Credit: Agoria Solar Team
NEWS SOLAR
The Agoria Solar Team became champions of the Challenger Class for the first time in the team’s 8 attempts.
The sun sets on the 2019 World Solar Challenge After two years of intense designing, innovating and building, the week-long solar vehicle competition in the Australian Outback has come to an end. From sorrow and frustration to exuberant jubilation, here’s how the Benelux fared. Collin Arocho
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he curtain has drawn closed on a wild week of racing at the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge (BWSC) in Australia. The five teams representing the Benelux region, the Eindhoven and Delft Universities of Technology, the University of Twente, KU Leuven and a consortium from the Groningen area, are finally home after a weeks-long camping trip in the heart of the land down under. Some of the teams return celebrating their successes, while others are left to lick their wounds – but all of them
already starting to think about what to do differently next time around in 2021. All the teams from the Benelux participated in the competitive divisions of the BWSC. First was the Challenger Class that pits teams against each other with one goal in mind: speed. The Cruiser Class also rewards speed, however, the car’s distance to the market is also considered. This means that subjective criteria such as practicality, comfort, design and innovation also play a role in determining the champion. Af-
ter the successful completion of the race, teams pitch their car to a panel of judges that evaluate each car’s features before casting a vote for the winner.
Blowing in the wind
After some controversy surrounding cost and sustainability of the project, it was anything but certain if the University of Twente (UT) would be able to compete. The team was having trouble finding an investor to foot the bill for their car, including the solar 7 17
