Students Blog Oct 20 - 21

20th of October

We started today with a meeting at 8.15. Waking up Chloe was a near impossible task…We tried to wake her at 6.30, but she fell asleep again. So about 15 minutes later we tried again, only to find that she got madder and madder as we tried. Eventually we woke her, only to find that she didn't remember us waking her up, saying that she didn't say anything at all (cough...cough).

The team went down to Hidden Valley, a race track to test the car, where we worked on the car, made more friends and tested the car again. All of us got a turn at sitting in the support vehicle, and take photos of the car in action.

The Michigan team, one set to win, came to inspect the handiwork on our car. They seemed quite impressed with our efforts, and we hope they took some inspiration from us.

There are many other teams from across the world, including people from France, Germany, Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia, as well as some other Aussie teams.

We came home, made lunch for the whole team, and went swimming…twice…

The boys made dinner, and luckily, we haven't died…YET…

It was actually very nice, it was a whole tempura meal with a lot of veggies, fish and for the vegetarians, chicken and prawns yum!, yum!

Tomorrow we are going to St John's the local school, where Mrs. Morcombe is the principal (Yes, Mr. Morcombe our pricipals wife) works…then going down to the track before scrutineering on Thursday morning.

The final team members also arrived today, one being the one and only Mr Morgan, but also Trent and Tom, two more of our drivers and ex-students.

Love,
-The Solar Car Team

P.S
Thanks To Jeandre', we all have learnt some Afrikaans J


21st of October- Team Blog

Today we had a presentation of the car to the students and teachers of St John's College. This allowed the team to have a chance to sleep in, save the handful of "lucky" team members of who had to wake up at 6:30 am to roll the car into its trailer.

We arrived at the college mid morning and received a warm welcome from the staff and students. First we had a meet-and-greet in the staffroom with the principal, Mrs. Morcombe (Wife of our school's principal, Mr. Morcombe) as well as some of their staff and students. Following morning tea we displayed our solar car to the school.

We were quizzed thoroughly on our knowledge of the solar car and its various parts. They were particularly captivated by the structure of the Ayres composite panels and its incredible strength despite its lightness. A couple of the students were given the opportunity to ride in the car. One of these students was rather short and given the offer to join the team as our personal ballast. He politely declined.

In the afternoon it was back to the track for adjustments on the cars brakes and telemetry (data gathering systems). Doug is currently working on the problem with the Bluetooth connections between the team laptops and the cars systems. He's fixated on the problem and remains in high spirits but wants to, quote, "fly to Redmond, Washington and hit Bill Gates with a blunt instrument".

Love,
- The Team

Wow what a dinner!

Tuesday Oct 20

We are all up at a reasonable time and I get the opportunity to speak to Eoin Cameron on Breakfast Radio in Perth. It's 7:45 here so I am on the radio at 6:15 at home. He has been a very keen supporter of our project and generally gives us a few calls during the challenge.

After breakfast the team heads out to the track to do a bit more work on the car, telemetry being the major thing we need to get sorted today. There are a lot more people at the track today and we have lots of visitors. Michigan come by and check out our car along with some one from Japan TV asking if they can take some video of us and ask some questions (we might be on TV in Japan). David Rand also drops by and we get a choice of time for scrutineering, 9:30 am Thursday.

Yesterday we got some software emailed from John Treen which allows us to monitor the current use, battery temp, cabin and motor temp and voltage amongst other things and after a cal to John at 9:00am 7:30 Perth time (sorry John) we get a small but vital piece of info and telemetry works. We then decide to move the position of telemetry system in the car to a safer location I am concerned that it might get bashed and broken when we are installing batteries.

We do this and head back to camp for lunch I go and get some supplies from Jaycar, amazingly the first trip to Jaycar whilst we've been here, in past years I would have been to Jaycar 10 times by now (that's not an exaggeration). I then go and pick up Morgan, Trent and Tom from the airport. Back to the Alatai for more lunch Morgan's hungry, surprise, surprise. After eating we head out to the track for more track testing.

We put batteries in the car and fire it up with the hope that we will be able to receive telemetry whilst we do a lap around the track but the telemetry won't work. The car side of things is okay and the laptop can see the car but we suspect Windows is and issue, Doug mumbles some words of the effect, "Bloody Windows Blah Blah Blah."

We manage a couple of laps without telemetry but rely on Tom to relay some numbers from the displays to get some idea of what's going on in the car.

Some of us stay till after 6 trying to solve the problem, Doug talks to John for quite some time trying to work it out, we try various reboots and different sequences, we try different laptops and many other options within the network software, but eventually we are beaten and we head home. I turn on to Tiger Brennan Drive and Doug asks if I turned the car off, I can't remember so we do a quick u turn and go back, the car was still on.

We get back to camp and James ahs been busy preparing tempura vegies and prawns. We also have some fish fillets Morgan crumbs them and I cook them on the BBQ. Dinner is sensational. James has out done himself and I suspect that we've probably had the best meal of the trip. James has worked like a trouper to get this meal prepared and then cooks it all. A huge effort. I ask James if he'd consider being a chef. No! is the answer.

Tomorrow we head off to St John's School to show of the solar car and get the car ready for scrutineering in the afternoon.

More updates to follow.

John Beattie
Leeming Solar Car Team.

Mon 19 Oct running smoothly (touch wood)

I get up early as usual, there are plenty of things that need to be done, whilst I know the car is here and safely locked in the pits at Hidden Valley, I still haven't seen it and it hasn't been out of the trailer, so we need to get it out and make sure things are up and running. We also need to go and get the support trailer which is in a transport company yard on the outskirts of Darwin.

I sort a bit of gear out and eventually the team begins to arise. I ask if they've slept well and what time they got to sleep, they all assure me it was around 11pm. I'm not so sure, it'll be interesting to see how well they make it through the day.

Around 7:30am I have seen that all of the team members are up and about, at 7:45 Julian, James, Jeandre and I take off out to Pinelands to get the support trailer. The rest of the team will meet us at Hidden Valley.

When we get there the team is busy unpacking the solar car trailer but have had to borrow some spanners to remove the wheel chocks to get the car out. Ours are in the crate at the bottom in front of the car and inaccessible with the car in. Mental note: Place tools required to get car out of trailer in box accessible with car in trailer.

The car comes out of the trailer and a number of teams come by to check it out. We remove the tape securing the array panels and look inside. The car seems to have survived the journey well and we set about installing batteries whilst Doug installs the brand new driver interface control board. This was the part that caused us problems in 2007 and I ordered a new one which arrived last week. I have one other one which works but does not allow us to have our display panels and a second spare that was given to us by the guys from UNSW, just trying to cover all bases.

We make changes to the current sense board, the readings were negative so we had to swap the wires around, and we install the batteries. Each Battery Pack weighs around 30kg and they are awkward to slide into the car but they seem to go in easily and it seems to be getting easier each time we do it. A quick check to see that every thing is plugged in correctly and we hold our breath as we power up. Everything boots first time including display panels for the motor controller. We are happy.

By this stage we have decided to send some of the team back to the apartments. They have some lunch and then go into town for some souvenir shopping. The crew at the race track fit the telemetry and current sense interface boards and go for a couple of laps around the circuit. Ross our Principal has taken some leave to come up to Darwin to see the start of the race and has come out to the track to see what is happening. He jumps into the support vehicle as we lap Hidden Valley Race track.

I am pleased with today's efforts and the crew left at the track head back to the accommodation. Spaghetti Bolognaise, garlic bread and leafy salad is on the menu for tonight and it goes down a treat. There seems to be enough to feed two teams though, but this is a bonus as we will freeze what is left and take it on our journey to Adelaide. Tomorrow night James is preparing a surprise for the team, I'm looking forward to it.

John Beattie Leeming SHS Solar Car Team.

Monday 19th October

Yesterday we set wing for sunny Darwin, where the x are hot, and the y are hotter.

(You can substitute your own values for x and y. If you're stumped for a good value for y, I can tell you that it's pretty damn warm inside a solar car.)

This is my fourth World Solar Challenge, and my third with Leeming High School. As usual, we rocked up at the airport, and team leader John Beattie distributed a variety of odd-shaped packages to students to hand carry onto the plane, including two-way radios, cameras, embedded computers, and a spare solar car battery, for which he has had to phone Sydney and get a dangerous goods form.

We fly: thirteen students, one ex-student, three teachers, a principal and me. The captain comes back to chat to us during the flight, to find out what it's all about.

We arrive, and meet another teacher in the gate lounge. He's driven a school bus towing the solar car trailer, complete with solar car, four thousand odd kilometres from Leeming to Darwin. He hands over the keys, and gets on to the plane we've just got off. He'll do the reverse in Adelaide: fly in, meet us, take the keys, and drive back to Perth.

We make a mountain of our luggage, sign rental car forms, transfer the mountain to the bus, commute to our hotel in Darwin, and unload.

Nuna, the team who have won the last three challenges, are already there. We chat. They've been in Darwin five weeks, and have already pranged their car. (It's all better now, though.)

The rest of the day is quiet.

In the morning, John Beattie rises ridiculously early, as is his custom, and goes to get the logistics trailer which contains a wide variety of our supplies and which had been shipped separately.

The rest of us take the school bus to pit 19 at Hidden Valley racetrack. We meet and greet a variety of other teams, and borrow a spanner from Bochum to remove the wheel chocks from our trailer.

We fit the computer and the driver control board and displays into the car, and they all work.

Last time, I fitted the wrong thermistor to the motor. This time, I've made sure that I have the one the manual specifies: a 10k thermistor, negative temperature coefficient. I grovel around exensively under the car, taking the old one off the motor, verifying that the new one really really is negative slope by dipping it into a cold can of soft drink and watching the resistance decrease, soldering the new one on, turning on the motor controller, and discovering that it's still wrong.

It turns out that I did fit the one that the manual specified last time, but the manual is wrong, at least with respect to our particular controller. Our motor controller is one we picked up cheap because it was the manufacturer's prototype. A quick call to the manufacturer elicits a promise to have a look around and see if they can figure out what the right thing is, but given that it's a prototype of a now-obsolete model, I don't hold much hope. So tomorrow we'll probably figure out how to attach a different type of temperature sensor.

To finish the day, we take the car out for a couple of laps, with me in the driver's seat. All works well, except that when I pull back into the pit, I realise that I've left the handbrake on the whole time.

Spot the braincell.

-- Doug Burbidge http://dougburbidge.com/

Leeming Student Blogs Day 1 & 2

18th of October - Not dead… yet…

It was 6:30 am people started arriving at the airport (in a shocking turn of events, Jeandre' is the first person at the terminal) for the 8:40 flight. After making a special point to be early, Mr. Beattie was one of the last few to arrive. We all checked in and went through the security point, before waiting until we could board. The flight was uninteresting, until we hit strong turbulence. The wing caught on fire and we almost died.

Not really. But we did play some card games and drew some interesting caricatures of each other and our teachers. We'd landed at around 1.30 pm (midday Perth time) and instantly began to feel the ten degree difference in temperature, which felt like twenty once we were outside. At the airport we met up with Mr. Hedgeland, who seemed awfully serene for a person who had just driven the team bus, trailer and solar car 4000 kilometres.

At the Alatai apartments we instantly met up with a member of the Nuna team from the Netherlands. Their car had the misfortune of crashing a couple of weeks ago and they'd been working on their replacement array it seemed to be going okay now though. We chatted with him and wished their team all the best before going to our rooms to fight over beds.

The priority of the afternoon, for us at least, was to pick up some groceries since everyone was famished. Steaks, sausages, rolls, bread, cereal, spreads and drinks came to a total of $248, more than Mr. Sheppard's first car. Meanwhile, those that stayed back either settled in and unpacked or went for a refreshing swim in the pool, complete with a waterfall. Sandwiches were soon to follow.

Later in the evening the team assembled around the barbeque whilst dinner was cooked. James inspected the torch Mr. Beattie was using to see in the low light and ended up breaking the switch, so that it could only be turned off by taking the batteries out. It is decided that James should not work on the solar car tomorrow. After dinner it's time for a quick meeting, planning out what will happen tomorrow, and then we all go back to our rooms and wind down before bed. We'll all be at Hidden Valley Raceway in the morning.


19th of October – Team Blog

Today we took the solar car down to Hidden Valley raceway and prepared it for it's first test drive. By nine am all the team members in Darwin had made their way to the track and were starting to work on the car. We were startled by the amount of interest in our car from the other teams. In pit eighteen, one down from us, the German team told us they'd be driving two cars; one shaped like a duck's bill that they'd driven in the last race, and one that is shaped more like a conventional passenger car.

Work on our car went relatively smoothly. Doug got our computer and electronic components in working order whilst the tools and equipment were unpacked from the trailers. Roughly half a dozen teams were at the track and some were already doing laps. We were lucky enough to have the car in working order by around midday and got a few laps of our own in. Tomorrow we plan to relay data using a Bluetooth connection between the laptop in the following support vehicle and the solar car to diagnose problems and tune for optimal performance.

In the afternoon team members were given the opportunity to explore Darwin's city centre, and to shop for souvenirs and ingredients for dinner. Our final two drivers, Tom and Trent, and teacher Mr. Morgan arrive from Perth tomorrow.

Love,

- The Team

Leeming Team and Hammerhead make it to Darwin.

Mid Morning on Saturday 17 Oct Keith, the bus and Hammerhead rolled safely into Darwin. After 4000km on the road, a broken door handle on the trailer, a couple of brushes with kangaroos in the night and a bit of dirt, the "A" team arrives relatively unscathed.

Keith made his way out to Hidden Valley race way and after a couple of phone calls parked Hammerhead securely in pit number 19. He meets a couple of the teams already at the track and hears rumours of Nuna's road testing and reconnaissance trip to Adelaide. He then headed into Darwin for a well earned rest in air conditioned comfort.

On Sunday the 18th I arrive at Perth airport at 7:00AM. To my surprise I am almost the last to arrive, we check in pretty easily and make it through security up to the departure lounge. I have some issue with one of the boxes I am carrying, it contains a Lithium Battery that failed to make the bus before it headed to Darwin. It's a fairly heavy object (3kg) and would like quite suspicious when passing through an X-ray machine I would imagine. I had some concerns about wether I could take it on the flight with us and on Friday afternoon I had made a call to Qantas and very helpful assistant organised a dangerous goods approval number after contacting a Qantas official based at Sydney airport. Not bad considering it was 8:45 pm in Sydney at the time. After a brief look at the package, a phone call and a chat to the security supervisor I am allowed through with the battery.

While we sit in the departure lounge Leonie twitters on her iphone and reads of Nuna's crash during road testing and that replacement solar panels have arrived in Darwin, For those who are only following the Blog for the first time the Nuon team and Nuna 1,2,3 and 4, have won the last 4 world solar challenges and for them to have crashed before the challenge is big news.

The team says last goodbyes to family and board the plane for a relatively smooth flight to Darwin.

As we get off the plane and make our way into the airport terminal I feel a blast of hot air and I am instantly reminded of the heat and humidity of Darwin, we'll have some time to acclimatise. We meet Keith in the airport, he looks remarkably refreshed considering the distance he has travelled in the last 5 days. We exchange keys and brief stories of his trip before he boards the plane that we got off and heads home.

We find our bus and support vehicles then load up and head into town. We get to the Alatai and decide to have a quiet afternoon. A few of us head off to the shop and get some supplies for tonight and tomorrow's breakfast. The rest have a swim and relax before dinner, BBQ. We discover that the Nuna team are staying here and we share the BBQ with them. I talk to the cook who was also driving their car at 110km when the rear tyre blew out causing him to lose control and spin out. He said that there was a lot of dust and when it settled he was facing the wrong way with the array on the ground some meters away. They damaged 4 or 5 panels on their array which are now repaired and they spent all day yesterday road testing. They seem pleased.

Today we will head to Hidden Valley and start work on getting Hammerhead ready to go to Adelaide. Some will go and get our support trailer, others will stay with the car while the rest go for some shopping and prepare tonight's dinner Spaghetti Bolognaise.

Leeming Journey Begins

The Leeming Journey has begun.

After months of preparation we are finally on our way to Darwin for our third crack at the World Solar Challenge.  I guess our challenge officially started on Tuesday when Keith Hedgeland our resident Photgrapher, Rally Driver and Long Haul Bus Driver headed toward Darwin in the school bus with solar car trailer in-tow.  At last report  (Thurs Evening) Keith was seen heading East from Fitzroy Crossing toward Halls Creek.  The bus and solar car trailer are travelling well with only one small altercation with a Kangaroo just outside of Newman.  The rest of the team will join Keith in Darwin on Sunday but the meeting will be brief as Keith will fly back to Perth and then meet the team again in Adelaide in 16 Days time to drive the bus back to Perth.

Prior to the cars departure the team has been busy modifying the car which has involved  construction of a new front array, including gull wing door, modifying swing arms to suit new treaded tyres and installing new Lithium Iron Phospate batteries and telemetry equipment.

Of course there are many other activities that are associated with a challenge of this nature, team members packing camping and cooking equipment continuing fundraising efforts and modifying trailers.

New sponsors to the team this year include Murdoch University, Myer, Local Drug action groups, Siomar Battery Engineering, Hella, Bull Creek Lions, Corporate Express, AST Australia.  I would also like to mention our ongoing sponsors, Leeming SHS Parents and Citizens, Ayres Composite Panels, Engleland, Communications Australia, Avocado Imagery and Signpoint.  Plus all of the local businesses, parents and supporters who have donated prizes and equipment to help us raise funds.

Adelaide here we come!

Stay tuned for more updates.