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SDHS Excels at Solar Cup 2009 |
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The Solar Cup competition weekend is now in the books, with our best performance ever.
Our boat worked flawlessly. We had one of the best boats at the event. Our best boat ever.
We were 4th overall (2nd in the Veteran division) in the endurance
event, traveling more than 18 miles total in two 90 minute races on
Saturday. Junior Maha Medhi skippered the boat for those two races. She
did a great job! Boat traffic was sometimes crowded and required good
focus and driving skill. On a lighter side, several large fish (bass?)
hit the bottom of the boat during one of the races causing Maha a scare
as the fish were big enough to cause the boat to buck up.
We had one of the fastest boats as well. We were in the top ten in the
sprint (I haven’t seen the final sprint results). Senior Stephanie
Santos skippered the sprint races.
We finished 6th overall out of 33 competing boats.
Points were awarded for
Attendance at all workshops over the last seven months – 60 pts
Three technical reports submitted in January and February – Solar array, electrical systems, and drive train – 75 pts
A Public Service Announcement about water conservation submitted in March ( We submitted a video) - 220 pts
Qualifying day (Friday) sprint competition – 50 pts
Endurance runs (2) - 250 pts
Sprint runs (2) – 345 pts
The students on the team did a great job all year. Senior Matt Kelly
was the team captain and did a fine job on organizing the project. He
was the main guy on the team in our selection of motors, gears, and
more and in getting the boat to be the best we have had in six years of
competition. Thanks Matt!
Vic Ambrosini, parent of three SDHS grads, was instrumental in helping
the kids get the mechanical parts of the boat together. Vic really has
taught us all quite a bit about making the boat work. We couldn’t of
done it without him. He also made our cool shirts. Thanks so much Vic!
Images of the competition weekend are at:
http://www.bonita.k12.ca.us/sandimas/elliott/solarcup2009/index.html
A Quicktime movie of the sprint race is at: http://www.bonita.k12.ca.us/sandimas/elliott/sprintrace2009.mov
(It’s a big file so it may take some time to load)
Brian Elliott
SDHS Solar Cup 2009 team coach
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