Saturday, February 18, 2017

Spring 2017 update

Hey Folks;

Never fear, this blog isn't dead! Expect us to start tracking the field of WSC cars soon (In the meantime, check out Scientific Gems). We might also do some coverage of the race in Egypt coming up next month.

In the meantime, some short extra notes on WSC:

Bridgestone is returning as the title sponsor of WSC, and a 2017 webpage has launched. It's mostly a placeholder for now, but keep your eyes on it - I suspect this is where the official team list will eventually be posted.

The first of the traditional FAQs was recently posted, which also notified me that Version 1.1 of the 2017 WSC regs were posted a long, long time ago! How did I miss that? Here's the significant regs changes:

2.4.6: DELETED. As far as I can tell, it is once again possible to do a car with a tilting array, as Twente tried in 2007 and 2009.

2.6.2: Rear license plate stuff: No longer specifies a vertical plane "at the rear of the car" - so license plates don't have to be on the extreme trailing edge, they just have to be visible from behind the car at the required angles. The license-plate-on-the-back-of-the-rollcage scheme is apparently still valid.

3.26.7 and 3.28 have been removed as redundant and simply refer to 3.18.3, which itself had been amended to note that external devices which increase the efficiency of the solar collector are not allowed. It specifically notes that water spraying is no longer allowed, period. Calling out increasing efficiency as well as irradiance also closes the "other non-water coolants" loophole that was accidentally opened up in rev 1 of the 2017 regs.

3.27.10: Cruisers are now able to work on their cars overnight if the battery is removed and secured.

The other changes are minor cleanups of little consequence. I do want to mention 3.5.1, however: T W O   W H I S T L E S, the madmen!

I really want to buy whoever wrote the regs FAQ a beer. Some serous snark, definitely a person after my own heart. I'm not going to summarize it, just go and read it.