Brightside UBC Solar – Race for the Sun
It will help us achieve our goal to manufacture safe & innovative renewable energy breakthroughs for transport.
Project Description
The overall goal of UBC Solar is to explore solar technology and evaluate/improve the feasibility of the technology in the automotive industry. We are passionate about pushing the limits of sustainable innovation through the development of electric solar-powered race cars.
Our project involves building an electric vehicle equipped with a solar array, capable of indefinite drive time/range without the need to stop to charge. While the vehicle’s solar array does provide a strong power source, it is not sufficient to solely power the car in non-ideal conditions such as cloudy skies, high speeds or uphill roads. As such, the vehicle requires a battery pack to sustain its driving capabilities.
With your sponsorship, we can pursue our passion of building a world-class solar-powered race car and manufacture the car that our members have been designing for the past year. Your support will allow us to purchase more car parts and integrate innovative components into our solar car design. Your donation will contribute to materials and manufacturing for our 3rd generation car – Brightside, driving the development of cutting-edge solar and renewable energy technology and the education of brilliant engineers and like-minded students.
Challenges and Impact of Your Support
As a student-run organization, UBC Solar faces financial challenges in securing funds for materials, equipment, and travel expenses for races and competitions. These challenges must be solved through a combination of our hard work and your support. This can be boiled down to one thing, we are building our third generational car, Brightside from scratch. The cost of building a high-speed solar vehicle is significant, and requires a substantial investment in both time and resources. The team faces challenges in sourcing the latest technology and equipment to maintain our competitiveness in races and to ensure our vehicles meet the highest safety standards. Some of the parts that we design for the car must be custom ordered, making them more expensive. In addition to this we must create and engineer a solar panel design that maximizes efficiency, which again must be custom ordered. Finally we must also cover the cost of any competitions and travel that we participate in. As a result, UBC Solar relies heavily on the support of sponsors and donors to help cover the costs of our projects and ensure we can continue to push the boundaries of solar technology. Your support will help the team overcome these financial challenges and further our mission of promoting renewable energy and sustainable transportation.
If you would like to support as a corporate sponsor, please click here.
About UBC Solar
UBC Solar represents a multidisciplinary team of UBC students with a common purpose of promoting regenerative design practices in the automotive industry and education across UBC. Our team is passionate about developing sustainable solar-powered electric race cars that compete in international competitions. The team’s primary goal is to provide students with real-world experiences in engineering, project management, and teamwork. Over the years, the team has developed several solar-powered vehicles, each with its own unique features and capabilities.
Our History:
Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) 2017 was UBC Solar’s first time competing in a solar car competition. The team had a few ambitious members with the goal of pioneering their way into the competition. The solar car, Raven, was not fully tested before committing to the competition which led to some engineering faults along the journey. Despite the setbacks, the team learned valuable lessons and gained valuable experience that helped improve future solar car designs.
UBC Solar’s second-generation car, Daybreak, was a major improvement over its predecessor. The car featured a 4-wheel bullet design and competed at the Formula Sun Grand Prix in the summer of 2022. The team put in countless all-nighters, hours of driving, and rigorous preparation to ensure the car was ready for competition. Daybreak passed strict safety requirements and a rigorous dynamics test for the first time and raced on the racetrack for the first time in our history. The car completed 60 laps in two racing days and achieved a top speed of 60 km/h.
The summer of 2022 marked a significant milestone in UBC Solar history. For the first time since the team’s formation, the solar car passed rigorous inspection and competed against the best solar car teams in North America. The team placed 9th out of 13 on the leaderboard, which has motivated them to push the limits even further in future competitions.
UBC Solar’s third-generation car, Brightside, is planned to compete at the Formula Sun Grand Prix and the American Solar Challenge in 2024. The two-year design cycle provides the team with the opportunity to implement the experience they gained from the competition in 2022 and build the best race car UBC Solar has ever produced.
Our Finances:
The cost of UBC Solar’s projects is a major consideration with engineering, competition, and travel costs starting to increase over the next few years. The team plans to develop the new solar car on a two-year cycle, with one year for designing and one year for manufacturing. Throughout that process, the team will need strong financial support from the university, industry, and our community.
UBC Solar values its partnerships with sponsors and is grateful for their support and encourages its supporters to share our crowd fundraising page to help raise money and show the human power behind the project.
With the help of its sponsors and supporters, UBC Solar is poised to continue pushing the limits and advancing the technology of solar-powered vehicles.
