Solar Spirit

Welcome

The Solar Spirit Team is proud to welcome you to our website!

For those who don't know, we're a team of Imperial College students designing, making and testing a solar powered boat for a competition in The Netherlands in 2008. The competition is the Frisian Solar Challenge and more information on the race is available on the organisers' website!

We have several pages to explore. You can find out information about our team on the team page, and for information on our sponsors and sponsorship opportunities please visit the sponsorship page. And of course, be sure not to miss our photos! To keep up to date, why not sign up to our mailing list?

News

The Frisian Solar Challenge 2008 has drawn to a close, and Solar Spirit finished 14th in a field of 21 boats in the A Class. This was an encouraging display given our tight budget and inexperience. The team had some terribly bad luck on the last day when the electronics failed 500m from the end of the 200km race; something recognised by the organisers when they awarded us the "Bad Luck Prize"! We learnt a huge amount over the course of the race and did a great job to get the boat to the finishing line in Leeuwarden (albeit being towed through by the organisers!). Once again we'd like to thank the race organisers, our university and our various sponsors for allowing us to get out there as well as the other teams who were all very friendly and great sports! Our congratulations go to the Hanze Solar Team, winners of the A class, BOB Solar Team, winners of the B class and TU Delft who won the C class. We look forward to challenging them at the next Frisian Solar Challenge in 2010! The Solar Spirit Team News Blog contains a step by step analysis of how the race progressed for the team, and we also have plenty of photos.

With our first race done our work is just beginning! We look forward to taking our experience as Frisian Solar Challenge prizewinners(!) forward and are getting together a new team of dedicated students to work on the project next year ready for the 2010 race, and hopefully we'll be able to submit a boat for a race in Zeeland next year!

Thanks

As with all projects this ambitious, we could have only got where we are today with the help of a large number of people. We would like to thank the following people for advising, assisting, supervising and generally putting up with us getting in the way!

  • The Mechanical Engineering staff, specifically:
    • Dr Crofton
    • Dr Lamperth
    • Mr Robb
    • Dr Marquis
    • Sheena Spargo
    • Mr Gosling
    • Dr Heyes
    • Professor Kinloch
    • Ian Wright
  • The Mechanical Engineering workshop staff
  • The Civil Engineering wood workshop staff, particularly Leslie Clark who has been extremely helpful and tolerant with our requests!
  • The Civil Engineering Fluid Mechanics Department staff, particularly Professor Christopher Swan.
  • The Aeronautical Engineering composites lab - particularly Gary Senior who helped us make the miniature boat and Dr Hodgkinson who provided us with many industrial contacts
  • The Imperial College Press Office and associated staff, including:
    • Naomi Weston
    • Carol Marsh
  • Dr Konrad Ciaramella, Engineering Director of the UCL SolarFox racing car team, for valuable advice on energy storage batteries and their associated electrical systems for solar vehicles.
  • The staff of Imperial College boat club for their advice and use of their equipment and facilities.
  • Various industrial contacts:
    • Emrhys Barrell from Thames Electric Launch Company
    • Martin Armstrong from Gurit
    • Peter Kingsland from Vosper Thorneycroft
    • Tim Roden from Marineware
    • John Arnold and Martin Schwarz from Torqeedo
    • Dr Shumit Das from Airbus
    • Miles Schofield from Sharp UK
    • Andrew Lee from Sharp UK
    • Lisa Watson from Sharp UK
    • Vincent Van Laar from Sharp Netherlands
  • Press contacts:
    • Dr Azadeh Khatiri
    • Sabina Michnowicz
  • The IC Racing (Formula Student) team for the loan of display boards and composites assistance.
  • Student assistance (various help such as taking pictures when everyone else is too busy working!):
    • Elizabeth Hyde
    • Ian Lawrence
  • The race organisers and sponsors
  • The organisers of the Beale Park Thames Boat Show
  • The Wheelyboat Trust
  • Our own sponsors, who are important enough to have their own separate page!