Going solar is something that the country’s been pushing hard for, of late. Helping that push is Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology’s students, who recently designed and manufactured a solar-powered electric vehicle that won them three awards at the Electric-Solar Vehicle Championship recently.
Team Mechanizers pose with the solar vehicle and the awards they bagged
With a team of 24 students working on a single-seater design for about six months, the car was eventually awarded the first runner-up spot for its accumulated performance in various facets of the contest — along with the Best Solar performer and Light Weight awards.
“We wanted to create a vehicle for endurance — that would run for long period purely on the solar panels,” says A. Sujay, the team’s captain, adding that they also focussed on the safety of the driver. Using solar panels on the roof connected to a battery that would eventually power a 500-watt brushless DC motor, Sujay says that the car could travel up to 43 kmph. While a major part of their success came down to the precise theoretical calculations they had made before fabricating the car, tests on the field helped them fine tune it into a winning project.
“We found that the dust accumulation on the solar panels was making the solar conversion process inefficient. So we made sure it was kept clean and then we managed to increase the output from about 4 amps to 7 amps,” Sujay says.
Mechanizers (the team’s name) also had their vehicle selected as part of the 25 finalists that would face endurance tests on the track where they got the best out of their vehicle.
