Following a change in plans on construction of the Top Body Plug, the mechanical team has been gluing foam into a skeleton frame. They’ve been working on this for the past few weeks. To illustrate the process, we’ve produced a time-lapse video of one day of work. Enjoy!

We’ve also collected a video of wet-jetting the particle board skeleton frame for the plugs. Check it out here and here.

We thought we’d like to share with everyone how our battery modules are made for our upcoming car, GaAsoline. So we’ve written a little how-to of how we produce light weight modules that are safer then our past tray designs.

The prototype motor is in fast track to load testing and to show for tonight's work is a video of the first baby steps of the new motor controller and CISRO motor kit. This was a low power test to see if she would move. As you can tell every thing went successfully and soon the prototype will work its way up to a heavy load testing and characterization. Stay tuned as the school semester is out and everyone has time to work. Goals will be met and accomplished swiftly and this website will give you the latest news on our progress.

After much daydreaming over the pictures at Tritium’s website, we finally have our own WaveSculptor Motor Controllers! What’s so special about these so called Motor Controllers? They're the devices that chop up the power from our solar array and battery pack and use it to drive our CSIRO motor. These devices were needed to be able to work with the kit we purchased from CSIRO, but it also gives us the added advantage of increased power efficiency. Every watt saved is a watt we can use to get us going that much faster than our competitors.

If you’d like to see some more pictures of this beautiful piece of hardware, click on the picture. The link will take you to a small gallery of our little jewel.

We have a new addition to the site! Craig Buckley, a senior member from the Paragon build team and graduate student in the MNE department, has been working diligently on our new motor. He has written a small article on his work to take a CSIRO motor kit from design to testing and soon fabrication. Read up on his excellent work here.

With the new semester having started, the team is making the transition from design to build. Over the last couple of weeks the team has been working to glue down tooling foam to create a solid block. Later, the plug for the mold will be machined from this block. This is the very first step required in making the Kevlar body for GaAsoline.

This is the more exciting part of the cycle of creating a solar car, as the team will finally start to see their hard work from months past begin to materialize. It’s a morale booster, and also it finally creates something solid to show to friends and family.

Stay tuned, as we hope to be bringing many more updates as this semester progresses.

Recently the foundation featured the Thielman's in their newsletter. The article can be viewed HERE. We would like to take the chance to thank the Thielmans, once again. Words cannot express how much they have helped us out in the last year, as well as during the race.

*Picture republished with permission from the KSU foundation. Article by Amber Weaver, and pictures taken by John LaBarge.

The Adopt-A-Cell has been revamped for the new 2005-2007 build cycle. Today it went live and now features a new way to donate online. Thanks to the KSU Foundation for their support and willingness to let us collect our donations through their site. Please click the Adopt-A-Cell link to check it out!

The team purchased www.ksusolarcar.com Tuesday. This will be used only as an address to reach our site. This domain name will not replace the current http://www.engg.k-state.edu/solarcar/index.html address, it will just make us easier to find. Photo pages were also updated, so feel free to check them out as well.