1500 miles of sun: Illini Solar Car drives from Missouri to California

Illini Solar Car works to build the world’s best solar vehicle. Brizo, the team’s car that competed this summer in the American Solar Car Challenge (ASC), is not only powered entirely by the sun, but completely road legal.

Last year, the solar car team had to adjust to online meetings, just as the rest of the world adjusted to a new COVID environment. Brizo was originally supposed to be completed in 2020 but due to COVID-19 restrictions, progress was pushed back. Once students were allowed to return to school the team was able to get back to working on the car in the garage with masks on, following university guidelines. Brizo was finally completed last summer and competed in August with a drive from Missouri all the way to California.

The solar car competition has two main races, the track race and the road race. For the road race, the vehicles have a given start location and then drive over a series of days to the finish line, which is 1500 miles from the starting point. The race is held on real roads and highways, and each team has a convoy of cars that follow the solar car vehicle as it travels across the country. The convoy includes a lead car, the solar car itself, a chase car, a media car, and a scout car to check the road ahead of the convoy. There’s also a truck and trailer in case of a major breakdown.

This summer, out of 10 teams, Brizo placed 3rd for the track race and 4th for the road race. Brizo is only the second solar car completed by the Illinois team since they were revitalized in 2015. Argo, their first car, competed in the World Solar Car Challenge (WSC) in 2017, held in Australia. Generally, about 20 teams compete in the ASC and for the WSC there are about 30 teams.

Now, the team is working on improving Brizo and beginning to design their third car to eventually go to the WSC.

Interested in joining? Look out for event announcements or just email the team! There is a six-week on-boarding process to teach all members the necessary knowledge. The team has five subteams: three technical (mechanical, electrical, and strategy and telemetry (data analysis and optimization)), as well as a business and media team. Every member gets a project which contributes directly to the car, hence the six-week on-boarding process, and is able to participate in the design and manufacturing cycles.