I don't know how many read about the Formula Sun Gran Prix going on in Topeka, Kansas last week, but it's done with and it was a blast. Our school (Mizzou) got 4th overall, but last in the open class. But that was to be expected, as we were using a lead-acid pack we built in two days that had 1/3 the power of the lithium pack we will use next year.

But I do have some pictures up. See if you can find your school! Schools that were there, but not pictured, are Western Ontario University and South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Pictures are all 800x600 and can be found at:

http://www.missouri.edu/~msc42/FormulaSun/

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Our very existence is at stake

Yay! I can finally join the snail-racing crew.

-@%

heh, my brother went to(summer break) SDSM&T
and based off the pics, what'd the Minnesota one hit?

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Kroko> Massassi is like Nazi Germany online, only it's not in Germany.
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<kak> WHY DO THESE RETARDS CONTINUALLY TRY LINUX?
<kak> IT DOES NOT MAKE YOU COOL.

Oh yeah, forgot to explain the rotten luck Minnesota had that week.

On Thursday, they got a flat on the front straight just as a gust of wind hit them. It pushed them into the steel barrier and smashed up their tail a bit. They got it fixed and structurally sound in 77 minutes.

The next day, the wind was really rough again. At the entrance to the front straight, it got under their array, which hadn't latched correctly to their bottom shell, and blew it off the car. Happened to the same driver as the day before too. Poor kid. Anyway, they got that one fixed in under an hour, with lots of drilling, Dremeling, and duct and aluminum tape.

After all that downtime, they lost to Rolla by only 10 laps, and Rolla had ben going non-stop for most of the time, minus a few driver changes. Laps were 2.1 miles BTW.

Also really notable was Quebec. They came in having built their own 24-pole 3 phase brushless DC motor. Considering that almost every team uses a New Generation Motors DC motor, that was quite a feat. Unfortunately, they had a bit of a lithium-ion fire when their battery protection system failed. I didn't manage to get any pictures of that, or even a look at the battery pack, but I heard from one of the guys on our team that looked at it that it got pretty charred. They were really cool about it though, and went around the next day looking for large capacitors to store energy in. They never got back on the track, but they did loan us their spare rear-vision camera when ours failed and also sold us some spare tires, which we were running low on. Good people them Canadians.

[EDIT]Notice the tipped-over porta-pottys. That was the wind's doing on Monday. We had our car under the tents, and the wind was lifting up the tents quite nastily. It pulled out a few 3' long railroad spikes that the tents were tied to to hold them down. I had to stand on a pole to keep the middle of the tent from flying up. Now, I'm no lightweight(about 200 lbs), but the base of the pole was coming up about 2' off the ground as the tents were being lifted by the winds. It all died down in about an hour, but man, was that a nasty way to keep our car safe and fix the turning fairings. The wind was pushing those porta-pottys around the paddocks. I wish I had taken some video of that. It was quite a sight to see.

Also, I have some video of the drag race, as well as the start of Thursday's racing. If anyone is interested, I'll compress them a bit and put them up.
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Our very existence is at stake

Yay! I can finally join the snail-racing crew.

-@%

[This message has been edited by Ric_Olie (edited May 26, 2004).]