Getting your wheels from the sun

The sun was peeping in and out, but late last week some of the kids at CSC got out with their solar cars. With last year’s state entries Troll, Chimera, The Nuke, Flying Coffin and Dodgy now in permanent retirement, it will be up to this year’s batch of Year 9 students at the school’s Junior Campus to invent newer, faster, solar cars to ensure them a berth at the Nationals, to be held in Perth later this year.

Central Victoria Solar City is working with Castlemaine Secondary College to support its much anticipated campaign assault at this year’s Victorian Model Solar Vehicle Challenge finals.

On the straight with a good blast of sunlight, the cars an hit 40kph. It’s all very well to run little cars around a racetrack.It’s fun, and the kids learn something about engineering, no doubt. But what are the serious applications here?

For some years Phil Scoles has been leading the charge to get his students into the Challenge. He explained to this correspondent that there has been great evolution in solar panels. There are now organic compounds that can be sprayed onto the duco of a vehicle, creating a light-sensitive ‘skin’, which also produces power. Imagine a chassis built of carbon fibre. The Southern Aurora, a single-person passenger vehicle, hit 110kph through central Australia.

So with the leaps that technology in most fields is making, solar family vehicles are not that far away. And vehicles that don’t add to the load that coal-fired power stations are adding to the atmosphere.

‘This where they’re building the fundamentals of the vehicles of the future,’ Phil said.

‘We’re straight up with students from the start – if you want to take your car to thechampionships you’re going to have to work hard. Thus far we’ve been the only central Victorian school to make it into competition and I’d like to think we’re leading the way, showing students that solar energy can be used to power anything their design imagination can come up with.’

The Model Solar Vehicle program is currently available to Castlemaine Secondary College’s junior college students. Support from Central Victoria Solar City will help the program to reach into the senior level as well, allowing former competitors to pursue their passion to design and build faster, sleeker, and more efficient solar cars right up to year 12.

Central Victoria Solar City is part of the Australian Government’s Solar Cities program, which is a partnership between all levels of government, industry, business and local communities to trial sustainable energy solutions.

Go to www.centralvictoriasolarcity.com.au to register your interest online or call the office on 5479 1900.