SolarQuestTM 98	Tour de Sol Adventure Quest

I-NetNews Reports
May 11

SOL MACHINE IN THIRD YEAR OF NESEA TOUR

The Sol Machine is car built by a high school team from Newburgh, New York, with the combined efforts of their welding shop, auto shop, art and physics classes. The car under went a two year design period, making this a full four year project in all. This year is their third Tour de Sol. In September, this team traveled to Florida and competed in a race from Coco Beach to Epicot Center. They did an amazing job, coming in first and beating a number of college teams. The car carries one passenger and one driver and travels at a speed of around 55 miles per hour. Fundraising has been a big part of this team's venture. Though the rain has not been fun for the team they all seemed in good spirits. They plan to build a second car in the near future, the Sol Machine 2.

Megan Hagerty

The charging station is a large fuse box under a white tent with danger signs all around it. The fuse box is hooked up directly to electric utility transformers. From the transformers, the electricity goes through a cord at thirteen thousand watts and enters the fuse box, where it is broken into two lines of six and a half thousand watts. The lines go to a large power strip were the cars plug in and get charged up.

Cars on average take about four to five hours to charge up. Although some of the bikes take only two hours, one van takes twelve hours. Some cars are fuel and electrically powered, and others are solar powered. They all have to charge at each stop. The charge is stored in batteries.

By Sam Sherman

The Solar Tiger has run into problems twice during the rally. Both times, however, event sponsors and race teams have volunteered their parts and services.

The first problem they ran into was that both their front left shock and steering rods needed welding. They found help in abundance. The Washington team offered to weld their parts, and three more teams offered to help. Along with this, their teachers leading team wanted to retire their car to home, but both team members and other racers convinced them to continue on. with the race. Along with this problem, which has put them out of the race for one and a half days, their charger stopped working and there was no way to replace the German made part. So, one of the main sponsors of the race---Solectria and the team of Sungo---offered to both give them a charger and to help the team configure the charger to work at 72 watts instead of Solectria’s 144 watts. The students remarked that this year seems to be a lot less competitive than it was the year before.They also told me that they really respected the teams that helped them. We will be following this story crossing our fingers in hopes that with more support from other teams all of the cars, including the Solar Tiger, can finish the race with pride.

Chris Bogart

The Beverly Elementary School is getting a head start teaching kids at an early age the benefits and necessity of alternative energy. Mrs. Donohue, a science teacher at the school, has been working with the second and third graders to design their own alternatively powered vehicles and alternative energy posters. The kids were presented with awards for their creations, at the restart ceremonies in Princeton New Jersey. Second grader Gregory Flosser said, “I would like to make a solar car and drive it in the race someday!” and Sarah Myers, who designed a wind powered car, said that the most exciting part was “to be creative with our projects.” The kids spent a week on these projects; they made several practice designs which culminated in colorful posters of their inventions.

Cassie Tharinger

Most of us are trying to put up with the absence of “Sol” on the Tour de Sol, but for some the weather is affecting their race performance. The team from Southern New Hampshire driving Sol Survivor IV was delayed yesterday at the start of the race by the steady drizzle, when a wet controller prevented them from starting. A little time with a few hairdryers fixed the problem, and though they missed the first day, they are back on track for the second day of racing.

Their school has entered in the tour for the last nine years, winning first place three of those times! This is Sol Survivor IV’s fourth year in the race. The driver Corey Bangs, and passenger Alex Hedman, told us that if converted to gasoline equivalencies, this car would get 200 miles/gallon! We wish them dry, happy racing!

Cassie Tharinger

Bubbles of excitement stream from the bright young faces in the rain describing their first day of the race. The team was 20 minutes late when finishing the first leg due to disconnected chargers. Despite these short comings they finished second. They fixed their chargers and upped the power from 7 to 14 amps. This wasn’t the only positive incident of the day.

The team received calls for interviews from Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MTV. Not all of these worked out but they appeared in homes all over the nation. Through barrels of giggles and snorts, Helios the Heron portrayed their confidence in accomplishing the Tour de Sol.

"The race is spectacular!!!"
"J’adore le Tour de Sol." - Nina Berryman

"Little Tom Jack
was in a sack
and he was dying slowly
losing air
all in despair
and no one seemed to really care." - Patrick A’jamie

Christiana Usenza, Ama Baer and Diana Parker