Illinois State Team Competing in Solar Car Race

A team of Illinois State University students will drive a car 2,400 miles from Plano, Texas to Calgary, Alberta this month, bypassing every gas station they see.  Their secret to hyper-mileage, a solar-powered car named Mercury II.

Illinois State's Team Mercury will compete in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge (NASC), which begins July 13.  The event brings together teams from U.S., Canadian, British and German universities to compete in the world's longest solar car race.  Vehicles entered in the race must be powered solely by sunshine, using photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity.   An Illinois State team competed in a previous NASC event in 2005.

During the week of July 7, 10 Team Mercury members and their faculty advisors will take part in several days of pre-race "scrutineering," by NASC officials.  During that process, all solar-powered vehicles will be inspected to make sure they meet race criteria and safety requirements.  All drivers will be required to demonstrate their ability to handle the vehicles at highway speeds. 

Once past the "scrutineering" process, teams will begin the race in Plano, Texas on July 13 and head north toward Canada.  The race course follows U.S. Route 75 and the Trans-Canada Highway to checkpoints and stage stops in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.  The finish line will be in Calgary, Alberta on July 23. 

Construction of Mercury II has been an ongoing project over the past several months.  The chassis and several other parts from Illinois State's 2005 NASC entry, Mercury I, have been used as the basis of the redesigned solar vehicle.  An improved solar array, consisting of nearly 500 photovoltaic cells, covers the car's top surface and provides energy to move the 700 pound vehicle (combined weight of car and driver) at an average cruising speed of 45 mph and to a maximum speed of around 60 mph.  The photovoltaic cells convert sunlight into electricity that can be stored in nickel metal hydride batteries for use on cloudy days.

Professors Daniel Holland, Brian Clark, David Marx and staff member Jim Dunham of Illinois State's Physics Department serve as faculty advisors to Team Mercury.  The team is a multidisciplinary group of more than 20 students who have dedicated hundreds of volunteer hours to designing and building Mercury II.  The team is led by physics majors Ryan Meitl and Tony Battaglia and music major Al Hackel.

Support for the project comes from Illinois State University and a variety of corporate and private sponsors who have donated money, equipment, materials and other in-kind gifts.         For more information on Team Mercury and for a list of corporate and private sponsors visit www.phy.ilstu.edu/~mercury

More information on the North American Solar Challenge can be found at www.americansolarchallenge.org