CECS Spotlight: Cycles of the sun

Engineering students endure punishing distances in a bid to beat the world's best.

"The farmers loved it, but it washed us out," explains ANU cyclist Simon Trevitt. "It meant we had next to no power from the solar panel. On top of that, we blew a motor controller in the morning, so decided to pull out for that stage. It took us until 11 o'clock that night to fix the bike. Other teams had to spend all night hairdrying their bikes."

Despite this setback, the University's team ultimately came third in the 1,500 kilometre, eight-day race that tracks from Ceduna, up around the Spencer Gulf, and back down to the Barossa Valley. This was victory enough for the three cyclists, undergraduates Trevitt, Craig Gibbons, and Tim Olin. As the first team from ANU to participate in the event, they endured punishing weather, massive distances, and some long days to reach the finish line.

The journey towards the podium began months earlier, when 15 engineering and science students decided to design and build a solar-assisted cycle to compete in the international challenge. Under the supervision of engineering lecturer Dr Robert Gresham, the team spent hundreds of hours outside of class time developing the Solar Plexus, a recumbent cycle crowned with a solar panel roughly the size of a household door.

On a sunny day, the panel can generate 150 watts. This energy, coupled with three batteries, transforms the act of cycling from hard slog into a breeze.

"It's equivalent to the energy of an electric scooter or an average cyclist," Trevitt says. "It's almost like having an extra rider. It feels like you're not pedalling as fast, almost like you're pedalling downhill. It also makes it feel like you're going on the flat when you're going uphill."

But the actual cycling was only half of it. Although the race component began each day at 8am, the team had to be up several hours earlier to prepare the Solar Plexus for scrutineering. Organisers allowed 10 hours to complete each stage, and then teams would be up late into the night fixing any problems, harging batteries, and getting ready for the next stage.

"It was exhausting," Trevitt says. "We were a small group, so we had to take on more of the tasks. Some of the other larger groups had dedicated riders and maintenance people, so their workload was lighter."

"But we were very pleased with the result, considering we lost a rider just before the start, and the technical difficulties. A lot of people were very impressed with the bike. It got a lot of praise from other teams and members of the public"

One of the highpoints of the race occurred in the small village of Jamestown, where more than 1,000 people lined the streets to witness the solar-cycle spectacle and meet with the teams. This support recharged the enthusiasm of lagging riders, Trevitt says, lending a touch of the celebrity experience to a project that begun as a chance to put learning into practice.

"Being a part of the solar cycle team gives a lot of meaning to the material that we learn. We're all engineers, we all like to build stuff.

Just doing equations can become tedious, so it's fun having something else to do. There were a few friendships that came out of the project, too. It made it really enjoyable." "It would be great to see all the things we've learned from this experience taken up by teams from ANU in the future. There are more events next year, as well as the Solar Cycle Challenge in 2007. We learnt so much about the bike and about race tactics. This, coupled with the great work being done in solar technology here, bodes well for those who take up the challenge."