Building A Solar Challenger: Late Nights, Tough Times


The car is finally starting to come together this week, with wheels and suspension units finally going on, but late nights and hard work are finally starting to take their toll on our crack team of solar sailors.

Support the UWS Solar Challenge Team! If you have marketing/sponsor dollars (hello car makers, telcos and electronics multinationals) or engineering support to donate, please contact Greg at UWS Solar Car.

The Challenge

25 engineering and industrial design students from UWS are working together to build a car powered entirely by the sun, ready for a race across the spine of Australia. In October next year the team will race the car from Darwin to Adelaide as the underdog, pitted against better funded rivals.

Team Diary: Week 12

It’s a race to get the car ready to show off at the university Open Day this week and events like Sustainability Month are upon the team.




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Build lead Dave has been working around the clock to get the car ready to show off, most recently working on the suspension. These long nights have been taking their toll, however, with the suspension initially being mounted and welded backwards. This caused it to break off during the install kicking the team into overdrive to fix it.

The new chassis is coming along as Open Days approach and temporary wheels are being thrown on to make it pretty. Along with looking good for potential investors, the temporary wheels give the team an idea of how the whole thing is coming together.



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The team worked through the night to 5:30am one morning to get it ready for the Open Day, because the more polished it looks in the Open Day, the better it looks against the better funded competition.

The build rolls on!

You can follow UWS’ Solar Challenge on Facebook and Twitter.

Our team still needs sponsors, so if you’re keen to help the underdog get a leg up in this amazing contest, contact Greg at UWS Solar Car.


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