Hal Forsen
05-16-2005, 03:40 PM
The Orange County Register
http://www.ocregister.com/newsimages/local/2005/05/16solar.2.jpg
TEMECULA - As their boat glided through the water, a loud-voiced crowd in even louder red and white Hawaiian shirts shouted a high-pitched "Woo-woo."
The teens and parents from Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills kept shouting as skipper Lauren Barth slipped slowly, very slowly, past them in a solar-powered boat.
The first thing you need to know about the Solar Cup boat races at Lake Skinner on Sunday is that no speed records were set.
The second thing you need to know is that speed was not the point.
Students from 28 Southern California schools gathered at the lake Friday through Sunday to test boats they had spent months building and testing.
"There's no textbook. There's no homework," said Kerry Langdale, a chemistry and engineering-technology teacher who coached the Canyon team to its third consecutive victory Sunday.
When they began work in January, he said, some kids didn't know what a screwdriver was. By race time, those same kids could take apart a battery.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, sponsor of the Solar Cup, gave each school the materials to make a 16-foot boat. Local water agencies chipped in $3,000 per school for gear.
With that the schools had to complete a boat that generated no more than 320 watts and weighed no more than 451 pounds, including the skipper.
At Anaheim High School, teacher Brett Schumm preached the KISS rule – "Keep It Simple Stupid."
Eight students from the school's Transportation Academy took four standard solar cells, an off-the-shelf motor and a $30 surplus propeller. To this they added a steering wheel attached to wires, like the classic backyard go-cart. Angel Marquez, a 17-year-old junior who skippered the Anaheim boat Sunday, said the project taught him about "trusting people. You got to count on each other, you know?"
If Anaheim is the KISS team, Canyon is the test-test- test-again contingent. Canyon equipped its boat with plastic laminated solar cells, which weigh half as much as standard solar cells but produce just as much power. Students tested the batteries again and again in the school shop, then tested the boat at Santa Ana Lakes.
"We know exactly what the capacity of the batteries are, down to the hundredth of a volt," Langdale bragged.
More precisely, 18-year-old senior Nathan Lockett knows. And he has a graph to prove it.
"If you follow the graph, you can go the whole 90 minutes," Lockett said. "The goal is not to have extra power" at the end of the race.
The multitest strategy worked.
When rival Nogales High opened a big lead early in Sunday morning's endurance race, Barth, a 17-year-old senior, wanted to give chase. "But it's all about preserving the battery," she explained.
So she just hung on, at 6 mph, a tortoise with a plastic laminated solar shell.
HF
http://www.ocregister.com/newsimages/local/2005/05/16solar.2.jpg
TEMECULA - As their boat glided through the water, a loud-voiced crowd in even louder red and white Hawaiian shirts shouted a high-pitched "Woo-woo."
The teens and parents from Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills kept shouting as skipper Lauren Barth slipped slowly, very slowly, past them in a solar-powered boat.
The first thing you need to know about the Solar Cup boat races at Lake Skinner on Sunday is that no speed records were set.
The second thing you need to know is that speed was not the point.
Students from 28 Southern California schools gathered at the lake Friday through Sunday to test boats they had spent months building and testing.
"There's no textbook. There's no homework," said Kerry Langdale, a chemistry and engineering-technology teacher who coached the Canyon team to its third consecutive victory Sunday.
When they began work in January, he said, some kids didn't know what a screwdriver was. By race time, those same kids could take apart a battery.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, sponsor of the Solar Cup, gave each school the materials to make a 16-foot boat. Local water agencies chipped in $3,000 per school for gear.
With that the schools had to complete a boat that generated no more than 320 watts and weighed no more than 451 pounds, including the skipper.
At Anaheim High School, teacher Brett Schumm preached the KISS rule – "Keep It Simple Stupid."
Eight students from the school's Transportation Academy took four standard solar cells, an off-the-shelf motor and a $30 surplus propeller. To this they added a steering wheel attached to wires, like the classic backyard go-cart. Angel Marquez, a 17-year-old junior who skippered the Anaheim boat Sunday, said the project taught him about "trusting people. You got to count on each other, you know?"
If Anaheim is the KISS team, Canyon is the test-test- test-again contingent. Canyon equipped its boat with plastic laminated solar cells, which weigh half as much as standard solar cells but produce just as much power. Students tested the batteries again and again in the school shop, then tested the boat at Santa Ana Lakes.
"We know exactly what the capacity of the batteries are, down to the hundredth of a volt," Langdale bragged.
More precisely, 18-year-old senior Nathan Lockett knows. And he has a graph to prove it.
"If you follow the graph, you can go the whole 90 minutes," Lockett said. "The goal is not to have extra power" at the end of the race.
The multitest strategy worked.
When rival Nogales High opened a big lead early in Sunday morning's endurance race, Barth, a 17-year-old senior, wanted to give chase. "But it's all about preserving the battery," she explained.
So she just hung on, at 6 mph, a tortoise with a plastic laminated solar shell.
HF