On behalf of the whole team, we wish all our partners, supporters, families and friends a happy, innovative and sunny 2017! This will be the year in which our ideas become reality. The year of the World Solar Challenge! We are excited to start building our car in the coming months.
WORKING AT THE BRAINPORT OFFICE
The week between Christmas and New Year the university was closed. Because every week is valuable in our schedule, this was a drawback. Fortunately, Brainport was so kind to facilitate us with one of their meeting rooms so we could continue our work. A big thanks to Brainport for their hospitality and to Michael van Hulst for setting it up!
NO PIT STOPS FOR STELLA LUX IN CALIFORNIA
Stella Lux will test and demonstrate our leading edge technology at the Laguna Seca Race Trackway in California on January 8, 2017. Stella Lux will be the first all solar-powered car to demonstrate new energy positive technologies at the world famous track: offering a striking contrast to the loud and high octane fuel using race cars that normally make the rounds at Laguna Seca track. Moreover, she will not need any pit stops! Stella Lux will function as the Pace Car for the day’s race scheduled at Laguna. Our team will then meet with students from Monterey County, California who had the opportunity to build their own mini-Stella.Stella Lux and our team are part of the Dutch economic trade mission to Las Vegas and Silicon Valley together with minister Kamp and Prince Constantijn. For more info, click here.
STRENGTH OF THE BODY Just before Christmas, we reached a big target in our project: the aerodynamic design. Now we know what the outer shell of the car will look like, we can prepare ourselves for the production of the body. This includes thorough calculations and simulations, making sure that our body will be strong enough to carry the weight and withstand all kind of weather- and road conditions. For example, we do not want our body to fail when driving over a bump. Therefore, the mounting points of the suspension on the body will need to withstand a 3G bump force.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SUN, RIGHT? DAAN DE ROOIJ PV-SYSTEM ENGINEER
It is amazing, about 4 months ago we started as a whole new team to develop the third generation of our solar-powered family car. Here we are now, the design of the car is finished and my solar cells will fit the roof.
The aerodynamic design of the car is important for my job. As an electricalengineer I am responsible for the solar system. I worked closely with the aerodynamics team to fit the photovoltaic panels on the roof, without limiting the aerodynamic performance. For me this is one of the beautiful things within such a team, you have to work together with all disciplines to develop the best car. It was tough sometimes, but I think we succeeded to design a sexy car with high potential.
TECH & PLAY FESTIVAL
Last week we attended Tech & Play Kids Festival in the Exhibition Centre. The library organized this event for the closing of their anniversary year. This day was a day full of technical innovations where kids could experiment, collaborate and learn.
