A team of solar adventurers at Johannesburg’s Deutsche Internationale Schule are hoping that their outstanding performance in the recent SA Solar Challenge race will inspire other schools to enter the race.
The team, made up of five grade 10 learners, designed and built their own solar powered vehicle and put up a fight against a team from an independent group from Pretoria and a team from Tokai University in Japan which won the event.
The car, Sonnebrand, finished third in the 10-day race and the team is hoping to do even better when the next event is held in 2012.
“We have already started planning the improvements to the vehicle,” an excited team manager Dimitra Hiestermann told the Mail & Guardian Online.
“It took us just over five months to build the car and the experience was amazing. Hopefully we can improve on it and do even better next time around.”
The Sonnebrand was the only car entered by a school team and what makes its performance even more remarkable is that the team that the Japanese team which eventually won the race used the the same car that won the Global Green Challenge in 2009.
For team captain Christopher Pallamar the highlight of the race was “driving behind the Sonnebrand and seeing it moving solely on the power of the sun. That was awesome.”
Pallamar told the M&G Online that he hoped more learners would want to get involved in the building of the next car, a view that was echoed by his principal, Erich Maria Schreiner.
“Our school has a big language focus so we thought this project is the ideal way to get the learners more interested in science, and it’s also very practical,” explained Schreiner.
“For the school this entry was more about getting learners interested in what science could do rather than just building the car so we will definitely be looking to enter the next race and hopefully more schools will do the same.”