2024 Race Recap


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Texas

SOCKEYE has finally returned from the 2024 Solar Car Challenge, marking the end of an amazing two years for our team. All the hard work put in by team members in planning, fundraising, and building the car has made SOCKEYE our most energy efficient car yet, completing over 1,160 miles over four days and, after […]

August 6, 2024

The Final Race Day


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Texas

Once we’d finished our morning procedures, our team gathered with the other teams for the daily all teams meeting. Here, they announce the day’s winners, the starting order, pass out debris that fell off the cars, and gather together as a family, united by solar cars. With 219 laps up from the previous day, we […]

July 18, 2024

Race Day 3


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Solar, Strategy, Texas

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 […]

July 16, 2024

Race Day 2


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Strategy, Texas

After kicking off the Solar Car Challenge and in the lead with 200 laps, we were ready for another high performance day. Utilizing lap data from the first day, the strategy team worked tirelessly beforehand to create a plan that conserves our energy but also gets us the most laps. An incredible amount of calculations […]

July 15, 2024

Race Day 1


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Solar, Strategy, Texas

Today was the first day of the racing portion of the challenge. Over two years of design and build begin to be put to the test on this day. With scrutineering done and strategy working nonstop to make sure that their calculations are correct for the drivers, all the rest of the team could do […]

July 14, 2024

Scrutineering Day 3


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Texas

As the team comes off a highly successful completion of scrutineering on day two, the focus has shifted to finishing touches, final replacements, and practice leading up to race day tomorrow.  As usual, most of the electrical group started early in the pits, testing and logging solar panel data. This information – sorted, calculated, and […]

July 13, 2024

Scrutineering Day 2


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Texas

The team had a very early morning today; members Zach(12), Caden(9), Hagen(12), Jude(9), and Larsen(10) left the hotel in the early morning to test the solar array to see how many watts it generates. From this testing, we started at about 300 watts, and it increased about 60 watts every 10 minutes, with about a […]

July 12, 2024

Scrutineering Day 1


Electrical System, Featured, General, Post of the Week, Texas

Today was the first day of scrutineering and the team was well rested and prepared. They needed the rest for the very busy day ahead. Upon arriving at the speedway and unpacking, we started our first section of scrutineering: General (aka Mechanical). It started with simple questions. The judges were impressed with the car, and […]

July 11, 2024

Welcome to Texas!


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Texas

On July 9th, 2024, the RAHS Green Energy Travel Team got out of bed bright and early to fly out to Texas for the Solar Car Challenge. After a smooth flight, they met Zach and Josh, who had trailered the car, at the hotel.  Travel Team Prepares for Flight  On the way to Texas, SOCKEYE […]

July 10, 2024

Preparing for Texas


Featured, General, Post of the Week, Strategy, Texas

Texas is only a week away, and the RAHS Green Energy Team is in a rapid scramble to put the finishing touches on Sockeye and pack the trailer for the long journey. Over the past few weeks, the team has been refining and testing the car at the PACCAR Technical Center in Mount Vernon to […]

July 5, 2024