The American Solar Challenge started yesterday!

If you don’t know about the American Solar Challenge, it’s a race that happens every 2 years put on by the Innovators Educational Foundation. The IEF is all about getting people to learn problem solving, critical thinking, and innovation through solving real-world problems. We have a lot in common :)

A few CodeDay people are on the Washington team. Since the race started here in Minneapolis, I drove alongside them for a bit and took a lot of photos. It was a ton of fun, and I plan on spectating all of the next race. Seeing these cars on the road is so cool!

Their car is crazy fast. They regularly had to slow down to stay under the speed limit, and it was tough at points for me to stay far enough ahead to get good opportunities for photo ops.

It’s fun seeing the different designs from the other teams, too. We got passed in traffic by the Polytechnique Montreal car, which is competing in the MOV (Multi Occupant Vehicle) class so seats 2 people!

Georgia Tech made a MOV that seats 4! MOVs are scored by Person Mile Driven, so they would get a lot of bonus points for having the extra 2 vs a team like Montreal. The students told me next race, the MOV class is limited to 3 people so their dreams of a solar bus were dashed.

App State’s car had this cute flyer about the fuel economy of their car. $11 in annual fuel costs is a serious bargain!

You can watch live tracking of the cars here. Go team 86!