Solar Powered Racing

Newburgh teens build solar cars and race them

by Jack Sine

Mixing 16-year-old kids, cars, and racing is a recipe for disaster to most adults. But not if you’re looking at a group of 50 or so teenagers at Newburgh Free Academy who are not only building and racing solar-powered cars—they’re also doing it for class credit.

Lee Cabe is a native Beaconite and a (now retired) physics teacher at NFA. Back in the mid 90s Lee got the idea of building a solar powered car and having his students work on it for lab credit.

“There’s a lot to it,” said Cabe. “Everything we study in physics is in this car, plus some chemistry. The program is focused on Juniors who are just getting their licenses and really into cars. So they have fun while they learn.”

The cars use photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity and store it in batteries that power the car.

“The cells are the most expensive part,” said Cabe. “We have one bad panel on our primary car now and it will cost about $20,000 to replace it.”

That car is a single seater constructed of a lightweight and exceptionally strong fiberglass that uses Kevlar (the material of bullet-proof vest fame) as the fiber. It opens like a clamshell, revealing all of the electrical connections, batteries, and mechanical components.

“The top and bottom sections cost about $5,000 dollars each to fabricate,” said Cabe. “ But the molds didn’t cost us a dime. I noticed on the Web that MIT was trying to sell the molds for one of their older cars online. I contacted them and pointed out that any likely buyer would be a competing university, so why not just give them to a deserving high school like NFA. A couple of weeks later, they called and said come and get them. It took two trips because they weigh 1,000 pound each.”

    The car features three wheels, two in front to steer it and one in the rear to drive it. The electric motor weighs only 15 pounds and attaches directly to the hub of the rear wheel so no power is lost in transmission.

    “Top speed is 44, 45 miles per hour,” said Cabe. “But in the races speed is not as important as how far you go. When the sun is at its peak, you try to cover more ground to use up the battery charge so the photovoltaic sells can replenish it as you go. Like I said, it’s all physics.”
Paying the bill

    The money for the project doesn’t come from the school or the government. The kids fund it themselves along with some corporate sponsors Cabe has gathered who donate materials.

    “The kids are great,” said Cabe. “They do it on their own time. Sometimes they take the car out to a shopping mall and charge a fee to let people drive it around the parking area. They also drive around the streets to raise money. The car is street legal and fully insured. If they don’t raise enough to come to a race as part of the team, sometimes the parents or the students themselves pay their own way.”

Racing the sun

    The races themselves are fascinating. They are always long distance so they can test the racing teams’ abilities to use the solar power most efficiently. NFA has been participating in races since 1996 when it first entered the Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge in Austin, Texas. The race alternates between a four-day event at the Texas Motor Speedway and a long cross-country race. In honor of NFA’s longtime participation, this year’s race will begin in Austin, proceed to the Rochester Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, and finish at Newburgh.

    The cross-country races follow secondary 55 mile per hour routes with a lead car and a chase car. The chase car has flashing lights and a sign that reads “Solar Car Ahead”. The vehicles communicate by radio and team members are constantly monitoring the amount of energy coming from the sun and the energy in the batteries so they can get the most distance out of their power. The route is kept secret until just before the race and motel rooms are reserved along the route. At the days end the racers recharge their batteries with the help of the setting and rising sun. In NFA’s case, the clamshell design makes it easy to position the top of the car for maximum exposure by opening the top half and pointing it at a favorable angle at the sun.

    And how well does the NFA team do?

    “We always account for ourselves well,” said Cabe. “In last year’s Dell-Winston race we placed third. Even when we compete with universities who have big budgets and the latest NASA quality technology we manage to finish in the middle of the pack.”

    With everybody talking about finding alternative forms of energy, it’s refreshing to see that a group of Hudson Valley teenagers are actually doing something about it and having a good time along the way.