Solar Car Club Gears Up for SunChase Race

By Nicholas Hernandez '22 and John Dodd '22
Palmer Trinity School's Solar Car Club’s main goal is to design and build a solar-powered car that’s able to compete in races and raise awareness about the wonderful natural resource, solar energy.

The club has been active since 2018 and won the 'Club of the Year' award in its first year.

We are currently working on building a solar-powered go-kart for the SunChase Race this April. However, we hope that in the future, we might be able to take our project across state lines and participate in a race in Texas. This race is much more ambitious and involves crossing miles of desert in a solar-powered go-kart. 

PTS's Solar Car Club has faced many challenges while working on the car during the pandemic. To come in line with the school's policies on COVID safety, we instated rigorous contact tracing and social distancing procedures as well as a zero-tolerance mask mandate. While working on the car, we limit the number of people that can enter the garage, and there is also a maximum number of people who are allowed to attend each meeting.

We usually hold meetings weekly, however, as race day approaches, we will have three to four meetings a week in order to finalize work on the car. Generally, one can’t join the club mid-year, however, we do make exceptions. If someone would like more information, they may email club president Ben Arnold at barnold22@palmertrinity.org or one of our advisors at eapanovitch@palmertrinity.org or sdufeu@palmertrinity.org in order to discuss the possibility of becoming a member.

We look forward to teaching anyone about our solar-powered car, and, if they are interested, they can take part in the engineering process behind it.
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