U of Minnesota Solar Car heading to Taiwan

Posted By on July 8, 2006

Borealis 3
I’m cheering for a group of students from University of Minnesota who will be racing their entry, Borealis III on September 17th in the World Solar Rally. Last year they took 2nd place in a 2005 race from Austin Texas to Calgary, Canada and have rebuilt and modified their vehicle in order to compete in Taiwan. The project manager, Patrick O’Connor and his team held a press event to show off their evolving project with the press this past week. Project vehicles are judged on a variety of factors including style, use of technology and overall race efficiency.

University students have been working on Borealis III since January 2004. The U of M Solar Vehicle Project was founded by a group of undergraduates in the Institute of Technology in 1990. The team is an undergraduate project and remains true to its origins as a student administered, designed and built project that teaches members about engineering and management in a complete product development environment.

University of Minnesota & BorealisIII- FoxNews

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Comments

  • Adem Rudin

    Wow, I had no idea that we’d made the national news.

  • Adem Rudin

    Wow, I had no idea that we’d made the national news.

  • http://www.myarchive.us/richc/2003jettatdi RichC

    Adem,

    If you hear any interesting tidbits in regard to how the trip goes … be sure to let me know as I’d love to follow up.

    RichC

  • http://www.myarchive.us/richc/2003jettatdi RichC

    Adem,

    If you hear any interesting tidbits in regard to how the trip goes … be sure to let me know as I’d love to follow up.

    RichC

  • http://www.svp.umn.edu Adem Rudin

    The car has supposedly arrived safely, sometime last week.

    Based on talk among teams and reviewing the participants page (http://solarschool.kuas.edu.tw/2006/eparticipant.htm), the three cars to watch will likely be Ashiya University, Kamm Solar Racing, and us.

    Ashiya’s built up an amazing record over the past decade, they’ve positively dominated Suzuka for at least the past 6 years. Mr. Joachim Kamm’s car is designed solely for this type of rally race (unlike many cars, such as ours, that were first and foremost designed for endurance races), and handily won the Rallye Solaire in France that was held in early June. As for our car, we have also built up an impressive record, and it is designed to handle well on curvy tracks.

    On the other end of the spectrum, there are two teams who are racing for the first time! I wish them well, and hope that they learn a lot.

    It’ll be an interesting experience, and no matter what happen, I guarantee that we’re all going to have a lot of fun.

  • http://www.svp.umn.edu Adem Rudin

    The car has supposedly arrived safely, sometime last week.

    Based on talk among teams and reviewing the participants page (http://solarschool.kuas.edu.tw/2006/eparticipant.htm), the three cars to watch will likely be Ashiya University, Kamm Solar Racing, and us.

    Ashiya’s built up an amazing record over the past decade, they’ve positively dominated Suzuka for at least the past 6 years. Mr. Joachim Kamm’s car is designed solely for this type of rally race (unlike many cars, such as ours, that were first and foremost designed for endurance races), and handily won the Rallye Solaire in France that was held in early June. As for our car, we have also built up an impressive record, and it is designed to handle well on curvy tracks.

    On the other end of the spectrum, there are two teams who are racing for the first time! I wish them well, and hope that they learn a lot.

    It’ll be an interesting experience, and no matter what happen, I guarantee that we’re all going to have a lot of fun.

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Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.