-26 14:35:00
• UNSW Solar Racing Team at 2007-10-26 16:11:00
• University of Calgary Solar Team at 2007-10-26 16:16:00
• Blue Sky Solar Racing at 2007-10-26 16:30:00
• Aurora Adventure at 2007-10-27 09:03:00
• Heliox Solar Team at 2007-10-27 10:02:00
• TAFE SA at 2007-10-27 10:37:00
• University of Waterloo at 2007-10-27 12:17:00

Port Augusta

• Salesio Solar Car Project at 2007-10-27 09:08:00
• Helios at 2007-10-27 09:13:00
• Kormilda College at 2007-10-27 10:10:00
• Team Sinag at 2007-10-27 10:33:00
• University of Malaya Solar Team at 2007-10-27 11:44:00
• Willeton ATP at 2007-10-27 15:23:00
• Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team at 2007-10-27 15:25:00

Glendambo

• University Teknologi Malaysia at 2007-10-27 09:19:00
• Gwawr at 2007-10-27 10:09:00
• Sunspeed at 2007-10-27 10:35:00
• Esteban at 2007-10-27 10:37:00
• Team SolarFox at 2007-10-27 11:32:00
• HelioDet at 2007-10-27 11:48:00
• Sunstang Solar Car Project at 2007-10-27 12:36:00
• U-Chile Conecta at 2007-10-27 12:38:00
• Leeming Senior High School at 2007-10-27 12:40:00
• Solar Fern Racing at 2007-10-27 12:52:00

Did not Finish

• Hachinche Institute of Technology at 2007-10-21 08:31:00
• USB Solar at 2007-10-21 08:37:00
• Houston Solar Race Team at 2007-10-26 14:00:00
• Stanford Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 15:21:00

Nuon: Job called in panic

He lost his back pack, but luckily he found it after a brief search.

Speeds - 2005

Nuna III
29:11 102.75 km/h average


Aurora
32:35 92.03 km/h average


Momentum
33:18 90.03 km/h average


Sky Ace Tiga
33:45 88.84 km/h average


Formosun 3
36:01 83.24 km/h average


Tesseract
40:00 74.95 km/h average


Apollo 5
40:15 74.49 km/h average


HansGo
41:05 72.99 km/h average


Sunswift
41:36 72.07 km/h average


Solution
44:06 67.99 km/h average


Soleon
47:15 63.46 km/h average


Umicar
48:04 62.37 km/h average


Kelly
49:13 60.92 km/h average


Aglaia
52:26 57.19 km/h average


Towards Tomorrow
55:54 53.64 km/h average


STUT
57:05 52.53 km/h average

Provisional Location - October 27, 2007, 10:07 am

The information shown here represents control stop data and shows which vehicles are passed through which control stop. This is not the official time keeping list as certified by our time keeper and does not take any penalties into account. This page does not reflect actual time travelled. Further more, it shows the official departure time of each vehicle from a control and may have data entry errors.

Adelaide

• Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Umicore at 2007-10-26 09:13:00
• Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-26 09:54:00
• Ashiya University Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• University of Michigan at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• FH Bochum Solar Car Team at 2007-10-26 11:52:00
• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-26 13:21:00
• Aviva Southern Aurora at 2007-10-26 14:14:00
• Solar Team Twente at 2007-10-26 14:35:00
• UNSW Solar Racing Team at 2007-10-26 16:11:00
• University of Calgary Solar Team at 2007-10-26 16:16:00

Angle Vale

• Stanford Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 15:21:00
• Blue Sky Solar Racing at 2007-10-26 16:30:00
• Heliox Solar Team at 2007-10-27 10:03:00

Port Augusta

• Aurora Adventure at 2007-10-26 14:20:00
• TAFE SA at 2007-10-26 15:02:00
• University of Waterloo at 2007-10-26 17:00:00
• Kormilda College at 2007-10-27 10:10:00
• Team Sinag at 2007-10-27 10:33:00

Glendambo

• Helios at 2007-10-26 12:09:00
• Salesio Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 12:38:00
• University of Malaya Solar Team at 2007-10-26 13:20:00
• Gwawr at 2007-10-26 17:29:00

Cadney

• University Teknologi Malaysia at 2007-10-26 10:24:00
• Esteban at 2007-10-26 11:10:00
• Willeton ATP at 2007-10-26 11:11:00
• Sunstang Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:23:00
• HelioDet at 2007-10-26 11:25:00
• Team SolarFox at 2007-10-26 11:31:00
• Leeming Senior High School at 2007-10-26 11:49:00
• Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Solar Fern Racing at 2007-10-26 12:14:00
• Sunspeed at 2007-10-26 12:59:00
• U-Chile Conecta at 2007-10-26 13:18:00
• Houston Solar Race Team at 2007-10-26 14:00:00

Did not Finish

• Hachinche Institute of Technology at 2007-10-21 08:31:00
• USB Solar at 2007-10-21 08:37:00

EOS: We achieved our ultimate goal!

Today was an especially exciting day for us because it was our first day testing Lissie sans electrics, so we could compare her petrol-only performance to her performance as a petrol/electric hybrid.

We're happy to say our little car achieved exactly what we wanted her to as a hybrid! Although the figures won't be confirmed until WSC officials announce the results on Sunday, we've calculated that Lissie uses just over 10 litres of petrol for every 100 kilometres when driven via petrol only whereas when she's switched petrol/electric hybrid mode she uses around 7 litres. That's a 30% reduction in petrol consumption. We're very proud!

Our team travelled approximately 550km from Coober Pedy (where we had time to visit the underground opal museum while we participated in the morning public display) to Port Augusta today, with only driver/navigator swap-over stops and a lunch stop. The roadhouse café staff must not have been informed the WSC would be cruising past because there was only one person in the kitchen. With much running around, she did a great job but I bet she'll sleep well tonight.

The landscape changed a fair bit today. The scenery on either side of the highway transformed from flat red earth with little vegetation to a browner coloured earth that was hilly in spots and quite shrubby, especially as we got close to Port Augusta. It was lovely to see some colour.

We had dinner out tonight, wandering into the city centre to eat at a local restaurant, where Meg Craven (the EOS Project surrogate mother) read out a letter written by a long time supporter of Annesley's EOS Project and we swapped stories about our amazing trip.

It is incredible to think our journey is almost over. It has flown by! We are only 298 kilometres from Adelaide, where we should cross our destination check point at around 12:30pm tomorrow and have our final fuel measurements taken.

At 2pm the Greenfleet vehicles will travel to Victoria Square in convoy with a police escort for the Ceremonial finish and public vehicle displays. Once that finishes at 4pm, we will spruce ourselves up for the Civil Reception, being held for all participants at 6pm in the Town Hall. Then, all Greenfleet Technology Class entrants will exhibit their vehicles at the Greenfleet Emerging Transport Technology Conference at Adelaide Convention Centre on 29 and 30 October.

The Panasonic World Solar Challenge has been an adventure of a lifetime in every respect. We are very grateful for the support of our major sponsors, Mortgage Choice and Holden, and for the wonderful efforts and advice of those who travelled with us. The 2007 team has become a close family and will never forget this experience we have been so fortunate to enjoy. Annesley looks forward to its next Challenge!

UNSW: Race Day 6 Midday Report

We have just left Port Augusta at 12:30 after a record three minute wheel change and are heading to Adelaide at 85km/hr which means we should reach the Adelaide control stop (20km out of the city on Princes Highway) by 3:45. We anticipate being held there for up to twenty minutes and then will head down Main North Road, through North Adelaide and follow King William Street to Victoria Square where all the cars will be on display for the weekend.

Bochum: 26.10.07: SolarWorld No.1 im Ziel

Christian Wulfert steigt zur letzten Etappe in den gelben Flitzer ein. Knapp 300 Kilometer bis Adelaide sind noch zu fahren. Nach dem Kontrollstopp in Port Augusta steigt die Trossgeschwindigkeit auf 95 km/h. Ein Road Train fährt mit nahezu demselben Tempo voraus. Überholen oder nicht? In 10 Kilometern wird die Straße zweispurig, das könnte die Chance sein. Ausgerechnet jetzt kommt eine Steigung! Trotzdem Blinker rechts und Vollgas. Geschafft! Weiter mit 95 km/h dem Ziel entgegen.

Der Verkehr wird zunehmend dichter. Immer wieder müssen langsame Camper überholt werden. Spannend wird es, wenn dann auch noch ein weiterer Road Train alle Rückspiegel und die Heckscheibe ausfüllt und damit klar macht, dass er vorbei möchte. Die Landschaft wird zunehmend geprägt von weiten Feldern und sanften Hügeln. Auf der rechten Seite ist immer wieder das Meer zu sehen. Schilder am Straßenrand bieten Oliven und Austern an. Die Zivilisation hat das Team der Hochschule Bochumer wieder.

100 Kilometer vor Adelaide eine einspurige Baustelle. Begleitfahrzeug "Support" handelt mit dem Bauarbeiter, der die lebende Ampel darstellt aus, dass SolarWorld No.1 ungehindert durchfahren kann.

Die Telemetrie zeigt eine hervorragende Energiebilanz, also Tempo hoch auf 100 km/h. Der Rückenwind bläst den Sonnenwagen aus Bochum dem Ziel entgegen. Das letzte Blatt des 50 Seiten starken Roadbooks wird aufgeschlagen. Vor 2 Jahren war an gleicher Stelle die Lage deutlich angespannter. Damals sank die Batteriespannung von HansGo! bedrohlich tief ab und nur mit knapper Not wurde Adelaide erreicht.

40 Kilometer vor der Zeitmesslinie vor den Toren von Adelaide liegt nur ein leichtes Kribbeln der Vorfreude in der Luft. Um 11:52 Uhr geht es über die Linie. Alle liegen sich in den Armen, La-Ola -Wellen branden durch das deutsche Team, die ein oder andere Freudenträne wird vergossen. Kurz danach kommt Apollo an, ein Fahrzeug aus der Adventure Class. Donnernder Applaus natürlich auch für die Kollegen aus Taiwan. Einen ganzen Kontinent mit einem Solarcar zu durchqueren, ist schließlich keine Kleinigkeit.

Christoph Bönneken wurde aus den vier Fahrern ausgelost, um bis zum Victoria Square zu fahren. Hier wartet das offizielle Empfangskomitee, unter ihnen Frank Asbeck, Vorstandsvorsitzender des Hauptsponsors SolarWorld AG.

vorläufiges, inoffizielles Ergebnis

Die Einfahrt auf dem Victoria Square wird zum rauschenden Empfang. Die Studierenden stimmen Jubelgesänge an, Sekt spritzt. Man spürt die Sympathie ganz deutlich, die den Bochumern entgegenschlägt. Im Ziel auf Platz 4 in der Challenge Class: Ein grandioser Erfolg für die kleine, aber feine Hochschule Bochum, die in diesem Wettbewerb mit den großen, internationalen Elite-Universitäten konkurriert. 41 Stunden reine Fahrzeit war SolarWorld No.1 unterwegs, das bedeutet einen Schnitt von 73 km/h auf den knapp 3000 Kilometern von Darwin nach Adelaide. Nach vorläufiger Wertung hat Verfolger Michigan 46 Stunden gebraucht, denn der Halt in Alice Springs für SolarWorld No.1, den Michigan nicht gemacht hat, wird entsprechend verrechnet.

Hier endet dieses Tagebuch. Viele Geschichten wären noch zu erzählen vom Teamgeist der Bochumer, vom Film- und Fototeam, das SolarWorld No.1 ständig begeleitet hat und immer hilfreich zur Seite stand, von Malte Heynen, der zum dritten Mal mittendrin dabei war und dessen Bericht schon im November bei Galileo auf PRO7 zu sehen sein wird und von den vielen begeisterten Australierinnen und Australiern, die bei jeder Gelegenheit Unterstützung angeboten haben.

Ein herzlicher Dank geht an alle Sponsoren und Freunde, ohne die dieses Unternehmen nicht möglich gewesen wären. Bleiben Sie uns gewogen!

Umicore: De tweede plaats is binnen! (26 oktober 2007)

Vanochtend stonden we voor de laatste keer vroeg op om het zonnepaneel naar de zon te kantelen. We wilden zoveel mogelijk energie in de batterijen steken om de laatste 120km naar Adelaide zo vlot mogelijk te kunnen afleggen. Na een goeie laadbeurt vertrokken we om 8u.

We moesten onze tweede plaats verdedigen en onze voorsprong op Aurora behouden. Daarnaast hadden we ons echter ook het doel gesteld om de “tweede etappe” te winnen. De eerste helft van de race - van Darwin tot Alice Springs - werd het snelst afgelegd door het team uit Delft. Tijdens dat deel hadden wij anderhalf uur verloren door technische problemen. Om het tweede deel - van Alice Springs tot Adelaide - het snelst af te leggen, moesten we vandaag de finish halen om ten laatste 9u15.

Het achterhouden van Aurora bleek geen probleem. Tegen 95 km/u reed de Umicar Infinity vlot naar Adelaide. Het werd heel nipt, maar we haalden de finish om exact 9u13! We mogen dus zeggen dat we de tweede etappe op onze naam geschreven hebben.

Na deze officiële tijds-finish mocht de wagen het stadscentrum van Adelaide binnenrijden. De volgwagens werden aan de kant gezet en op Victoria Square reed de wagen over de media-finish. Met veel champagne en een duik in de bekende fontein werd de tweede plaats van de verrassende Belgen gevierd.

Nu wordt de wagen tentoongesteld op Victoria Square en komen er steeds meer teams aan. We staan alvast paraat om iedereen te verwelkomen in Adelaide. De sfeer is geweldig!

TAFE SA: Friday October 26th – DAY 14

We woke to a gorgeous blue sky and a good charge on the battery this morning.

We passed another team on our way to the Port Augusta control stop.
On the way we faced a very big hill, longer than the one we got stuck on the first day and almost as steep, but we had planned well and with a run up we were able to get over it easily and enjoy the long downhill run on the other side.
Once again the car was able to cruise on the speed limit for long stretches.
At the Port Augusta control stop we came in 14tht overall and while it is difficult at the moment to confirm our position, we are probably in the top ten of the adventure class solar cars.
Unfortunately, we suffered a puncture just as we rolled to a stop under the direction of the marshal. The rules forbid working on the car during the control stop so after the 30 minute wait we had to roll the car out of the marshalling area and change the wheel.
Because we were already safely stopped in a “good” place and had 30 minutes to think about it, it was changed in only a few minutes and we were underway again.
Later in the afternoon we still had good sun and we had been running fast when we reached a long downhill stretch and used the regeneration feature again to put current back into the batteries. There was a problem however, when suddenly the car lost all power and coasted to a stop near the bottom of the hill.
It quickly became apparent the system had shut down the motor to protect the batteries.
Like all good technicians, the first thing we tried was turning it off and turning it on again and we soon had the car going again.
At 5:08pm we arrived at a petrol station at the turn off to Redhill and were made welcome by the proprietor to camp for the evening.

Tomorrow, the final day, begins with bacon and egg sandwiches and coffee from the roadhouse. We expect to be arriving at the last control point at Virginia where official timing for the race ends. We will then proceed down Port Wakefield Road into the city and with luck and good sunshine we will arrive in Victoria Square about lunchtime.

TAFE SA: Thursday October 25th – DAY 13

This morning we had to change all four tyres after parking in a patch of bindis overnight. We pulled one bindi thorn out of a tyre and were rewarded with a loud hissing sound as the air came out at 100psi.

Today we travelled 581 km. This is the furthest Kelly has travelled in one day during this year’s event. Our average speed was 77 kph. In the afternoon the car cruised at 110kph for extended periods. We had a safe day as well, no more incidents.
We had a control stop today at Cadney Park and as usual we took advantage of the sun while we were stationary to add charge to the batteries.
As we had been averaging a higher speed, the team that arrived just before us were kind enough to let us go first from the control point.
As it was, they were about 30 minutes in front of us anyway so it didn’t really make much difference to them and it was safer than passing on the road.
In any case, they overtook us again a bit later on down the road, when we experienced delays due to problems with our radio communications.
Problems with batteries in our portable radios meant that the vehicles in our team miscommunicated about a driver change and lost some time while the changeover was reorganised for a second location, although we did manage to keep the car on the road and rolling during the aborted stop.
We finished up in a gigantic truck park on the side of the road 138 km North of Glendambo in the middle of nowhere with our evening brightly lit by the nearly full moon.
While we waited for our chuck wagon team to make dinner we investigated the latest symptoms in an ongoing problem with our sophisticated electronics.
We were pleased to discover that a loose wiring connection was causing a problem and when we removed the offending circuit board we discovered a number of severely cooked components.
It was a real pleasure to sit in a large circle around a big campfire in the moonlit bush.
After dinner we repaired the damage and swapped the circuit board for a spare one we had with us.

TAFE SA: Wednesday October 24th - DAY 12

This morning we set out under clear blue skies for Alice Springs, still 194km down the road, the battery pack somewhat refreshed after collecting the afternoon and morning sun.

With good sun and energy in the batteries we sat on 60kph for the first hour until the sun was higher and then cranked Kelly up to 80kph. The last 20km into Alice was a steep down hill section, which gave us some experience using regeneration, where we use the motor to slow down the car and pump energy back into the battery pack.
As we approached Alice Springs we were informed that our cruiser towing the gear trailer had rolled over 65 km north of Alice Springs. We were told that everyone was alive but we weren’t sure who was in the car or what injuries they had received.
We arrived in Alice Springs just before 11:30am and discovered we would be held over until 2pm. We left the car to soak up the midday sun and to get a sigificant charge up on the batteries.
As we waited we received more news about the accident and established one occupant was ok and another had some kind of injury. Both were being transported to hospital in an ambulance.
Some of our gear turned up in one of the official’s cars but most of it was being picked up by the remaining support vehicles.
After arranging all of the details for the damaged vehicles and filling out the paperwork, our manager visited the hospital to check on how our comrades were going.
At 2pm we set off from Alice Springs with the battery two thirds full and decided to to make as much distance as possible.
We drove quickly through the hills south of Alice Springs and progressed quickly during the rest of the afternoon. We had the excitement of overtaking another team, a difficult manoeuvre considering we had to get all three of our vehicles past the three vehicles of the other team on a winding road with road trains going in both directions.
We caught up with another team late in the afternoon and were informed they had heard about the accident with our support vehicle. They kindly offered us hospitality and later in the evening they loaned us a barbecue.

As 5pm approached we found ourselves too far from the next campsite we had marked on our gps system and decided to park on the side of the road. We found an area where we could safely get the car off the road just in time. Even so, the area was covered with bindis and we got several tire punctures in our fragile tires. We were in the middle of no where with a solar car, two sedans and no bedding or shelter or food so some of us went to the nearest town to get some supplies while the rest of us built a camp fire. The others soon returned with bbq meat packs and some chips and drinks. Some of the team visited the “Christine” the Aurora team entry which was 2 kilomeres up the road. They were fantasic, providing us with a bbq and utensil . With the barbecue we borrowed we cooked our dinner.
At about 11pm the other vehicles arrived and we learned that our team mates who were in the accident were going to be ok. One had returned to us only a little bruised while the other had some stable injuries from which he would recover and was being held in the hospital overnight. He was scheduled to be flown back to Adelaide the next day.

TAFE SA: RAA Kelly Progress

TAFE SA RAA Kelly Solar Car is still progressing extremely well, averaging 72.6 km/h, and is expected to be close to Port Wakefield today (by 5pm stopping time) the car is at present 5th in the Adventure class and in 13th position overall and is expected to be arriving at Victoria Square, Sat morning (27/10/07) around 11 am, so if you’re free come down and welcome home the team. Check out the podcast of the 891 radio interview last night

Michigan: Continuum Finishes 7th in Challenge Class

Continuum completed the last 280.7 km of the race in 2 hours and 55 minutes with an average speed of 96.7 kilometers. Yesterday we ended with a negative battery pack and today we finished with more than half of a pack remaining. For the Alice Springs to Adelaide half of the race we averaged 89.8 km/hr and finished that section of the race only 16 minutes behind Nuon's time. We started this part of the race with well less than half of a battery pack, while they were given time to fully charge their batteries in Alice Springs. Continuum barely didn't catch up with 3 of the Teams directly in front of us and we should end up in 7^th place in Challenge Class. Overall we passed over 25 Teams on our climb up after the accident. Continuum was the 4^th Team to cross the finish line.

We've always been looking for a different finish than what we ended up with, but we are ultimately very happy with how Continuum performed. To us, the first half of the race demonstrates that we are the best Team in the world while the second half demonstrates that we have the best car in the world. A first place victory almost comes as an empty victory because it doesn't demonstrate how good the Team really is. Having rallied around the crash we were able to show the world how well we face adversity and how well prepared the Team was. As we crossed the finish line there were 25 friends and family members that had made the trip to Australia to watch the race and cheer us on. We were all happy that we could make them proud by completing this race the way that we did.

The World Solar Challenge has left everyone with a desire to continue racing Continuum. We all look forward to participating in the North American Solar Challenge, where we will have the opportunity to show the world what Continuum is truly capable of. None of this would have been possible without the tremendous support of our sponsors including our Platinum sponsors: The University of Michigan, The University of Michigan College of Engineering, BHP Billiton, Ford, and General Motors. We would like to thank all of them and we hope that we have made you proud to be a part of the University of Michigan Solar Car Team!

Go Fast, Go Smooth, Go Blue!

Michigan: Continuum Finishes!!

Continuum has now reached Adelaide and has successfully completed the 2007 World Solar Challenge! We completed the race in 46 hours and 3 minutes with an average speed of 65.09 km/hr. This puts us at 36 hours and 2 minutes not including the time lost from the accident with an average speed of 83.83 km/hr! Stay tuned for results as the Teams behind us finish the race! As soon as we hear from the race crew in Australia I'll get a more detailed update as well!

GO BLUE!

Leeming SHS: Leeming Car Keeps Solaring.

What a sensational couple of days. After starting at 8 AM Thur after waiting for other solar cars still under solar power the Hammerhead headed from Alice. After a nervous start with the controller having a little hiccup on the start line the car starts to behave.

We cruise out of Alice a little tentatively but as the day progresses the car keeps going without showing any signs of fault. We have enough Telemetry to know what we are putting to the road but rely on the driver to relay current output from the array. We discover that on a good flat surface the car can travel at about 55kph on solar power alone. We are all pleased.

Toward the end of Thursday we have travelled approx 406km but batteries are low. We camp 45km north of Marla and charge the batteries. Willetton are just down the road but are having battery and array issues. They say they can manage about 70km per day. The Esteban team from Canada drop into the camp and we assist them to pump up tyres they too are having problems and say that they restarted from Alice too. I mention that we are ahead of them. The laugh and wish us well.

Friday morning a few of us drive to Marla to pump up the motor wheel. We can't get the bead to seat with our small pump. We head off 40 min late after serving a short time penalty for stopping late the previous evening.

The day progresses well, the car performs beautifully under the near perfect conditions. We targeted 275km to get to Coober Pedy. We have a forced half hour stop at Cadney Control stop and an unscheduled 18 min stop to change a tyre on the troopy and to repair the windscreen which was dislodged by the windblast from a large oncoming truck. Tom said the experience was interesting!

We pass Coober Pedy at 3PM and decide to drain the Batteries by going hard and then choosing to stop and charge. The car continues to travel exceptionally well and beyond expectations and we manage another 57 km beyond our Target Coober Pedy. We stop at 4:10pm and charge till dusk.

Meanwhile support has head for accommodation at Coober Pedy and when the car crew returns we head out for pizza which I highly recommend.

Targets reached:

Two Full days of Solaring.

Ahead of 2005 total.

Solaring complete distant between two control stops.




Cheers for now



John Beattie

EOS: Day 6: Schoolgirls' hybrid car Challenge is a success!

Here is today's news about Annesley College's EOS Project: the all-schoolgirl team driving their creation - an electric/petrol hybrid Holden Viva - in the Panasonic World Solar Challenge (WSC), an event that began in Darwin last Sunday and finishes in Adelaide on Saturday.
The Greenfleet Class showcases fuel efficient technologies and low carbon fuels… practical transport technologies of tomorrow.
Annesley is the only all-female team to enter the Challenge. Mortgage Choice is the proud sponsor of their EOS Project, nicknamed 'Lissie'.

TODAY: Friday October 25 – Coober Pedy to Port Augusta

We achieved our ultimate goal!
Today was an especially exciting day for us because it was our first day testing Lissie sans electrics, so we could compare her petrol-only performance to her performance as a petrol/electric hybrid.

We're happy to say our little car achieved exactly what we wanted her to as a hybrid! Although the figures won't be confirmed until WSC officials announce the results on Sunday, we've calculated that Lissie uses just over 10 litres of petrol for every 100 kilometres when driven via petrol only whereas when she's switched petrol/electric hybrid mode she uses around 7 litres. That's a 30% reduction in petrol consumption. We're very proud!

Our team travelled approximately 550km from Coober Pedy (where we had time to visit the underground opal museum while we participated in the morning public display) to Port Augusta today, with only driver/navigator swap-over stops and a lunch stop. The roadhouse café staff must not have been informed the WSC would be cruising past because there was only one person in the kitchen. With much running around, she did a great job but I bet she'll sleep well tonight.

The landscape changed a fair bit today. The scenery on either side of the highway transformed from flat red earth with little vegetation to a browner coloured earth that was hilly in spots and quite shrubby, especially as we got close to Port Augusta. It was lovely to see some colour.

We had dinner out tonight, wandering into the city centre to eat at a local restaurant, where Meg Craven (the EOS Project surrogate mother) read out a letter written by a long time supporter of Annesley's EOS Project and we swapped stories about our amazing trip.

It is incredible to think our journey is almost over. It has flown by! We are only 298 kilometres from Adelaide, where we should cross our destination check point at around 12:30pm tomorrow and have our final fuel measurements taken.

At 2pm the Greenfleet vehicles will travel to Victoria Square in convoy with a police escort for the Ceremonial finish and public vehicle displays. Once that finishes at 4pm, we will spruce ourselves up for the Civil Reception, being held for all participants at 6pm in the Town Hall. Then, all Greenfleet Technology Class entrants will exhibit their vehicles at the Greenfleet Emerging Transport Technology Conference at Adelaide Convention Centre on 29 and 30 October.

The Panasonic World Solar Challenge has been an adventure of a lifetime in every respect. We are very grateful for the support of our major sponsors, Mortgage Choice and Holden, and for the wonderful efforts and advice of those who travelled with us. The 2007 team has become a close family and will never forget this experience we have been so fortunate to enjoy. Annesley looks forward to its next Challenge!

FINAL WSC PUBLIC DISPLAY: 2pm on Saturday 27 October at Victoria Square in Adelaide.
Visit www.myspace.com/desert_queen_lissie for more information plus photographs.


Contacts…
Enquiries to Kristy Sheppard (Mortgage Choice) - 0407 450 860 OR Peter Gubbins (Annesley) - 0422 231 437 OR Meg Craven (Annesley) - 0412 649 460.
Please reply to this email with 'unsubscribe' if you choose to not receive this daily update.
** Note: Kristy, Peter and Meg are part of the girls' support team and will endeavour to return all calls within 24 hours but there may be occasions when the mobiles are out of range. We appreciate your patience.


Warm Regards

Kristy Sheppard

Provisional Location - October 26, 2007, 4:14 pm

The information shown here represents control stop data and shows which vehicles are passed through which control stop. This is not the official time keeping list as certified by our time keeper and does not take any penalties into account. This page does not reflect actual time travelled. Further more, it shows the official departure time of each vehicle from a control and may have data entry errors.

Adelaide

• Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Umicore at 2007-10-26 09:13:00
• Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-26 09:54:00
• Ashiya University Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• University of Michigan at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• FH Bochum Solar Car Team at 2007-10-26 11:52:00
• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-26 13:21:00
• Aviva Southern Aurora at 2007-10-26 14:14:00
• Solar Team Twente at 2007-10-26 14:35:00

Angle Vale

• Stanford Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 15:21:00
• UNSW Solar Racing Team at 2007-10-26 16:11:00
• University of Calgary Solar Team at 2007-10-26 16:16:00
• Blue Sky Solar Racing at 2007-10-26 16:30:00

Port Augusta

• Aurora Adventure at 2007-10-26 14:20:00
• TAFE SA at 2007-10-26 15:02:00
• University of Waterloo at 2007-10-26 17:00:00

Glendambo

• Heliox Solar Team at 2007-10-26 10:38:00
• Helios at 2007-10-26 12:09:00
• Salesio Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 12:38:00
• University of Malaya Solar Team at 2007-10-26 13:20:00
• Kormilda College at 2007-10-26 13:35:00
• Team Sinag at 2007-10-26 13:56:00

Cadney

• Gwawr at 2007-10-26 09:45:00
• University Teknologi Malaysia at 2007-10-26 10:24:00
• Esteban at 2007-10-26 11:10:00
• Willeton ATP at 2007-10-26 11:11:00
• Sunstang Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:23:00
• HelioDet at 2007-10-26 11:25:00
• Team SolarFox at 2007-10-26 11:31:00
• Leeming Senior High School at 2007-10-26 11:49:00
• Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Solar Fern Racing at 2007-10-26 12:14:00
• Sunspeed at 2007-10-26 12:59:00
• U-Chile Conecta at 2007-10-26 13:18:00
• Houston Solar Race Team at 2007-10-26 14:00:00

Darwin

• Hachinche Institute of Technology at 2007-10-21 08:31:00
• USB Solar at 2007-10-21 08:37:00

Provisional Location - October 26, 2007, 3:53 pm

The information shown here represents control stop data and shows which vehicles are passed through which control stop. This is not the official time keeping list as certified by our time keeper and does not take any penalties into account. This page does not reflect actual time travelled. Further more, it shows the official departure time of each vehicle from a control and may have data entry errors.

Adelaide

• Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Umicore at 2007-10-26 09:13:00
• Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-26 09:54:00
• Ashiya University Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• University of Michigan at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• FH Bochum Solar Car Team at 2007-10-26 11:52:00
• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-26 13:21:00
• Aviva Southern Aurora at 2007-10-26 14:14:00
• Solar Team Twente at 2007-10-26 14:35:00

Angle Vale

• Stanford Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 15:21:00

Port Augusta

• UNSW Solar Racing Team at 2007-10-26 12:24:00
• University of Calgary Solar Team at 2007-10-26 12:39:00
• Blue Sky Solar Racing at 2007-10-26 13:03:00
• Aurora Adventure at 2007-10-26 14:20:00
• TAFE SA at 2007-10-26 15:02:00

Glendambo

• Heliox Solar Team at 2007-10-26 10:38:00
• Helios at 2007-10-26 12:09:00
• University of Waterloo at 2007-10-26 12:22:00
• Salesio Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 12:38:00
• University of Malaya Solar Team at 2007-10-26 13:20:00
• Kormilda College at 2007-10-26 13:35:00
• Team Sinag at 2007-10-26 13:56:00

Cadney

• Gwawr at 2007-10-26 09:45:00
• University Teknologi Malaysia at 2007-10-26 10:24:00
• Esteban at 2007-10-26 11:10:00
• Willeton ATP at 2007-10-26 11:11:00
• Sunstang Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:23:00
• HelioDet at 2007-10-26 11:25:00
• Team SolarFox at 2007-10-26 11:31:00
• Leeming Senior High School at 2007-10-26 11:49:00
• Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Solar Fern Racing at 2007-10-26 12:14:00
• Sunspeed at 2007-10-26 12:59:00
• U-Chile Conecta at 2007-10-26 13:18:00
• Houston Solar Race Team at 2007-10-26 14:00:00

Darwin

• Hachinche Institute of Technology at 2007-10-21 08:31:00
• USB Solar at 2007-10-21 08:37:00

Provisional Location - October 26, 2007, 1:29 pm

The information shown here represents control stop data and shows which vehicles are passed through which control stop. This is not the official time keeping list as certified by our time keeper and does not take any penalties into account. This page does not reflect actual time travelled. Further more, it shows the official departure time of each vehicle from a control and may have data entry errors.

Adelaide

• Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Umicore at 2007-10-26 09:13:00
• Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-26 09:54:00
• Ashiya University Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• University of Michigan at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• FH Bochum Solar Car Team at 2007-10-26 11:52:00
• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences at 2007-10-26 11:59:00

Angle Vale

• Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-26 13:21:00

Port Augusta

• Solar Team Twente at 2007-10-26 10:55:00
• Aviva Southern Aurora at 2007-10-26 11:10:00
• UNSW Solar Racing Team at 2007-10-26 12:24:00
• Stanford Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 12:28:00
• University of Calgary Solar Team at 2007-10-26 12:39:00
• Blue Sky Solar Racing at 2007-10-26 13:03:00

Glendambo

• Aurora Adventure at 2007-10-26 09:58:00
• Heliox Solar Team at 2007-10-26 10:38:00

Cadney

• TAFE SA at 2007-10-25 12:43:00
• Salesio Solar Car Project at 2007-10-25 13:50:00
• Helios at 2007-10-25 13:53:00
• University of Waterloo at 2007-10-25 14:47:00
• Team Sinag at 2007-10-25 14:59:00
• Kormilda College at 2007-10-25 15:24:00
• University of Malaya Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Gwawr at 2007-10-26 09:45:00
• University Teknologi Malaysia at 2007-10-26 10:24:00
• Esteban at 2007-10-26 11:10:00
• Willeton ATP at 2007-10-26 11:11:00
• Sunstang Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:23:00
• HelioDet at 2007-10-26 11:25:00
• Team SolarFox at 2007-10-26 11:31:00
• Leeming Senior High School at 2007-10-26 11:49:00
• Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team at 2007-10-26 11:59:00
• Solar Fern Racing at 2007-10-26 12:14:00
• Sunspeed at 2007-10-26 12:59:00
• U-Chile Conecta at 2007-10-26 13:18:00
• Houston Solar Race Team at 2007-10-26 14:00:00

Darwin

• Hachinche Institute of Technology at 2007-10-21 08:31:00
• USB Solar at 2007-10-21 08:37:00

Speeds - 2007

Nuon Solar Team
33:17 92.07 km/hr

Umicore
34:36 88.01 km/hr

Aurora Challenge
35:17 84.96 km/hr

University of Michigan
46:03 65.09 km/hr

Ashiya University Solar Car Project
32:03 93.53 km/hr

FH Bochum Solar Car Team
41:09 72.84 km/hr

National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences
34:59 85.69 km/hr

Southern Taiwan University
43:50 68.39 km/hr

Aviva Southern Aurora
38:57 76.96 km/hr

Solar Team Twente
44:46 66.95 km/hr

UNSW Solar Racing Team
49:41 60.34 km/hr

University of Calgary Solar Team
49:46 60.23 km/hr

Blue Sky Solar Racing
50:00 59.94 km/hr

Update: Bochum

Arrived Angle Vale 11:52

Provisional Location - October 26, 2007, 11:25 am

The information shown here represents control stop data and shows which vehicles are passed through which control stop. This is not the official time keeping list as certified by our time keeper and does not take any penalties into account. This page does not reflect actual time travelled. Further more, it shows the official departure time of each vehicle from a control and may have data entry errors.

Adelaide

• Nuon Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Umicore at 2007-10-26 09:13:00
• Aurora Challenge at 2007-10-26 09:54:00

Angle Vale

• Ashiya University Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• University of Michigan at 2007-10-26 11:33:00
• FH Bochum Solar Car Team at 2007-10-26 11:52:00

Port Augusta

• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences at 2007-10-26 09:15:00
• Southern Taiwan University at 2007-10-26 10:07:00
• Solar Team Twente at 2007-10-26 10:55:00
• Aviva Southern Aurora at 2007-10-26 11:10:00

Glendambo

• University of Calgary Solar Team at 2007-10-26 08:10:00
• UNSW Solar Racing Team at 2007-10-26 08:19:00
• Blue Sky Solar Racing at 2007-10-26 08:55:00
• Stanford Solar Car Project at 2007-10-26 09:15:00
• Aurora Adventure at 2007-10-26 09:58:00
• Heliox Solar Team at 2007-10-26 10:38:00

Cadney

• TAFE SA at 2007-10-25 12:43:00
• Salesio Solar Car Project at 2007-10-25 13:50:00
• Helios at 2007-10-25 13:53:00
• University of Waterloo at 2007-10-25 14:47:00
• Team Sinag at 2007-10-25 14:59:00
• Kormilda College at 2007-10-25 15:24:00
• University of Malaya Solar Team at 2007-10-25 16:54:00
• Gwawr at 2007-10-26 09:45:00
• University Teknologi Malaysia at 2007-10-26 10:24:00
• Esteban at 2007-10-26 11:10:00
• Willeton ATP at 2007-10-26 11:11:00

Alice Springs

• Leeming Senior High School at 2007-10-25 08:00:00
• HelioDet at 2007-10-25 08:15:00
• Team SolarFox at 2007-10-25 08:30:00
• U-Chile Conecta at 2007-10-25 09:50:00
• Sunspeed at 2007-10-25 09:55:00
• Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team at 2007-10-25 10:20:00
• Sunstang Solar Car Project at 2007-10-25 10:21:00
• Solar Fern Racing at 2007-10-25 11:00:00

Dunmarra

• Houston Solar Race Team at 2007-10-22 17:20:00

Darwin

• Hachinche Institute of Technology at 2007-10-21 08:31:00
• USB Solar at 2007-10-21 08:37:00