What?
A nation-wide STEM competition for school-aged students to learn about, design, build and race their own model solar powered cars and boats against their peers.
When and Where?
Race day for the 2024 Tasmanian Solar Car Challenge will take place be on Saturday Nov 2nd (end of week 3, Term 4) at Hobart City HS.
The Solar Boat Challenge will take place on Monday Dec 2nd at the Friends' Bell St Grounds.
Who?
The solar challenge is open to all school or home-school children studying up to Year 12 in Tasmania.
How?
Find out more here and get started today!
The ultimate STEM challenge FOR SCHOOLS
The Tasmanian Model Solar Challenge is an exciting hands-on STEM competition for schools. It helps link concepts learnt in the classroom with the physical world and acts as an effective motivator for students to become or remain engaged in the areas of Science, Engineering and Technology.
Nothing but solar
The competition challenges students to design, build and race a model car or boat that’s powered by nothing more than direct sunlight. That means no batteries or any other energy storage systems.
With an ever increasing global push towards reducing greenhouse emissions the challenge provides students with an insight into solar technology, its growing industry and future moving forwards.
A mini WORLD SOLAR Challenge
Many of the concepts and problems faced by teams competing in the World Solar Challenge are carried through to the model challenge. Technical areas including car aerodynamics, rolling resistance and controller electronics as well as many more are critical in optimising vehicle performance.
Model solar cars can reach speeds in excess of 30km/h and pull up to two G’s while cornering. That’s approximately 1/3 the speed of a full sized solar car but running on just 6/1000 the power.
Limitless Design possibilities
Each year a set of basic regulations must be followed but vehicle design and construction is then completely up to students. A car or boat can be put together using off the shelf components in very little time or students can design and manufacture lighter and higher quality versions from scratch. CAD and 3D printing can be used as part of the design process and CFD software such as Autodesk’s Flow Design harnessed to virtually analyse and refine vehicle aerodynamics. Precision manufacturing can be undertaken through the use of lathes and milling machines.
Despite the vast array of possibilities, some of the fastest entries ever seen have been based on a few basic hand drawn sketches and built using very little more than a few basic hand tools.
Real time problem solving
Weather and course conditions affect race strategy in the World Solar Challenge and model solar cars and boats are no different. Sun levels often change throughout an event and teams must make adjustments in order to maximise the performance of their models.
Students need to think on their feet and set up their vehicles to suit variations on race day. Things don’t always go to plan and teams often need to make urgent repairs in time for the next race.
Getting Technical
Teams with a greater understanding of the Challenge’s technical areas are able to better apply this to their designs to produce the fastest cars and boats. This motivates students to further their learning and teachers can use the competition to reinforce many of the scientific principles being taught in the classroom. Newton’s laws of motion and other secondary physics are able to be directly related to the challenge. Electronic circuits and the function of more complex solar panel controllers can be investigated. Even 3rd order polynomials can be solved to calculate theoretical top speeds.
ANYONE CAN GET INVOLVED
Getting involved in the Tasmanian Model Solar Challenge is easy. The competition is open to all school-aged students studying up to year 12 in Tasmania and there are no entry fees. Teams can be made up of a single student, a small group or in some cases even an entire class. The event is also open to home-school or other children interested in building something out of school in their own time, all that’s needed is the motivation to build and race a model solar powered car or boat. Get in touch with the TMSC about getting your own car or boat starter kit at no cost today.
