American Solar Challenge reaches St. Charles County
June 28, 2010
St. Charles County, MO
This past week, many communities in Missouri were visited by several strangely-shaped crafts.
These futuristic machines were on a journey from Texas to northern Illinois. The American Solar Challenge course brought several solar-powered vehicles through the area.
They moved nearly silently through the rural areas of the state and passed through several local cities.
Beginning their day in Rolla on the 24th, they were en route to a stop point at the Melvin Price Lock and Dam near Alton. Entering the western edge of St. Charles County on Veterans Memorial Parkway, the cars traveled through Wentzville, Lake Saint Louis, O’Fallon, St. Peters, and St. Charles before traveling through West Alton and taking the Clark Bridge into Illinois.
The cars were part of a competition to build and drive solar-powered vehicles on a cross country road course. Several cars were entered by universities in America, including a team from Missouri S&T in Rolla. Besides teams from University of Michigan, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Stanford, teams came from Canada, Taiwan and Germany as well. The Missouri S&T team began the day in Rolla in 5th place.
As the cars rolled through St. Charles County, the Michigan team’s Infinium led the way. While the rules of the rally limit the speeds, on a closed track, the Michigan car reportedly topped 100 miles per hour. Each car is covered with solar cells to convert the suns energy into electrical current. The batteries are charged at low speeds, but at higher speeds, the motors draw their power directly from the cells. A portion of the original route of the race was flooded forcing the cars to detour off of Highway 94 near West Alton. The teams were notified of the changes in the course prior to the start of the day.
The cars began arriving in Alton just before 1:30pm. Michigan was the first team to make the stop.
Missouri S&T arrived 21 minutes later in the fourth position for the day. A crowd gathered around the vehicles as they arrived, many snapping pictures and talking to the teams. Principia College and Western Michigan University both had cars on display that were not part of the race.
Looking inside the student-built cars, the view was a mass of electronics and criss-crossing wires. The cockpit in some of the cars had handwritten markings for the switches and gauges. Many donations of money and parts were required for the construction of the cars.
A member of the University of Kentucky team said that even though they were not contending for the lead, they were happy with the performance. The race was the first real test of the car, and had performed well, so far. The construction of the vehicle was completed just before the scheduled start of the race. Some of the parts were reused from a prior solar car built by the university.
At the checkpoint, the cars were given one hour off the clock. During this time, the teams were allowed to charge the batteries for 30 minutes. One by one the cars trailed an escort vehicle and headed toward Normal, Illinois.
Copyright 2010 Neighbors About Town
