51: Chalmers Solar Team

We have built three cars in total, starting in 2019. However, since the competition was cancelled in 2021, we have only participated twice.

This year's car will be a continued evolution of our earlier car with an increased focus on reliability. As it turns our driving across Australia in a student-built car is a rather difficult task. With the experience gathered from our last car we believe this to be a totally achievable goal. The focus has been reliability and serviceability, for example we’re using a modular battery system where we can easily swap parts were something to go awry during running.

The level of modularity and safety in our electrical system is probably something we don’t share with many other teams. That’s not to say we have not tried to make the car faster, provided the simulations are correct this car is more efficient aerodynamically than last year's car - despite the increase in size.

Few other things compare to the BWSC as an aspiring engineer, the combination of getting to build a car with a rule book as open as this to compete in a competition with the level of opposition that the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge has is just not something you’ll find elsewhere. It also gives many the first real hands-on experience with applying what you’ve learned, something that is of course key later on in life.

To start the car on a sunny day in Australia and see what kind of power levels we’re getting from the solar plane. So that we can finally settle what speeds we’ll be able to run at in the competition. :)