The competition started Tuesday and had four days of races of high-speed sprints, long-distance endurance, a Slalom and a qualifier.
“All energy (on the boat) is derived from the sun using solar panels, but solar energy stored in batteries is used to supplement the panel output during the events,” said Jeff Morehouse, Solar Splash Coordinator.
This event is an engineering project for engineering students, Morehouse said. It can be part of the students’ senior design, but students of any college-level can participate.
“These solar electric boats are a good project because it basically brings together electrical and mechanical, and marine engineering. It’s a whole bunch of different pieces of engineering into a final product, which is to design, build, construct and then compete,” he said. “It’s a good engineering experience, it’s hands on and and it’s fun.”
There are rules to the competition such as how long and wide the boat can be, and how many watts of solar cells and pounds of batteries they can have.
“We have rules, but we don’t tell them what they have to do... We put those restrictions on them and then they have to figure out how to do it,” Morehouse said. “The problem is they have to be able to do sprint races, which go the length of the lake, and they also have to do an endurance and last a four-hour race.”
Each team has 10 or more members to help with the boats as each student has a specialty area such as computer control, mechanicals and electrical motors.
This year 13 teams applied but only eight teams were able to compete, which Morehouse said is probably the lowest number they’ve had. Cedarville University was one of the teams that competed this year.
“Cedarville has just gotten to the top and has been really good for the last 10 years,” Morehouse said.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
Cedarville has won 12 out of the 27 years, not including this year. Last year, the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez won and ended the university’s five-year winning streak.
“Cedarville is clearly the standard-bearer for world solar splash championships, but the competition continues to intensify and that is really good for the competition. We’re not focused on winning as much as preparing our students for life-lessons they can use after they graduate,” said Mark Weinstein, executive director of public relations.
The university is honored to be a part of the competition and have the opportunity to interact with the other teams, Weinstein said.
“The students who participate in the solar splash competition each year find their work and the competition to be challenge, but very rewarding. This year’s team is no exception. They’ve learning throughout the year to adjust to setbacks while collaborating with each other to do their best to assure the greatest results for the team,” he said.
Cedarville student Brandon Sanders said the competition has went really well.
“We got around 37 laps in the span of two hours (in the endurance race), so it was great,” he said. “Our boat was designed by some students a couple years back and we’ve been using it ever sine because it’s really performed well... it’s been giving us really good times.”
The other teams that competed included Wright State University, University of Puerto Rico, University at Buffalo, Stony Brook University, University of New Mexico, Middle Tennessee State University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
University of New Mexico student Steve Lindsley said the competition is a blast.
“It’s just a fun competition where we get to try out our engineering skills, see what we can improve over the last years team, and just see what we can do,” he said.
First, second and third place winners of each race will get an award, as well as the top 10, but this year since only eight competed all teams will get an award.
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