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RSSThese Knights Shine in the Day South Plantation High's Solar Car in National Contest
July 04, 2007
Categories: General News
By Akilah Johnson
The school year may be over but there’s one more test for South Plantation High School’s Solar Knights: Can their car maintain speeds of 30 mph without using gas?
The solar-power vehicle can travel at 20 mph and never refuel as long as skies stay sunny and clear, but that extra oomph would really improve the team’s chances in the Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge, a nine-day, 1,600-mile, cross-country competition.
“Who’s the sun god? We should pray to him,” Taylor Sawyer, 18, joked Tuesday at a corporate sponsor’s send-off party in Hollywood.
Sawyer and seven other students spent the last year scavenging scrap heaps and scouring the Internet to create their sun-powered, three-wheeled car. Building the $35,000 vehicle, dubbed the Solar Knight, began as a senior project for Sawyer and two other recent graduates.
The competition and the vehicle represent the fusion of three things: The end of their high school career, a memorable road trip before college and an environmental statement about the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Solar power, they said, is a resource that deserves further exploration.
“The main goal is to get the idea out that there are things besides petroleum that move the world,” said Daniel Myers, 18, who will attend Northwestern University, near Chicago.
“We’re just three high school kids, and if we can do it, then major manufacturers with all their brains and think-tanks, should,” said Sawyer, who will be a freshman at the University of Florida this fall.
Even the construction of the car was a lesson in recycling.
The back wheel was taken from a Kawaski motorcycle. The front two tires are ATV wheels. The steering wheel was ripped off a motor scooter. The one and only seat is a Mazda Miata car seat. The solar panels rest on top of the buggy.
“We’ve been digging around the Internet and through junkyards,” Noah Stahl, 18, of Davie, said. “We’ve pulled parts from all around.”
Grants and sponsors, including Toyota, Best Buy and BP Solar, helped buy those things that couldn’t be found.
The race begins on July 16 in Roundrock, Texas and ends on July 24 in Newburg, N.Y. While the race is only nine days, the team will be gone for 19 total: three days to haul the car to Texas, three days of road testing, and four days to drive back from New York. Students are still fundraising for hotel expenses, gas and food.
Students will drive in two-hour shifts. The car is weight sensitive and requires more energy to carry more weight. So heavier students will drive downhill and lighter students will drive uphill. No one will drive certain parts of the route because some communities didn’t want experimental cars on their roadways.
When the Solar Knight is on the road, it will travel in between two vehicles: A lead and chaser.
A van will follow the car with the rest of the team and computer equipment to make sure the solar car does not use too much energy. A pickup truck with an attached trailer will be in front.
“If it rains, you just stop, drop and pull it into the trailer,” said Allan Phipps, a South Plantation environmental science teacher.
Phipps discovered the competition while Sawyers, Myers and Stahl were still juniors. He knew they loved both engineering and the environment and proposed the car as their senior project. They got an A.
“This is what makes teaching so worthwhile,” Phipps said Tuesday as the students chatted about power output and topography. “These kids keep me on my toes. Otherwise, I’d be sitting in a classroom teaching the same thing over and over.”
Plans for the Solar Knight II are already in the works. The original will be retired car in December and scavenged for parts. Then construction on car two will begin.
Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4527.
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