G'day all,

How did yesterday's 2009 Sunsprint go?

miseli

was a good day, sun was around 60% all day, so not the fastest times were posted.

1st All Saints Greek Grammer
2nd Moorebank High
3rd St Pauls College
4th Our Lady of Lebanon

all these cars were doing around 18-19 second laps in this light

it was good to see some of the newer teams doing so well, and for st pauls to finally get knocked off lol (it could of been 7 in a row!)

what was interesting is how many teams were still using a maximiser with the new weight penalty in place

also tony and myself were scrutineering, so it was interesting to see all the cars in close detail (finally a chance to see what my brother had built, he would never let me see it lol) and to see who was using what and how they were doing it.

cheers

ben

Good to see some new schools up there.

I'm not surprised most teams are still using electronics. The extra 20% ballast as it currently stands isn't enough of a penalty. The members on the national committee that came up with the percentage are well aware of this.

Most teams will just have used electronics because of convenience, but if you take the time to run some tests and do some calculations, you'll find that you are still at an advantage if you do.

The main reason as to why this rule was included was to get teams and students to look into the matter and not just take the electronics for granted.

You never know, they may increase the figure in 2010.

miseli

As Ben said above, the cars were getting 18-19 seconds in 60% ~ 65% light. I think the sun peaked at 67% during the lunch break.

I think one of the reasons the NSW event has a lower light reading is because the track is set up in a confined area surrounded by buildings. Plus there was a fair bit of humidity in the air.

Ill post up the official data once i get hold of it.

yes i wasnt surprised at nearly all the teams using electronics either. truth be told most of the teams didnt even realise that they needed more ballast if they ran electronics lol. i totally agree that teams use it for the convinience, as it is now so easy to make a slow car fast, all you need is good drivetrain, sure it might not win, but it will be competitive.

without electronics there is so much more to do. i remember when we would wire our panels with series and parallel switches on the bottom, and we had about 15 motors with about 40 pinion gears and maybe 6 spur gears to try. those were the days when would spend a week just running the car on the school track to find out all the data we needed. imho before electronics, the students involved would learn so much more about the cars they had built. now, all they do is put it on the track and switch it on. no more changing gears between finals to get that edge over the other car. lol then the blood was pumping

if they do increase the weight added it will only benefit the competition. you would start to see more teams not using electronics, which would teach them more about their cars. although it needs to be such that cars with electronics are still competitive, and the cars without them have the edge if they are set correctly.

ben

I agree. If there is going to be a weight penalty involved, it needs to be set up to advantage a car without electronics. It must be remembered that if the sun intensity happens to change during a race or between making a gear change and the start of a race, a car without electronics might be in a bit of trouble.

Another reason why the NSW event would have lower light levels is that it's being held in early September and not late November or December like the National event generally is.
We apparently got to 122% at last year' s nationals in Hobart, but I'm not quite convinced that the light meter that we were using was calibrated properly. Maybe the low humidity, clean air and sunlight reflecting off clouds also had something to do with it.

I look forward to seeing the official sunsprint data. Were any scrutineering photos taken?

and also down in tassy you guys have a lovely hole in the ozone layer lol. the sun is never like that up here. i could feel my skin burning all day, where as up here its not so bad.

um im not sure if photos of scrutineering were taken? tony? i did see anybody hanging around there, but there were alot of photos of the event taken.

No we didnt any scrutineering photos. There were many photos and videos taken during the day, we need to get some up.

1st - Karo III (16) - Fastest time 18.01
2nd - Stealth (10) - Fastest time 18.79
3rd - Pulse (6) - Fastest time 20.68
4th - Commando (26) - Fastest time 19.92

All these times i got from this link, which i think has been posted on another thread, anyway here it is:

http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/sunsprin ... race-times

Sun was pretty bad, my 18.01 was run during qualifying, probably no more than 75%. Sadly, i was on holidays and missed Melbourne so dissapointed about that, but coming next year definetally.

Karo wrote:1st - Karo III (16) - Fastest time 18.01
2nd - Stealth (10) - Fastest time 18.79
3rd - Pulse (6) - Fastest time 20.68
4th - Commando (26) - Fastest time 19.92

All these times i got from this link, which i think has been posted on another thread, anyway here it is:

http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/sunsprin ... race-times

Sun was pretty bad, my 18.01 was run during qualifying, probably no more than 75%. Sadly, i was on holidays and missed Melbourne so dissapointed about that, but coming next year definetally.

Well done on your win in the states. One thing i was curious about with your car; after the first day, did you make a few modifications or left it as is? I remember that you set a time within a consistent range of 20 seconds on the first day, then clocked a best 18.01 (it said 18.44 on the data sheet) on the next day.

Ye funny story that one.

On the first day, we were running 20's and couldnt get lower. The funny part is that i misunderstood the rules, and thought the milk carton had to fit both ways, so our car was twice as wide, so overnight, i cut half of the car off, made it from 28cm wide to 18cm wide, cleaned everything up and that was it. Next day we come, 1st qualifying run, 18.44, second qualifying run 18.01 (this is what the timekeepers told me what i ran, so i think the datasheet is a bit off, it doesnt have all my runs)

So to answer your question, i did MAJOR changes overnight. If i do have picturers, ill post them, you can see the difference heaps. I think i took some for the poster, still have the body in my room.

If there is anyone out there that still thinks that model solar car aerodynamics don't matter, the previous post should say it all.