Just under two weeks ago the Nuon Solar Team announced that it would head to Egypt to participate in the Somabay Egyptian Solar Challenge, in collaboration with students of the University of Helwan in Cairo. The team did participate, but circumstances dictated that the event would be different than both the teams and officials had expected. You’ll find a short summary of the event in this blog.
The challenge
During the Somabay Egyptian Solar Challenge (SESC) international teams would, in collaborations with students of Egyptian universities, compete against one another in a solar event hosted in the Soma Bay area at the Red Sea in Egypt. During the event, teams would drive stages starting and ending in Soma Bay, with each stage offering the possibility to collect additional solar kilometres by turning around at designated turning points. The team to collect most kilometres during the four-day event would be the winner at the end. Besides the prestige of winning, an important goal of the SESC was to teach Egyptian students about solar racing and the technology involved.
Unpleasant surprises
Nine alumni of the Nuon Solar Team departed for Cairo on March 9th, to team up with students of the university of Helwan. Upon arrival it quickly became apparent that the biggest challenge of the event would not be driving the event in itself, but arranging all logistics in preparation for the event. The transport containers of all solar racing teams (and those containing all material required by the organisation of the event) were held up at customs for days, meaning they only arrived in Soma Bay the day the event was actually planned to hit the roads.
Improvise, improvise
After the solar vehicles had arrived and had been prepared for scrutineering by the teams, the officials scrutineered all vehicles prior to the event. After this time-consuming process, only just over two days were left for the event. However, all (combined) teams had not had the chance yet to practice their safety procedures, and to practice driving a solar vehicle in the first place. After consultation between the three participating teams (the problems at customs had decimated the number of competitors) the teams, given the safety risks caused by this lack of training, decided to avoid driving on the public roads and as such change the set-up of the event. Instead, a solar “challenge” has been set up together with the event organisers, in which the Egyptian students would learn about all factors involved in solar racing as quickly as possible.
During the two-day event teams drove laps around the terrain of Soma Bay. Teams were given “challenges” by the event organisers at random moments in time. The challenges included changing a tyre or a solar car driver, swapping convoy vehicles or a breakdown in radio communication. Through responding to these situations, the Egyptian students have received a crash course in solar racing, which taught them that solar racing is not only about having a good solar vehicle, but also about performing well together as a team.
The aftermath
Because of the changed set-up of the event it is difficult to declare a ‘winner’, at this moment it is not known who is the winner in any case. The number of laps completed by all teams are not known, so which team is the winner of the event will have to be seen at the event ceremony on Tuesday the 22nd of March. Until then the outcome of the event remains a surprise, but then again, given the developments in Egypt that should not come as a surprise.
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