Author: Anna Olson

  • Manufacturing Arctan: Winter & Spring Update

    Manufacturing Arctan: Winter & Spring Update

    It’s been a while since our last lengthy update, and since then we’ve built up a good portion of our next car. Our manufacturing cycle began in earnest over our Spring Break, when we received our car molds from Christensen Fiberglass Tooling and completed all of our carbon fiber layups. This marked our composites season,…

  • Looking back on 2014

    Looking back on 2014

    The team’s design cycle for the next race began in earnest in June of 2014, with the release of the 2015 World Solar Challenge regulations. (Naturally, this coincided with a long lull in our blog updates–but rest assured, things are coming along!) Here’s a quick look back at what our team has been up to…

  • Join the Stanford Solar Car Project!

    Join the Stanford Solar Car Project!

    Welcome to the Farm, Class of 2018 & transfers! And welcome back to all of our classmates! The Stanford Solar Car Project is in the midst of our year and a half long design cycle, as we’re preparing to build a car to race in the 2015 World Solar Challenge. We’re constantly on the lookout for…

  • New Regulations for 2015 World Solar Challenge!

    Three weeks ago on June 5th, the organizing committee released the rules for the 2015 World Solar Challenge. The World Solar Challenge, for anyone new to solar racing, is the arguably the world’s leading solar car race, in which teams compete in a 3,000 km journey across the Australian outback on nothing but the power…

  • TEDxStanford 2014: Life Lessons from a Solar Car

    May was a busy month for the team in terms of outreach and team events. Only 2 days after our team’s first Open Garage Talk, our Business & Logistics Lead, Rachel Abril, presented on behalf of Stanford Solar Car at TEDxStanford 2014. This year’s event was entitled “Above and Beyond,” and featured a day’s worth of…

  • Spring Quarter Update

    Spring Quarter Update

    It’s hard to believe that it’s already been half a year since the last race, and that in a year we’ll be hard at work in the midst of constructing our next car. Things have been picking up in pace ever since the full team’s return this winter; spring quarter is filled with design projects,…

  • Winter Quarter Summary

    Winter Quarter Summary

    It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper update. In the time since our return from Australia, we’ve selected new team leadership, welcomed Luminos back to the United States, and moved our sights onwards towards WSC 2015. We’ve recruited (and are still recruiting!) an excited batch of new members and are underway in preparations…

  • VW Australia Convoy Vehicles Review

    VW Australia Convoy Vehicles Review

    Back in September, we arrived in Australia for the 2013 World Solar Challenge. While we did race a car across the outback on the power of nothing but the sun, this wouldn’t have happened without a convoy of support vehicles. For this race and races prior, our convoy vehicles were provided by one of our…

  • First Week in Australia

    Greetings from Adelaide! Stanford Solar Car and Luminos have arrived in the land down under. This is what we’ve been up to in our first week here. The few members arrived on Monday, September 9th. After picking up one of our borrowed vehicles from the Volkswagen dealership, they headed promptly to the freight terminal near the…

  • Thank You, Solitaire Automotive Group

    A few days after arriving in Melbourne, we made the nine hour drive out to Adelaide where we’ll stage our final car and convoy preparations before heading to the outback for testing. This year we were fortunate enough to have the continued support of the Solitaire Automotive Group, a group of Volkswagen and related dealerships…

  • Volkswagen Convoy Vehicles

    One of our project’s platinum sponsors, Volkswagen, has once again generously provided our team with four vehicles to constitute our race convoy. Acquiring and outfitting vehicles for the the six weeks we spend in Australia is perhaps one of the biggest logistical challenges any team faces when competing in WSC. This sponsorship from Volkswagen has…

  • Summer Summary

    It’s been a busy summer in preparation for the World Solar Challenge this coming October. Here’s a summary and some photos of what we’ve been up to since Luminos’s unveiling. A few days after our unveiling on July 12th, we took Luminos on a second Central Valley test drive. (See footage from our first test…

  • Wind Tunnel Testing Luminos

    The first week of this summer saw Luminos and accompanying team members making a cross-country road trip to Aerodyn, a wind tunnel in North Carolina. This is the second time in as many years, as well as in team history, that the team has made the trip. Overall, it was a great success, and well worth…

  • Luminos Unveiled!

    Today we officially unveiled Luminos, our car for the 2013 World Solar Challenge. The event, held at our workspace at VAIL, was well attended by sponsors, media, alumni, family, and friends. Over 200 people came to see Luminos, and we thank them for their support! Check out pictures of the car in this post, and…