{"id":65646,"date":"2019-07-22T23:55:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T23:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-students-resurrect-solar-car-for-texas-race\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:23:14","slug":"durango-students-resurrect-solar-car-for-texas-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-students-resurrect-solar-car-for-texas-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango students resurrect solar car for Texas race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Three
Three students from Durango competed last week in the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. The team was recognized for persevering in the face of numerous engineering challenges.<\/span>Courtesy of Energy Odyessy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A student-engineered solar car spent hundreds of miles on the road and then years in storage before Durango students resurrected it to race last week in Texas, where it tested the engineering know-how of the racers.<\/p>\n

The small Energy Odyssey<\/a> team won an award last week for displaying the \u201chighest level of courage in the face of engineering obstacles\u201d at the Solar Car Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, a race for solar cars built by students from across the country.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s car troubles started shortly before leaving, when one of the car\u2019s solar panels shattered, lowering the efficiency of the whole car. Then, after arriving in Texas, the car\u2019s front-end steering system had to be reworked to ensure the vehicle could turn.<\/p>\n

The vehicle\u2019s motor controller \u2013 equipment needed to send electrical signals between the battery and motor \u2013 also started having problems at the contest, team members said.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, the car\u2019s performance improved each day during the four-day race of endurance against 29 other teams, said Jem van Tyn, a senior at Animas High School. Van Tyn relished building solutions to the problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just loved this kind of work; I love running into challenges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He competed with Animas senior Grady James and recent Animas graduate Henry Haggart as part of the smallest team to compete, putting the team at another disadvantage. Animas High students Joe Thomson and Akos Varga also helped rebuild the car but did not travel to the race.<\/p>\n

The team did not have an engineering adviser with it in Texas, but it did receive help from other teams at the contest that helped the Durango team with the welding to realign the front wheels.<\/p>\n

The students\u2019 interest in the contest was sparked after learning about the car\u2019s existence from a teacher at AHS. The vehicle was built for the 2016 Solar Car Challenge road race<\/a> and traveled 215.9 miles between Fort Worth and Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

When team members pulled the car out of storage, they found the wiring was a bit of a mess.<\/p>\n

\"Students
Students from Durango rebuilt a car, far right, to compete last week in the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. The students raised $7,500 for the contest without adult assistance and competed against teams that raised tens of thousands of dollars to compete.<\/span>Courtesy of Energy Odyessy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The team used an online manual to put the car\u2019s systems back in working order without much adult help, they said.<\/p>\n

Haggart said he enjoyed the process of figuring out the electrical system and preparing for the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really cool goal at the end, where you got to drive something that you made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The group would like to get more students from Animas and Durango high schools involved in the race in the future, especially because in 2021 the Solar Car Challenge race will be between Fort Worth and Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are hoping a future team can do that race and make us proud,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

recognized for courage in face of numerous obstacles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6208,5889,5736,5735,5741,6082],"tags":[1644,2275,29,1425],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animas-high-school-news","category-automotive-equipment","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-solar-energy","tag-animas-high-school","tag-automotive-equipment","tag-newsletter","tag-solar-energy"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92859,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65646\/revisions\/92859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65646"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}