Cheap Therapy

With some 43 teams (out of a total field of 60 teams) already in Darwin (including two Western Australian school teams this year,  Leeming (Hammerhead) and Willetton Senior High Schools) things are beginning to hot up for the Panasonic World Solar Challenge 2007.A melting pot (or given Darwin’s weather, sweat lodge) of teams from around the world, this year’s race is the first to run under new speed restrictions in Australia’s Northern Territory. The front-end teams will be limited to 130km/h, which will lead to a reduction in previous race times. Also, a day’s layover in Alice Springs will help the field to stay a bit closer together than in previous races. New car classes also attempt to make vehicles more like production cars, by requiring passengers and the ability to get into/out of the car unaided.This is the 20th Anniversary World Solar Challenge, which shows that people like Hans Tholstrup (now there’s a man who should have a Wikipedia entry!) were thinking that there were more energy efficient ways of doing things for at least that long, before Al Gore, and the Stern Review. If only the world’s governments and businesses had been listening 20 years earlier!

Here are some of the posts from Doug on Leeming Sungroper’s 2005 expedition.

The traffic on the mailing list is starting to pick up and no doubt the teams are looking at the number of days remaining and trying to work out how they’re going to get everything together in time to get to Darwin for a few weeks before the 21st of October and the start of thePanasonic World Solar Challenge 2007.

This year is likely to see a lot more interest in the contest that’s been running since the first WSC 20 years ago, now that more attention is focused on the environment.

Although the official announcment hasn’t been made, it looks like the teams will at least comprise:

Adventure class:

• Stanford Solar Car Project
• UNSW Solar Racing Team (Sunswift)

Challenge Class:

• Fachhochschule Bochum SolarCar Team
• Houston Solar Race Team (High School entry)
• Kansas State University Solar Racing Team (I note they’re using a CSIRO motor
• University of Waterloo

I’m also expecting a Sungroper 3 entry from Leeming Senior High School and Willeton Senior High School with Sungroper 1, assuming all the relevant hurdles can be overcome to get the staff, students and cars to the starting line in Darwin.

Having been on two World Solar Challenges, if you can get a chance to compete in it, go (even if it involves building your own car :). The experience of being amongst teams of very smart people from all over the world all competing against (and at the same time helping) each other in the midst of the relative nowhere of Australia is incomparable.