Thursday, July 27, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: July 27th

The official list is down to 45 teams: St. Petersburg Polytechnic University disappeared off the list this week.

Challenger Class

Status: Unveiled! Michigan unveiled Novum on July 7th.

Michigan is presumably out doing their mock race right now (blue tape! Blasphemy!). I saw some photos from them on Flickr earlier this week, but they've since been taken down. I dug through my browser's cache to find them, and I'm not sure what the big deal was? Your front wheel fairings aren't *that* much of a secret, folks.

Status: Unveiled! This is the big news for the week, the 6-time winners and returning champions unveiled Nuna 9 on July 25th.

Nuna 9
(image source)

At first glance, it doesn't look all that different from what we've seen from other teams: a fairly straight-forward evolution of the asymmetric catamaran design to the smaller planform. It shares a lot of design features in common with Punch's new car, and even goes a step further - in addition to eliminating the front overhang, Nuon has eliminated the rear overhangs as well. The horizontal trailing edge of the array blends cleanly and smoothly straight into the vertical trailing edges of the wheel fairings. Quality of the car, as expected, appears extremely high. The body seams are exemplary - I have to look reeeally hard to see the seams around the array, canopy, and wheels.

But wait... I know the Dutch are tall, but those students look like giants next to the car. And what are those solar cells...?

Yep: those are multi-junction solar cells, and that is a 2.64sqm array - just like Michigan, but on a different form factor of car. This is a tiny catamaran! This article has a video with some shots from unveiling, including Nuna 9 next to Nuna 8, starting at 0:43:

Nuna 8 and Nuna 9
(image source at 0:43)

Daaaaang that is small! Nuna 8 is 4.5m long x 1.8m wide; It's hard to judge precisely from this screenshot but I would say that Nuna 9 is absolutely no larger than 3.5m long x 1.6m wide.

Nuna 9 and Michigan's Novum are going to look so silly next to each other - completely different proportions.

Some Dutch news websites have published videos of the car driving already, and some other details can be teased out. In this video, you can see the swingarm rear suspension and double-A-arm up front - the same layout as Nuna 8. At 0:37, you can also see how they will have the driver normalize the array: the array is on a 4-bar linkage, and there is a telescoping carbon tube located next to the driver.

The team posted a video of some CAD flyaround - you can see how nicely the array in blended into the all sides of the wheel fairings, and how narrow the non-drive-side fairing is. You can see in this photo how smooth that rear blend is on the real car, as well as a full 3D printed trailing edge/taillight diffuser - just like on Nuna 8 two years ago.

I did some napkin math a little while ago with some other alumni, and we concluded that a multi-junction array was the clear way to go. With the new sizing rules, the array power is comparable to a silicon array when you look at raw efficiency numbers. But a multi-junction array may actually be significantly more powerful than silicon when you factor in the better performance in heat - especially with the new "no coolant spraying" rule! And a smaller car is lighter and more aerodynamic. More power, less weight, less drag - win win win, with cost/availability being the only downside. Honestly, I'm a little surprised we've only seen two teams switch to multi-junction arrays...

Nuna 9 is an incredibly hot little car, and I can't wait to see how it performs. Good luck to Nuon!

4: Antakari

More car construction videos and photos continue to be posted on their Facebook and Instagram - it looks like they've just bonded the composite chassis into the lower shell. Also note that they have received their solar array from Gochermann.

6: MIT

Status: Not Attending.

MIT confirmed that their removal from WSC teams list last week was not a mistake; they're out of the race. That said, I'm a little confused - the team has broken radio silence on social media after their withdrawal announcement, posting photos of the car at a wind tunnel in late February and the chassis driving around in early June. It seems like the team was well on schedule, which doesn't jibe with the statement "...we decided that there was simply not enough time to properly test and prepare ourselves for the race..."

Huh.

7: Adelaide University

No updates of note in the past week.

8: Punch Powertrain

Status: Unveiled! Punch unveiled Punch Two on June 21st. It will ship for Australia around August 20th.

Not much to note this week. Is this your cat?

10: Tokai

Still no word on Tokai's car, or when it will be unveiled. This is the only big Challenger team that is yet to release any details on their car - all of the other Challenger teams that have yet to unveil have at least released a rendering or profile shot of the car (other than the rookie Proton team).

No updates this week.

13: Polytech Solar

This new team from Russia is no longer listed on the official WSC teams list :(

No updates from the team's social media about this.  EDIT 7/30: This VK Post cites financial difficulties, and announces that they will attempt to enter the 2018 American Solar Challenge instead.

15: WSU

Status: Unveiling scheduled. WSU announced an official unveiling date: August 29th.

This week, the team is prepping the car for paint.

16: Stanford

Status: Unveiled! Stanford unveiled Sundae on July 1st.

The team recently posted a great video showing a ton of details on the construction of the car. It's eleven and a half minutes long, but it's worth watching the entire thing.

They've also posted a few photos to Instagram showing battery construction progress.

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

Today the team posted a picture of... cosmetically copying a portion of Nuon's old front suspension? Uhhh... huh.

20: Durham

Status: Shipped! Durham shipped their car to Australia on July 18th.

No updates since then.

21: Twente

Status: Unveiled! Twente unveiled Red Shift on June 23rd.

Twente has been busy testing and characterizing the performance of their new car. They also posted the first video of it driving.

22: MDH

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled way back on May 31st.

No noteworthy updates in the past week.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Status: Unveiled! No formal unveiling event, but the car was shown testing at Bridgestone's test track on July 15th.

No news directly from the team this week, but Bridgestone posted a little about the testing NIT and Kogakuin did.

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Woong-bi on June 25th.

The team posted a sideways video of their unveiling to Facebook. Form what little I can see, it looks pretty much exactly like the rendering on their WSC team profile.

29: Siam Tech (Edison)

The team posted some more construction photos to Facebook.

32: Principia

Status: Unveiled! There wasn't a formal unveiling event, but the team took Ra X to Formula Sun in Texas, July 3-8.

No updates from the team this week.

34: RVCE

No updates from the team this week.

37: Goko High School

No social media links, so no updates. The car appears to be finished.

38: North-West University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. Public unveiling of Naledi is scheduled for August 22nd.

Interestingly, the team has designed a 3D printed structure for holding their battery cells within the pack, and is attempting to crowdsource the printing of the parts. They've also open-sourced the parts on Thingiverse.

43: Australia National University

No updates from the team this week.

46: Jonkoping University

Status: Unveiling scheduled. The team has announced on Facebook and Instagram that Solveig will be unveiled on August 28th.

Not much news this week - they've been posted a lot of sponsor appreciation posts on their blog. The post about their chassis is a little interesting, however - the new car uses a steel tube frame, whereas their previous car was a composite chassis. The post touches on a lot of points that I often try to make with new teams. The big one: Carbon fiber does not automatically make your car lighter. They also make an interesting point about how decoupling the chassis and aeroshell allows for earlier testing of the electrical system on a driving chassis. My old team used to strap the new electronics to an old car for early testing, but that isn't something that a new team can do.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Huawei Sonnenwagen on July 20th.

This news story has a pretty good video, including several good shots of the inside and outside of the car.

71: Istanbul Technical University

The team posted a very brief video of what appears to be the chassis driving around a parking lot at night.

72: Proton

The team posted a link to a news story on their Facebook. Translating, it sounds like the design is mostly finished, but the team has not yet begun manufacturing and is still looking for sponsors.

The team's profile on the WSC site is still completely blank. This is the only Challenger team (other than Tokai) that has not yet even posted the smallest image of what their car will look like.

77: Blue Sky

No updates this week. The last updates from the team were of body construction in over late May.

82: Kookmin University

Status: Unveiled! Kookmin unveiled Taegeuk on July 7th.

No updates since then.

88: Kogakuin University

Status: Unveiled! Kogakuin unveiled Wing on June 29th.

Kogakuin was featured in the Bridgestone post alongside NIT.

I think I figured out one of reasons for the weird high-trail front steering - if you look at this photo, you can see that due to how far forward the wheels are within the nose of the car, there's much more space at the rear part of the wheel well than the forward part. By shifting the steering axis forward relative to the centerline of the wheel, the wheels fit into the nose better and they are able to keep the wheelbase longer and the track width wider.

The team also posted a photo of their rear suspension:

(image source)

This was completely unexpected to me: A rigid tube axle on a multilink setup with a single shock. Wild. I was wondering what those big gold cones in their teardown photo were all about...

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

Status: Unveiled! Singapore Polytechnic unveiled SunSPEC 5 on July 21st.

No news from the team since then.

9: PrISUm

Status: Unveiled! Iowa State unveiled Penumbra on June 2nd.

No major news in the past week. The team recently took off to Michigan, continuing on their sponsor tour.

Status: Shipped! Unveiled! The team unveiled Blue.Cruiser on July 5th.

I thought they shipped the car out, but I guess it was just supplies - and a large lithium battery pack, as you can see by the warning label on the big metal box:

Big ol' Cruiser battery pack.
(image source)

The team has been out testing their car, and posted some more photos. I really love the front end of this car - it looks really aggressive, especially from the side. Some interesting stuff to note in the photo below:

(image source)

First, what's up with those little circles underneath the back corner of the light, and up at the front? They really looks like the ultrasonic parking sensors that you see on the rear bumpers of production cars.

Second, while those wheels look cool and all, I really hope they put some disc hubcaps over them for the race, like they did with SunRiser.

Third, is that a small tunnel I spy under the car? I'd love to get a front-on shot of the car. This car keeps reminding me of Minnesota's 2013 car...

Finally, one last photo, newly posted to their WSC team profile:

(image source)

A great side profile shot which really shows how long the cockpit is. It definitely makes sense as a 4-seater from this perspective, although I don't know why they couldn't give the back seat passengers some longer windows...

14: Flinders

No updates this week.

23: University of Tehran

The team posted a whole bunch of industrial design sketches to Instagram this week.

More importantly, they also posted a video with a few very short shots with parts of a new car in the background and a picture of some team members working on electronics.

30: Team Arrow

No updates this week.

33: Cairo University

No updates this week.

35: IVE Sophie

Status: Unveiled! IVE unveiled Sophie VI on July 1st.

No updates this week.

40: Eindhoven

Status: Unveiled! Eindhoven unveiled Stella Vie on June 21st.

No updates this week.

42: TAFE SA

No updates this week.

45: Lodz

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Lodz unveiled Eagle Two on July 14th, and shipped to Australia on July 17th.

No updates this week.

The team keeps posting construction photos and videos to Facebook and Twitter. Notably, the suspension is installed on the chassis and the motors spin!

75: UNSW Sunswift

The team posted a small batch of construction progress photos to Facebook at the start of the week. We don't expect an unveiling until September.

94: University of Minnesota

Status: Unveiled! Minnesota unveiled Eos II on July 11th.

No news in the past week.

Status: Unveiled! KUAS unveiled Apollo VIII on June 29th.

The team posted a link to a news video about the team. There is a lot of footage of older cars, but some shots of their new Cruiser car. Particularly interesting, at 8:04, you can see that the car currently has a single motor - a Mitsuba at the left rear.

Also, that's a lot of batteries. I count 40 boxes, each with 30 cells in them. Assuming the loose cells came out of the close boxes at the upper right, that's 1200 cells. That many Panasonic 18650 cells is roughly 58kg of batteries! And who knows how many more boxes are out of frame?

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

The team posted a brake test video, a new photo of their chassis (looks clean!), and a photo of the topshell going on the car.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

Thanks to ScientificGems for pointing out their website: https://www.tushkahashi.com/

No news this week.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: July 20th

We're down to 46 teams; MIT disappeared off the list this week.

Challenger Class

Status: Unveiled! Michigan unveiled Novum on July 7th.

No updates of note since then.

The unveiling of Nuna9 is coming really soon (on July 25th), and Nuon has started posting some teaser shots to social media. There's not too much to show, but from this photo we can see that the car has a tall tunnel down the middle, a very narrow array airfoil (8-9" thick), and a very thin non-driver-side wheel fairing.

This photo does not reveal as much, but gives an idea of the thickness of the car.

Finally, they posted a partial head-on silhouette with their unveiling announcement. I played around with this a little bit in Photoshop and I'm convinced that it's completely fictional - it's not a photo that has been dimmed; it's a photo of a headlight that is overlaid onto a pure-black shape.

Speculation: Based on the first suspension image, I think it's reasonably clear that Nuon is building a catamaran with the driver on the right (as they did with Nuna7 and Nuna8). I suspect that it will be a 3-fairing car, however, with individual wheel fairings on the non-driver side.

4: Antakari

More car construction videos and photos on their Facebook and Instagram.

6: MIT

MIT is no longer listed on the official WSC teams list :(

There's no announcement of the team's situation on their social media accounts, so I have no idea what happened. Based on the photo on their WSC team profile, it appeared that they had completed their car!

7: Adelaide University

No updates of note in the past week.

8: Punch Powertrain

Status: Unveiled! Punch unveiled Punch Two on June 21st.

Just after I published last week's post, the team published a video of Punch Two driving next to their previous two cars - I always like it when teams keep a few of their old cars in driving shape. The video also notes Punch Two's weight as 145kg, vs 165kg for Punch One and 185kg for Indupol One.

Currently the team is taking it easy and doing some teambuilding between testing sessions this week. They also note that the car will ship to Australia in one month.

10: Tokai

Still no news about Tokai's 2017 car. I'm curious to see if Tokai will try some sort of bullet car along with Michigan/CUER/Kogakuin. If they do, it will probably be a 4sqm silicon array - their WSC team profile mentions Panasonic solar cells, which I'm assuming refers to the HIT cells that Tokai has had exclusive access to since 2011.

No updates in the past week.

13: Polytech Solar

No updates of note in the past week - but another photo of the composite body.

15: WSU

WSU announced an official unveiling date: August 29th. If you watch the announcement video carefully, you can see the silhouette of their car... with an extremely long, thin front overhang.

Screenshot of the video linked above
Some "quality" MSPaint enhancement from your pal MostDece


The front overhang looks like it is almost 1/3rd the overall length of the car. Reminds me a lot of Stanford's Xenith, although not quite as extreme on the front overhang.

16: Stanford

Status: Unveiled! Stanford unveiled Sundae on July 1st.

There haven't been any updates of note since then.

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

No updates to speak of in the past week.

20: Durham

Status: Shipped! Durham shipped their car to Australia on July 18th.

21: Twente

Status: Unveiled! Twente unveiled Red Shift on June 23rd.

No updates of note in the past week.

22: MDH

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled way back on May 31st.

No noteworthy updates since unveiling.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Status: Unveiled! I don't think there was a formal unveiling event, but NIT has been testing Horizon 17 on Bridgestone's test track.

(image source)

The car is still bare carbon and bondo, but it's good to be out testing as early as the car is drivable.

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

Reader and frequent commenter Nigel found this team's Facebook page for me. The page prominently features a red, white, and orange catamaran with comically tiny wheels - but I don't think this is the car they're bringing to WSC. There are also photos of new GHCraft wheels and a Mitsuba motorcomposites work on a new catamaran lower body, and a solar array being installed on a new upper body.

29: Siam Tech (Edison)

Not much of note in the past week - some frame welding photos on Facebook.

32: Principia

Status: Unveiled! There wasn't a formal unveiling event, but the team took Ra X to Formula Sun in Texas, July 3-8.

The team is currently road testing Ra X and preparing for shipping.

34: RVCE

The team posted another "launch event coming soon" image to follow the one last week, but still no date.

37: Goko High School

I've never been able to find any social media from this team, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Based on their WSC team profile, their car appears to be finished, and that's all I know.

38: North-West University

The team is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to help finish the car. Public unveiling of Naledi is scheduled for August 22nd.

43: Australia National University

No updates since last week.

46: Jonkoping University

The team have announced on Facebook and Instagram that Solveig will be unveiled on August 28th.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

Status: Unveiled! The team unveiled Huawei Sonnenwagen today, July 20th!


(image source)

You can see in this tweet that the car is built with a steel space-frame chassis.

71: Istanbul Technical University

No news of note in the past week, although the team has posted a new render.

72: Proton

No updates this week. Their team profile on the WSC site is still completely blank.

77: Blue Sky

No updates this week.

82: Kookmin University

Status: Unveiled! Kookmin unveiled Taegeuk on July 7th.

No updates since then.

88: Kogakuin University

Status: Unveiled! Kogakuin unveiled Wing on June 29th.

The team had a busy week - like NIT, they have been driving on Bridgestone's test track, and afterward they did a full teardown and inspection of the car:

(image source)

They also posted some interesting photos of the front suspension.

(image source)

(image source)

Note the multi-link setup, as well as the pull-rod linkage to the fore-aft mounted inboard shock. I'm scratching my head about how far forward the steering axis appears to be from the spindle. Maybe they're hoping the high-trail setup will make the narrow car be more stable and track straighter?

This is an interesting post. If I'm understanding the translation and looking at the photos correctly, Wing has 4-wheel steering, and the rear wheels are hydraulically steered.

Finally, for those of us wondering how the driver gets in and out, wonder no longer.

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

Status: Unveiled! Singapore Polytechnic unveiled SunSPEC 5 on July 21st - just after I originally published this post.

SunSPEC 5
(image source)

9: PrISUm

Status: Unveiled! Iowa State unveiled Penumbra on June 2nd.

Not much to note from the team this week. In last week's post, I missed this video that the team released a while back. It's a cute little video, but I cringe every time they refer to it as a Solar SUV. How more stereotypically American can you get?

Status: Shipped! The team shipped Blue.Cruiser out to Australia on July 11th.

We won't hear much until the car lands down under.

14: Flinders

Nothing noteworthy this week.

23: University of Tehran

No updates this week.

30: Team Arrow

No updates this week.

33: Cairo University

No updates this week.

35: IVE Sophie

Status: Unveiled! IVE unveiled Sophie VI on July 1st.

No significant news since then.

40: Eindhoven

Status: Unveiled! Eindhoven unveiled Stella Vie on June 21st.

There's not too much to report this week, although this video has some interesting details. The car weighs 375kg, is 1.65m wide, and 5m long. It also only has a 12kWh battery pack!

In 2015, Cruiser teams were allowed 60kg of lithium batteries - which worked out to almost exactly 15kW of storage. All five of the teams that finished maxed out the size of their battery (and the battery mass limit was similar in 2013: 66kg of Li-poly, 63kg of Li-ion). This year, battery mass is unrestricted - and due to the way the Cruiser class is scored, the size of the battery has major race strategy implications.

Eindhoven is down on solar array (6sqm->5sqm, as mandated by the regs), up on occupants, but has voluntarily cut down the size of their battery pack. Iiiiinteresting!

42: TAFE SA

No updates this week.

45: Lodz

Status: Unveiled, and Shipped! Lodz unveiled Eagle Two on July 14th, and shipped to Australia on July 17th.


The team posted a great video overview of the car. It's a 4-door car, and note at 0:10: 3 across seating in the back row! Like Eindhoven, Lodz is fielding a 5-seater this year.

There's also a good comparison shot to 2015's Eagle One on Instagram. Eagle Two is visibly lower, longer, and sleeker.

Not really much of note this week. The team posted some more chassis photos to Facebook.

75: UNSW Sunswift

Sunswift published a new teaser video on YouTube this past week. It's... perhaps a tad over-produced? A little dramatic? I remember my old team making something similar when we let our media folks off the leash...

From what little detail can be seen, it's pretty clear Violet will be a 4-door. The video ends with "Expect Greatness: September 2017", so I guess we'll be waiting quite a while for the public unveiling.

They've also updated the background of their website with a little teaser pan over a rendering. The video is easily extracted from the website. I used my very finest MSPaint skills to stitch a few frames together and trace over it:

Only the best MSPaint for you, my dear readers.

It looks low and sleek with a short hood and a long deck. Slight wrap-around windshield as well, which should look a lot more graceful that eVe's windshield did.

94: University of Minnesota

Status: Unveiled! Minnesota unveiled Eos II on July 11th.

The team recently posted some photos from a wind tunnel trip that was prior to unveiling. They're also running a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for WSC.

Status: Unveiled! KUAS unveiled Apollo VIII on June 29th.

No updates from the team since then.

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

Nothing of note in the past week.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

I don't have any social media links or a blog for this team so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thursday, July 13, 2017

WSC 2017 Update: July 13th

I've updated the sidebar with the WSC 2017 teams list and created new pages for new teams. The list on the WSC website is already down from the original 50 to only 47. The three teams that are already off after less than a week:

  • The #26 Missouri S&T team (as expected/announced by the team)
  • The #39 Estidamah team from Saudi Arabia
  • The #66 Creatti team from Columbia. I think this is the other team that came out of the EAFIT-EPM split-up. It's a shame neither EAFIT nor Creatti will be attending this year, as EAFIT-EPM did quite well two years ago.
Given how much WSC emphasized "A record 50 teams!" but then how quickly they removed some of those from the list of entrants, I kind of feel like WSC intentionally padded the list for publicity purposes...

Challenger Class

Michigan unveiled their new car Novum on the 7th, and like the rumors suggested, it's a based around a 2.64sqm multi-junction gallium-arsinide solar array. It's a teeny tiny little bullet of a car:

smol car
(image source)
Seriously, this thing is tiny
(Photo: Evan Dougherty, Michigan Engineering)
Long car is long
(Photo: Evan Dougherty, Michigan Engineering)
Carbon "roll structure" and leading arm front suspension.
(Photo: Evan Dougherty, Michigan Engineering)

The team published this rough 3D model you can spin around:


My first impression was "it's like if you cut the sides off of Solar Eagle III".

Cal State LA's Solar Eagle III, the winner of Sunrayce '97
(image sourceCC BY-SA 3.0)

It's also a little reminiscent of Kogakuin's 2013 car, Practice, which had a big ol' mono-fairing underneath a normal, wide array.

Kogakuin's Practice at WSC in 2013
(image source)

My second impression is "hey, they didn't forget the window in the back for the license plate this time!"

(sorry Michigan, I couldn't resist)

My third impression is "... huh. It's bigger than I expected". Michigan states that the car is 1m x 1m x 5m, which works out to a 5sqm planform - for only 2.64sqm of array. Even accounting for the fact that it doesn't actually have a full 5sqm of planview area due to the rounded front corners, and the smaller GaAs solar cells have a worse packing factor than large silicon cells due to more inter-cell gaps, it seems like an awfully large car for such a small array area. Particularly, it seems like there's a lot of wasted space up front. I'd suspect they were omitting cells up there to try to maintain laminar flow across a longer length of the car, but they've got that gap for the topshell to be removed right across the front - and taping that gap almost certainly won't preserve laminar flow. An ex-solarcar-aero guy I know semi-seriously stated "I expect Nuon to unveil an aerodynamically optimized version of this car in two weeks".

Note that Kogakuin's car is also 1m wide x 5m long, and it fits a full 4sqm silicon array...

<WildDumbTheoryTime>

Part of me wonders if they were/are hedging their bets on the array - What if the GaAs array doesn't work out? A silicon array is a comparatively cheap backup option. If you really filled up the whole top including the nose, how large of an array of cut silicon cells do you think could fit on this car? 3sqm? 3.2sqm? More? They could stick the last little chunk of cells (that don't fit on the top) onto the left side of the car, which will face a little north over the course of the race... better than nothing, right?

That might also explain why it has a removable array - so the team could swap arrays late in the game if needed. That's been bothering me because if I had designed this car, I would have done it as a Stanford-2013/2015-style monocoque. It's small enough that you should be able to get at everything through the driver hatch and the wheel access hatches (maybe you could pull the battery out backward through the rear fairing?), and just use a kickstand to tip the car for static charging (easy with such a narrow car). The resulting car would be stronger, lighter, and not have that big ol' seam all the way around the car that needs to get taped, and re-taped, and re-taped, and re-taped over and over throughout the course of the race...

</WildDumbTheoryTime>

ANYWAY. Even if the car has some extra whetted area on the front of the car, I suspect that it still has a better whetted-area-to-array-area ratio than the catamaran style cars, which is a pretty classic figure-of-merit for solar cars. Due to the monofairing, it has a little more than half of the vertical surface area of catamaran cars with similar length fairings, and that's a lot of surface area eliminated. Sure, the fairing itself is a little longer - due to the width requiring more opening and closing length - but this still looks very slick. The nose appears relatively blunt, but I'll bet it's specifically shaped to perform well in a variety of crosswind situations.

Novum is unique, different, and flat out cool. I'm nitpicking because I'm fascinated by it. I have no idea how it will do - it could run away with the race, or it could fall back from the leaders very quickly. The Michigan team are no dummies; they were the among the first teams to try a catamaran back in 2013 (just not as successfully as Nuon or Tokai), and I wouldn't expect them to do this unless they're fairly certain that this style of car will have a serious competitive advantage under the 2017 regs. We'll just have to wait and see.

3: Nuon

Nuon has hinted that Nuna 9 may be a large departure from their previous two cars, but I haven't heard any concrete rumors. It'll be unveiled on July 25th.

4: Antakari

There are a lot of construction photos on their social media. It looks like a "normal" 2-fairing catamaran, with the driver on the right.

6: MIT

Absolutely no news on their website/social media since they posted about the body layups way back in November.

Their WSC team page has a photo of their completed car, though!

(image source)

The car looks large compared to other cars this year, and I'm assuming that's the complete array (rather than a partially installed one). I think MIT must have designed the car and cut their molds around a 6sqm array, before the WSC '17 regs came out detailing the smaller arrays. Whoops :(

Building a new car before the regs are released is a huge risk, and I will never understand why teams with means and resources do it.

7: Adelaide University

The team is building a fairly normal 2-fairing catamaran, with the driver on the left. Their last updates were the body layups over the first half of June.

There's a render of their car on their WSC team profile:

(image source)

It appears very low to the ground, with a very large driver canopy. That style of roll cage terrifies me even more than the usual "just a small hoop behind the driver's head". You've already pre-buckled it! It's just asking to collapse on the driver in a rollover, crushing and pinning them into the car.

8: Punch Powertrain

Punch has already unveiled, and I posted some thoughts on the car here. Their car is a 2-fairing catamaran with the driver on the right, the front of the fairings blended into the leading edge of the array, and very little rear overhang.

Punch Two
(image source)

10: Tokai

No details about what Tokai is up to at this time.

CUER is building a gallium-array bullet car, in the same vein as their previous two cars - the rendering on the WSC teams page appears nearly indistinguishable from Evolution in 2015. It will have a tracking array, like they tried in 2013 (but not in 2015). 

CUER 2017. Longer with a blunter nose than in 2015?
(image source)
Evolution (2015)
Resolution (2013) (image sourceCC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Couldn't you at least have pointed all of the arrays in the same direction for the photo shoot?

(Aside: it's a shame they finished Resolution so late and seemingly didn't publish any photos, the only photos I can find of it with the side array installed and any sort of front fairing are post-crash)

The bullet car concept will be more viable in 2017 than in 2013 or 2015 due to the higher proportion of allowed multi-junction gallium to silicon cells, but I still like Michigan's execution of the idea better than CUER's "let's put the array underneath a heavy, reflective, heat-trapping dome" concept. I think the aero gains of CUER's concept vs Michigan's are minimal at best - perhaps non-existent, considering how CUER's stays wide quite far up, whereas Michigan's car only has the tiny narrow bubble extending to the full height - and I think CUER's performance as a complete system will be worse overall. Let's not even get into the idea of a tracking solar array, which history has shown to be either heavy, failure prone, or both when used on solar vehicles over the rough roads of the Australian outback. Still, I'm very interested to see how their car stacks up against the competition this year.

So far I can't find any photos or other evidence of construction on the 2017 car.

13: Polytech Solar

The rookie team from Russia continues to post photos of car construction on VK

15: WSU

The team posted some photos of small components being built back in May, but has been relatively quiet since then. I'm not sure when the car is going to be unveiled, but it must be soon.

16: Stanford

The team unveiled their new car Sundae about two weeks ago, which we wrote about here. No real news since then.

18: UiTM EcoPhoton

Near the end of this video they posted to twitter in June, there are some time-lapse shots of the team doing body layups. Other than that, there's no news on the state of the car. The render on their WSC team profile appears indistinguishable from their 2015 car.

20: Durham

No news in the past few weeks. Given that the photo on their WSC team page is just a photo of their old car at WSC 2015, I'm pretty sure they're bringing that car back.

21: Twente

The team recently took a trip with Red Shift to a wind tunnel, and seem pretty happy with the results.

22: MDH

No real news about this team since they unveiled their car.

25: Nagoya Institute of Technology

"Our new machine coming soon!"

The rendering at the top of their page on the WSC 2017 website shows a sleek 2-fairing catamaran with the driver on the left, and a very rounded nose.

(image source)

The text on the team page notes that this is the very first car that they have specifically designed for WSC, and also the first car that they have designed with CFD.

28: Neul-Hae-Rang

I really can't find any information on this team. Their WSC page has a render of a 2-fairing catamaran, with the driver on the right and fairly far aft, and a very thin array airfoil.

(image source)

EDIT 7/14: Nigel found their Facebook page.

29: Siam Tech

I can't find any information on the progress of Siam Tech's Challenger-class team, "Edison". The render at the top of their WSC team page is the same one I posted here.

EDIT 7/14: Nigel found their Facebook page; it appears they have a mostly complete frame and the start of some body forms.

32: Principia

Principia formally unveiled their new car Ra X on Facebook, while they attended FSGP 2017 in Texas. The car is a 2-fairing catamaran with the driver on the right, and definitely appears to be on the short/wide end of the proportion spectrum, and the array planform is very rectangular.

(image source)
Narrower fairing on the non-driver side
(image source)

The car did not have a solar array at FSGP. I'm told a second upper was manufactured and already has the solar array installed, but the team didn't want to risk damaging it before the car's main event in Australia this fall. It was pretty clear that the electrical systems on the car were not 100% finished, and the team was treating FSGP as more of a "let's force ourselves to work on the car for a week straight" event rather than a real competition. It seems to have worked - although it took them a little bit of extra time in the garages to get the car prepped for the track, by the end of the week the car appeared to be driving great.

34: RVCE

Launch event "coming soon".

37: Goko High School

Another angle of the car was posted at the top of their team profile on the WSC site, and it really emphasizes how narrow this 3-fairing catamaran is:

(image source)

Design philosophy: "Go On A Quest For Fun!!" 

38: North-West University

One thing I missed in my last post: NWU is planning to tilt their array to track the sun! I thought I was being clever when I noticed the small seams underneath their array in the rendering and the round cross-section where it joins the car, and then I noticed they explicitly state "A decision was made to implement a rotating solar collector to maximise the collection of solar energy during the race." on their WSC team profile. They really *are* revisiting late 80's solar car ideas...

NWU 2018: Naledi
(image source)
Spirit of Biel, 3rd place at WSC 1987

NWU just posted a 40 DAYS image to Facebook with the caption "Naledi is coming", so look for an unveiling around August 22nd.

43: Australia National University

The team posted another rendering, better showing the weird wheel/driver compartment layout discussed here.

(image source)

Yep. 4-fairing asymmetric, with a wide rear track, narrow front track, and the driver contained behind the front left wheel.

It looks like they've just started construction on the frame.

46: Jonkoping University

The render on their WSC team profile shows a 2-fairing catamaran with zero front or rear overhang of the array, and the driver on the right. There are a few construction photos on Facebook and Instagram.

70: Sonnenwagen Aachen

The team has posted a lot of renders of a moderately sleek 2-fairing catamaran, although I have to say that the array protruding left and right out over the wheel fairings looks a lot more like a 2015 design feature than something that is really necessary with the new, smaller 2017 arrays. There are some construction photos on their facebook and instagram, but nothing super noteworthy here.

I believe they are unveiling on July 20th - so we'll see what the finished car really looks like.

71: Istanbul Technical University

ITU has been posting consistent teasers of construction photos, but no complete renders yet - only this teaser. We do know that it will be a 2-fairing catamaran, and that it has one of those awful carbon roll "hoops" that teams seem to insist on doing, and WSC continues to allow.

72: Proton

I couldn't find a single piece of information about this team, and their WSC team profile is entirely blank. Reader Nigel found the team's Facebook page, and it contains zero photos of any part of a car being worked on. Of all of the teams that are currently on the WSC team list, this is the one that I least expect to actually show up.

77: Blue Sky

The team has only posted a silhouette of their car, but it's clearly going to be a 2-fairing catamaran with a moderate front and rear overhang. They've also posted the odd construction photo or two, showing lower body layups over late May.

82: Kookmin University


Taegeuk
(image source)

It looks pretty much like a WSC 2015 catamaran, just scaled down a little.

88: Kogakuin University

No real news since the unveiling. There are a few good closeups of Wing in this Bridgestone article, and Nigel raised a good question to me: How are they getting in and out of the car? There's no obvious door, and the canopy would have to slide waaaay forward for the driver to be able to get out from under the array. Sound off in the comments if you have ideas...

It's also worth point out that the article mentions there are 306 students on the team. Dang that's a lot of people, what do they all do?!?

Cruiser Class

5: SunSPEC

SunSPEC is pretty far along into building a 2-seat Cruiser car - there's a bunch of good stuff on their Facebook, including a render of the finished car. That giant, bluff rear end isn't going to do them any aerodynamic favors, though...

The team will be unveiling the car on July 21st.

9: PrISUm

Iowa State recently completed "SunRun", and is continuing to test the car in the USA. Earlier in the week, they did some testing at 3M headquarters in St. Paul.

Bochum unveiled the 4-seat Blue.Cruiser on July 5th, and it looks just like the renders promised it would:

(image source)
You really get a sense of scale in this photo with their previous three cars. SunRiser was a small car, and Blue.Cruiser looks much larger. Now I understand how they're fitting 4 people inside!

Left to right: Blue.Cruiser, SunRiser, SunCruiser, and SolarWorld GT
(image source)

Note that the portion of the array on the rear of the car appears to be entirely cut half-cells

The team has already shipped the car to Australia, which seems incredibly early! I assume they're going to be doing extensive testing in Australia ahead of the race.

14: Flinders

The team had their bare frame on display in Adelaide for WSC's PR event last week, but there's not a whole lot of progress visible than that.

23: University of Tehran

Their WSC team page has a rendering of a very aggressive looking sports car, and claims that it will be a 2+2 style car.

(image source)

The team hasn't posted any construction progress to social media.

30: Team Arrow

The team really hasn't posted much other than a few pretty car renderings of a sleek 2-seater.

(image source)

They've posted a single photo of a finished lower composite structure at the end of May, so progress is definitely being made. I don't think they've announced an unveiling date, though...

33: Cairo University

I was correct that the teams list was initially incorrect, this is indeed a Cruiser team. I also just noticed that "University" is misspelled...

I've found a Facebook page for the team, but they haven't posted any construction photos or information. Their WSC team profile is pretty bare as well.

35: IVE Sophie

Not much to report since the car was unveiled about two weeks ago.

40: Eindhoven

The team has been out doing some testing.

42: TAFE SA

TAFE SA is build a very utilitarian style vehicle...


Based on Facebook, the team seems pretty far along in mechanical construction. Interestingly, their profile on the WSC 2017 page mentions a sleeper cab and the ability to pull a trailer. I've always joked about doing a solar car race where we don't limit the amount of array teams can have, but disallow all support vehicles and require all team members, tools, parts, etc to travel in the solar car...

45: Lodz

Lodz will be unveiling their new 4-seater in just under 7 hours. Based on their previous car, I'm assuming the quality will be high. I like the overall shape, although those swoops down the side are certainly for style and they'll take a hit on aero efficiency for that.

Siam Tech's Cruiser team has been posting pretty frequently to Facebook. The bodywork looks pretty rough, but at least they're making progress...

75: UNSW Sunswift

UNSW is still keeping the design of Violet close to their chests. I'm not sure when they're going to publicly unveil it.

94: University of Minnesota

Minnesota unveiled Eos II yesterday, and it looks pretty good! Definitely a step up in quality from the previous car in terms of fit&finish. It's another two-seater, and seems like it will have a relatively nicely finished interior. The rear of the car looks pretty good, but I'm a little more doubtful about the front - the nose seems pointlessly sharp, and the windshield is a bit odd.

Sharp look vinyl wrap
(image source)
Well-fitting array and wheel fairing
(image source)

You can see in this article that the front of the array gets quite narrow; moreso than the rear.

It's worth noting that UMN appears to be the only US-based team getting sponsored with Bridgestone Ecopia tires.

95: Apollo

Nothing really to report since their unveiling.

Adventure Class

52: Illini Solar Car

The team has been posting consistent and extensive construction progress to all of their social media, and it looks like they're very far along.

53: Mississippi Choctaw High School

This team claims to be the only Native American solar car team. They have a big 'ol 8.17sqm Sunpower array with a semi-laydown car - the American high school solar challenge folks appear to operate completely independently from all of the international solar car races and haven't updated their regs to match what the rest of the world has been doing over the past decade. This should be a FAST car, but it's sorta irrelevant because they're mostly on their own in the Adventure class.