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Shining Example

It was a dark hour for the U of M’s solar vehicle team. Government funding for the 2008 North American Solar Challenge Race, a 2,400-mile race of student-built vehicles powered entirely by the sun, was cut. As hope waned, Toyota Corporation stepped up with financial support to save the race.

Several more individuals and corporations—including 3M and Lockheed Martin—offered cash gifts and in-kind donations to the U’s team. Some 30 Institute of Technology students spent an estimated 30,000-45,000 hours preparing the 2008 car, named Centaurus. The students represented different areas of engineering and were separated into four different work teams: aerodynamics, electrical design, mechanical systems and the all-important solar array.

“Everything I did on the array team affected all the other teams on the car,” says Emily Johnston, who just graduated with an electrical engineering degree. “Cross team involvement was a cool learning experience. The debt I’ve accumulated to work on the solar car is worth the involvement.”

In July, Centaurus will line up against 26 other vehicles in a race from Texas to Alberta, Canada. An anonymous gift in honor of Professor Pat Starr, who built the solar team over many years, will cover students’ travel expenses.

Despite the long hours, team members agree their work on the vehicle has been a remarkable educational opportunity. “The problems we encountered with the solar car produced more robust solutions than those in textbooks,” explains Sam Lenius, student project leader who recently graduated with an electrical engineering degree. “We were doing real-world engineering to design a car that’s one of a kind.”

This story originally appeared in the summer 2008 issue of Legacy, a quarterly magazine for U of M donors and friends published by the University of Minnesota Foundation.