The third day was going to be the hottest day yet. The challenge this posed was that the race officials could potentially end the race day early, and if we had not taken our mandatory lunch break we would receive a penalty. This meant our strategy team needed to keep careful track of the heat index and constantly check in on our driver’s health.
Due to issues encountered at the end of the second race day, the team entered the day seven laps behind the car in front of us. This lost us about a half an hour of potential charging and driving time, which our strategy team accounted for when considering what to set our cruise control system to.
The team arrived at the track bright and early to complete our usual race day morning list.
- Set the array for charging
- Prepare the pits for the day
- Fix our telemetry system
- Check car for mechanical damage (rubbing brakes, deflated tires, etc.)
During this time, the team discovered that the source of the issue was a cracked micro SD card in the data collection microcontroller. After replacing it, the team got their “sight” back and again make live changes to the driver’s speed based on data from the car.
After attending the daily all-team meeting, the team prepared the car to entered the track second, based on the number of laps completed on day two. Over the course of the morning we were able to recover the laps lost the previous day, again putting us plus or minus just a couple laps compared to iron lions, the other team that completed over 200 laps on day one.
At this time we decided to take our mandatory 30 minute lunch break because we were concerned the race would be cut short due to the excruciating heat. We also wanted to make sure that the car didn’t break down like it had the day before. We checked our data controller temperature, replaced our radio batteries, and installed booster seats for our shorter drivers who would be driving next. After this so called “break”, the team got the car back our on the track, reaching speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and pushing us towards our lap goal for the day.
As the afternoon continued, we kept our speed constant. Though all was going well at one moment, just as we were nearing the end of the race day, our driver reported that she had lost all power and was actively working to fix it. While this worried the team, we stayed calm and power cycled the car, hoping not to need our recovery team; luckily, our driver managed to regain power, and we all collectively sighed in relief.
After reviewing the data, we discovered that the car was much more efficient than we had anticipated, this in addition to our planned buffer will be enough to go into the final race day with enough energy to account for the clouds. We ended up finishing the day with 219 laps in the day and 639 laps in total so far. This had the team ecstatic, but we knew that the race was still very close and undetermined. Even for today, us along with other advanced division teams will not know for sure about penalties until tomorrow.
Check out the solar car challenge results and live results! (www.solarcarchallenge.org/challenge/results-live.shtml) and They are also posting on their Instagram about the challenge itself and the teams that make it (www.instagram.com/the_solar_car_challenge/). As usual, you can also keep track of the challenge from our perspective here. Just one race day left!