{"id":244352,"date":"2017-05-11T16:54:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T20:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=244352"},"modified":"2017-05-12T07:59:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T11:59:57","slug":"solar-team-hopes-new-boat-will-make-a-splash-at-june-competition-244352","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/solar-team-hopes-new-boat-will-make-a-splash-at-june-competition-244352\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar team hopes new boat will make a \u2018splash\u2019 at June competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s new about the Solar Splash boat this year?<\/p>\n

Everything.<\/p>\n

As a result, the Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ Solar Splash team<\/a><\/strong> will head to Springfield, Ohio, in early June confident they have a realistic shot at first place in competition against 15 other collegiate teams that have designed and built solar-powered electric boats.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything on the boat is completely new,\u201d says Solar Splash president Edward Ruppel \u201917, a major in biomedical engineering. \u201cWe built an entirely new hull, and a new drive system from scratch; we\u2019ve added brand new steering, new batteries, new battery management, and ship to shore communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first year the team has entirely rebuilt its boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided, \u2018Let\u2019s make everything perfect this year,\u201d says vice president Matthew Dombroski \u201917, a major in electrical and computer engineering.<\/p>\n

\"students\"students<\/p>\n

\"overhead
(University photos \/ J. Adam Fenster)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The hull includes birch-ply interlocking frames designed in Solidworks and fabricated on the computer numerical control (CNC) router at Rettner Hall. The sub-frame deck with flotation foam \u201cbasically looks like an airframe with its interlocking pieces,\u201d Ruppel says. The hull is finished with cedar strips that give the boat a distinctive appearance.<\/p>\n

The hull, which is also considerably lighter than in previous years, is designed to reach 32 knots, more than double the highest speed of the team\u2019s previous Solar Splash boats.<\/p>\n

The team ran a successful USEED campaign this past fall, which raised $4,657. This enabled the team to buy a set of nine new batteries, a new motor (on the way from England), and new electronics.<\/p>\n

Dombroski, for example, created a custom printed circuit board (PCB) that can track stresses on the hull, monitors engine RPM and battery temperatures, and could allow the boat to be operated by remote control. While remote operation is not allowed in competition, it \u201cwould be a cool tech demo to show what we can do,\u201d Dombroski says.<\/p>\n

So far, the team\u2019s best finish has been seventh overall. Ruppel is confident they\u2019ll challenge for the top spot this year because this year’s entry addresses the problems that plagued the team in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the failures in the past were because the drive train was too heavy with the wrong prop, and we had to deal with cavitation. We didn\u2019t have redundancies for certain systems. The biggest problem was solar charging itself, and now we have a much more efficient system that won\u2019t keep blowing fuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruppel is further encouraged by what he describes as an \u201cawesome\u201d maiden voyage recently\u00a0on\u00a0Irondequoit Bay.<\/p>\n