Solar Cars Speed Through Calgary
In Canada, many people have become interested when a number of cars which got power from the sun competed in a race which is the North American Solar Challenge. Who wouldn’t? It is not everyday that people get to see solar-powered vehicles?
For this race, the cars had to travel from Texas to Alberta and that is some 3,862 kilometers in distance. From Canada where the race ended, there were four teams who have been able to make it to the finals. These are the teams from the University of Calgary, the Queen’s University, Manitoba’s Red River College, and the University of Waterloo.
Who took home the prize as the winner? It was the entrant from the University of Michigan. Their solar came in yellow pain and it was able to speed ahead the rest of the vehicles. The driver of this car was Brooke Bailey who was 23. Bailey said, “I couldn’t believe how many people were surrounding the roads in Calgary. I had no idea so many people cared about solar car, and just the amount of people here right now, it’s unbelievable. I’ve never had this many cameras around me.”
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POSTED IN: Eco Gadgets, Green Events, Solar
1 opinion for Solar Cars Speed Through Calgary
Robrobb
Jul 27, 2008 at 7:31 pm
It’s kind of pleasing to me to see that solar cars are still being built and competitions runs by college teams. Back in the day I did one at Virginia Tech, raced in ‘93. This was how I cut my teeth on solar power. Our team never had a top finish but we had a heck of a reliable car, and good looking too.
I recall that we did a lot of PR back then, and always had to point out that the cars were impractical, but were a technology showpiece. The year after I graduated the university started a gas-electric hybrid development team, which quickly got the full university support as an engineering project with real applications. Seems history has proven that right.
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