This cool video shows the building process of Nuna6′s carbon fibre shell in a five-minute time lapse.

Here is episode three of the ongoing documentary about the Belgian Umicore Solar Team’s participation in the 2011 World Solar Challenge:

The Belgian Umicore Solar Team is airing a multi-part documentary about their participation in the 2011 World Solar Challenge. Parts one and two are already online. The documentary is in Dutch, but I think the imagery and the atmosphere might still make it interesting for non-Dutch speakers to watch or at least skip through:

Episode one:

Episode two:

More episodes will follow (I don’t know how many) and I’ll link to them as they appear online.

Here is an enjoyable 14½ minute video showing the atmosphere and highlights of the 2011 World Solar Challenge. Check especially around 4:25, where you can see 21Connect very nearly crashing when the driver took a turn faster then planned:

The provisional results

The WSC organisation has put the provisional final results of the race online. From this list, I read several interesting things:

• If we put Tokai at 100%, Nuon finished 3,3% of total race time later and Michigan 8,5% later. That’s close, especially between Tokai an Nuon.
• If we put Ashiya at 100%, Twente finished 0,3 % of total race time later. That’s not close, that’s photo finish stuff!
• If we put Sunswift at 100%, Aurora finished just 0,2 % of total race time later. Again, unbelievably close.
• Out of 37 teams having left the starting line in Darwin, only seven made it past the finish line in Adelaide on solar power before it closed.Wait… didn’t we say somewhere that eight teams finished? What happened to the Umicore Solar Team? They were allowed to continue, right? Yes they were, but apparently the WSC organisation changed their mind and now has listed the Belgians as having travelled ‘only’ 2636 km (still an amazing feat under the circumstances) under solar power. On their (Dutch) website, the team writes the following (in Dutch, text below is a translation):

  At this moment there is uncertainty about the official Umicore Solar Team results in the 2011 Veolia World Solar Challenge. We’ve been told that some Belgian media published the fact that we finished in 11th position. Yesterday, at the awards ceremony, we were informed of this result. The official result, however, has not been published. Some extra explanation about this:

  After 2636 kilometres in the race the team decided to perform a technical change to the battery pack. The WSC regulations allow for this, provided a time penalty is applied. To be absolutely sure we contacted the organisation to prevent any misunderstandings later on. We received permission that day to perform the change. A decision which has been reversed (for now). The odometer was stopped for our team at this point. We are in discussion with officials to resolve this situation.

  So, the Umicore Solar Team is one of the eight teams that travelled the 3021 km without having had to put the solar racing car on a trailer. We find it remarkable that reports of this have already appeared in the media without having issued a press release. We knowingly waited with this as our final finishing position is not definitive. If more news becomes available we’ll publish that.

  This  is very interesting. We’ll have to wait what the organisation decides, but that might take a while as on the WSC website there is the text “As many of the Observers, Judges and Officials are travelling to thier own countries this matter will be resolved as soon as it is practical to do so.”. If the decision is reversed, Umicore would not have finished at position eleven but at position eight. If and when I find out more about this, I’ll report it here.

[Update October 22th, 11:45 UTC / October 22th 21:15 NT time]

Solar Team Twente just put a video online which gives a picture of how they arrived at the ceremonial finish, and celebrated in the traditional way by taking a dive in the Victoria Square fountain.

[Update October 23th, 09:15 UTC / October 23th 18:45 NT time]

At this moment the WSC award ceremony is in progress:

All the teams together at the award ceremony

Several awards have been granted already (list being updated more or less live):

• Technical innovation award: Nuon Solar Team
• Design award: Hochschule Bochum
• Best newcomer award: Solar Energy Racers
• Production class awards: Aurora, Sunswift and Solar Energy Racers

The University of Michigan team takes third place overall:

The University of Michigan team on the stage

Nuon Solar Team takes second place overall:

The Nuon Solar Team on the stage

And the winner of the 2011 World Solar Challenge on the stage, accepting their deserved first prize, the team from Tokai University:

The team members from Tokai University accepting first prize