PORTLAND- It was sunny skies and high spirits on June 12 as more than a 150 students from mid-Atlantic and New England states converged on the Maine Solar Blast to compete in the 1999 Junior Solar Sprint Championship. Thirteen student teams walked away with trophies while all teams had a chance to showcase the results of their hard work. Every participating student received a tee-shirt, a certificate of participation and a free lunch - NESEA's way of recognizing a job well done. When the racing was finished, NESEA's team of judges compiled the results of the design competitions. Meanwhile students, parents and teachers spread out over the grassy fields of Payson Park to enjoy solar powered music, watch a regional ELECTRATHON race or take rides in a solar-electric truck.

When the judges' calculations were complete Peter Perkewski of New Jersey took the prize of Grand Champion for his entry Spree. Spree also finished 1st in Craftsmanship, 1st in Innovation, and 3rd in Technical Merit. This makes the second year in a row that a Grand Champion has been chosen because of overall excellence in design and construction. Way to go Peter!

Designing and building a model solar car just isn't big enough anymore for at least two winners of the 1999 Northeast Junior Solar Sprint Championship. When asked by Chris Mason, organizer of the Northeast JSS activities, if they enjoyed the race Christian Thomas and Chad Estabrooks from Kelly Middle School, Norwich, CT exclaimed "Yeah! It was great." They then pointed to the high efficiency, one-man electric vehicles zipping past in the regional ELECTRATHON Race and added, "Next year we're going to build one of those!"

This exchange couldn't have made Chris Mason any happier. "The Junior Solar Sprint makes an ideal jumping off point for students interested in designing our nation's next generation of vehicles; highly efficient, electric, and powered by a renewable energy source." says Chris, "Middle school students love Sprint competitions and through this program they learn the fundamentals of design, the importance of efficiency, and all the environmental benefits of renewable energy."

Upon NESEA's request the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, (NREL), has tested a few panels from Pitsco and Solar World for electrical and physical equivalency. They found the difference in average maximum power output from Pitsco and Solar World panels to be within the 5% measurement error of their test. In other words, the electrical outputs of the two types of panels are effectively the same - at least for the five panels tested. Jeff Alleman, an engineer at NREL, expects that JSS participants will find a greater variance in output due to manufacturing then from the differences in design of the two panel types.

Jeff also weighed each panel and found the Pitsco and Solar World panels to be within 8 grams of each other - Pitsco panels being the heavier. Jeff pointed out that most cars weigh on the order of 200 grams. Thus the weight difference of panels will be less then 5% for most cars. Also, although the Pitsco panels tend to weigh a few grams more they have wire leads already attached thus making up for some, if not all, of the difference.

This year we can all expect to see two types of solar panels entered in regional, area, and intra-school JSS races. Although initial tests show these panel designs to be effectively equivalent this situation may raise a question of fairness amongst JSS participants. Does one type of panel provide an unfair advantage? Like many questions, this one provides a wonderful opportunity for learning. Instead of relying on NREL's test results or advertising statements from the panel distributors we can ask our students, "How can you tell if one type of panel provides an advantage?" The ensuing discussion can cover such topics as: testing procedures, design differences, and variations due to manufacturing. Students may want to conduct actual tests to see whether any one panel does provide an advantage. Below is a simple test procedure that students may choose to use to measure the maximum power produced by any given panel.

Measuring Pmax (watts)

To measure the maximum power produced by any given panel place that panel under a constant light source and measure its output voltage over incrementally larger resistance values. See figure 1. Try half ohm increments for starters. You may need to adjust this depending on your light source. For each measurement calculate the current and plot voltage vs. current. See Figure 2.

Figure 1:

I = V/R     P=V*I

Sketch in the shape of the curve. The maximum power output will be at the knee of the V-I curve. Calculate Pmax using the voltage and current coordinates for this point.

Figure 2:

With California, New York and Massachusetts committed to seeing that 10% of all car sales in these states are electric vehicles by the year 2003, the wide spread use of EVs is truly just around the corner. Although these EVs won't be powered by an attached solar panel, they may very well plug into an electric system powered in increasing amounts by renewable energy sources.

Students building JSS cars are creating this entire system in miniature. A field trip to the NESEA American Tour de Sol adds to this experience by giving students the opportunity to learn more about EVs. And, using NESEA's middle school curriculum Getting Around Without Gasoline, you can help students understand how the construction of a model solar car ties into the big picture.

For more information on the NESEA American Tour de Sol or the Getting Around Without Gasoline curriculum please contact NESEA at: (413) 774-6051

PITTSFIELD, MA - When Pittsfield teachers, the Pittsfield Center for Ecological Technology (CET) and NESEA got together to organize a JSS race at the 1999 NESEA American Tour de Sol stop in Pittsfield MA, educators from three states began calling in to see if they could enter. When the interest grew large enough to compete in size with the already existent west-central Massachusetts Area Race it became obvious that a new area race had been born. This first Pittsfield Area Race, which was held on May 25 in Pittsfield Massachusetts alongside the NESEA American Tour de Sol, drew students from west-central New York, southern Vermont and the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.