Illini Solar Car team growing with help from sponsors

 

In a quiet industrial space north of campus off of Lincoln Avenue, the Illini Solar Car team works on their large polyurethane foam molds, which will be used to make their car out of carbon fiber. The mechanical and aerodynamics experts work in one corner and across the room the electronics team tinkers. 

 

This space is a welcome change. In the past two years, the team has tried to squeeze into unused areas of the Engineering Student Project Lab and tried to work in a storage space without electricity or running water. 

 

With the generous help of one particular sponsor, MechSE alumnus Jason Schripsema (BSME ’95) and his company, SolarBOS, Illini Solar Car now has a home. Schripsema is based in California, but he does what he can to support the group of motivated students. 

 

“I'm delighted to be helping the Illini Solar Car team,” Schripsema said. “The energy and drive shown by the students is refreshing. I hope the university takes notice and starts supporting more student projects like this.”

 

It’s been a quick rise for them. When team leaders Chee Sim Tan and Jye Sze – both juniors in mechanical engineering – arrived on campus as freshmen in the fall of 2014, they were surprised to see that there was not a team that focused on solar car development and competition. 

 

“The first year was very hard trying to figure out everything. We had five people,” Tan said. “We’ve been around two years and I think the team really started to get itself together last year.”

 

Since then, the multi-disciplinary group has grown exponentially. Last semester the team had 30 people, and on Quad Day 400 new members signed up. 

 

Although Tan doubts that they’ll have triple digits all year, he is excited to add more members from disciplines all across campus.  

 

Starting up, the team has received advice from other solar car teams around the country. They toured team facilities at Illinois State University and Purdue University, and have communicated with teams at Stanford, University of California, Berkley, MIT, and the University of Michigan. 

 

All this advice is helpful, they said, as they hope to have the car in competition as early as July 2017. Solar car competitions require teams to build a DMV-approved road car optimized for mechanical and aerodynamic efficiency. 

 

To achieve this, their design uses a carbon fiber shell instead of one made of metal, like most teams use. 

 

“We’re trying to reap the benefits of advanced composite materials,” Tan said. “To do that, we need the shell to be structural.”

 

The team has additional help from a small group of tight-knit alumni from previous solar car teams.

 

Tan and Sze arrived on campus during a nearly 20-year solar car drought. There was a group from 1995 to 1998 that worked on solar cars, but dissolved due to resource and logistic hardships. From this group, the current team has drawn advice and experience. 

 

“They ran for three years so they had three team leads, and two of them came here to talk to us,” Tan said.

 

The group of alumni they are in contact with is small, but their experiences span varied fields of engineering. 

 

“They shared with us not only the engineering aspects but their team‘s relationship between the departments,” Tan said. “It was a lot of help.”