BUILT A SOLAR CAR FROM SCRATCH.......
totally made of recycled products.
top view. Its a 1 watt solar panel
the plastic body's side view.
The school entered a solar car powered competition. Build a car from recycled material, and race it over 15m. Quickest wins.
Was bloody interested when the teacher in charge came to me for ideas, so i kinda joined the team.
Built 5 cars prior to this model. The first was the best looking one. Built entirely of an old meccano set i had. Was kinda too heavy for the motors to move it and the solar panels couldn't generate the power required (we used an old Tamiya motor). We then changed the motor to one of those low powered radio motors.
Built a second car, using the same solar panels. It was lighter and was bloody streamlined ( we modeled it after one of those land speed record cars). Disaster struck when we spray painted the polistirene body....didn't count on the compressed freon gas eating into the polistirene...were left with a pile of white sticky, corroded polistirene.
Third car was a replica of the second one.....didn't move though....cos the solar panels were under powered.
Desperation sunk in after we bought a new solar panel.......we used an old tamiya car's platform to support the motor and the panel.....it was too flimsy and kept falling over....we this point, everyone cracked....the competition was tomorrow.
Then I remembered that bro had bought a pair of noise canceling headphones and that the plastic packaging was ideal and light enough. Took the car home , used a soldering iron to cut the tamiya chassis in two, stuck that to the plastic frame, tore out the motor, rewired it to the frame , supported it by gluing meccano bits to the motor and the frame and balanced the solar panel on the final product
.
.
.
.
.
STILL DIDN"T WORK!......then realised the solar panel should be pushed to the rear of the car to avoid too much weight being placed on the motor. Did it, and voila! The product you see in the pictures.Even had time to do a little body work.
We didn't win though..were placed 5th....not bad for a car built overnight though...due credit to the team for the first four prototypes.
Cheers Mates!!
Was bloody interested when the teacher in charge came to me for ideas, so i kinda joined the team.
Built 5 cars prior to this model. The first was the best looking one. Built entirely of an old meccano set i had. Was kinda too heavy for the motors to move it and the solar panels couldn't generate the power required (we used an old Tamiya motor). We then changed the motor to one of those low powered radio motors.
Built a second car, using the same solar panels. It was lighter and was bloody streamlined ( we modeled it after one of those land speed record cars). Disaster struck when we spray painted the polistirene body....didn't count on the compressed freon gas eating into the polistirene...were left with a pile of white sticky, corroded polistirene.
Third car was a replica of the second one.....didn't move though....cos the solar panels were under powered.
Desperation sunk in after we bought a new solar panel.......we used an old tamiya car's platform to support the motor and the panel.....it was too flimsy and kept falling over....we this point, everyone cracked....the competition was tomorrow.
Then I remembered that bro had bought a pair of noise canceling headphones and that the plastic packaging was ideal and light enough. Took the car home , used a soldering iron to cut the tamiya chassis in two, stuck that to the plastic frame, tore out the motor, rewired it to the frame , supported it by gluing meccano bits to the motor and the frame and balanced the solar panel on the final product
.
.
.
.
.
STILL DIDN"T WORK!......then realised the solar panel should be pushed to the rear of the car to avoid too much weight being placed on the motor. Did it, and voila! The product you see in the pictures.Even had time to do a little body work.
We didn't win though..were placed 5th....not bad for a car built overnight though...due credit to the team for the first four prototypes.
Cheers Mates!!
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