Filipinos develop first Solar Car for international race

By Paul Darwynn Garilao



A team of Filipino engineering students and professors from De LaSalle University-Manila is developing Sinag, the first Philippine solar car project that will compete in the Panasonic World Solar Challenge in Australia on Oct. 21 to 28,2007.

The challenge is to build a solar car that is capable of traveling across the Australian continent (3,000 km journey) on the power of sunlight. Since 1987, the international competition has been motivating young scientists and engineers worldwide to pursue the ideals of sustainable development.

Working like an assembly line, three teams - shell, mechanical, and electrical teams - are responsible for the technical aspect of Sinag. The solar car is 4.79m long, 1.73 m wide, and with a height of 1.07m. Its shell is composed of carbon fiber that is a lightweight material. The students used software programs such as AutoCAD, Solidworks, and Cosmos to design and simulate the solar car.

Martin Sy-Quia, Mechanical Engineering (MEE) junior and head of shell team, said he is now realizing the pressure of the project. “We have to learn so many new things and do this before October. There are more experienced teams, because they have been participating since 1987.” But Sy-Quia is proud to represent his country through this project.

On the other hand, another MEE junior Prince Ang participated in this project to further enhance his engineering skills and apply the theories he learned in his course. While the subjects taught in classes provide general engineering concepts, Ang furthered the project exposed the students to a specific interest: automobile engineering through the use of non-conventional energy.

The students are guided by Rene Fernandez (project leader), Martin Kalaw, Anthony Escobar, Jose Catalan, and Isidro Marfori III - all faculty members of College of Engineering.

Though working under budget constraint, the team ensured that it will work at its best to develop the car. The average budget of contending teams is $100,000 that can only deliver a simple output.

Ford Philippines, San Miguel, Philippine Airlines, and Shell Philippines are working with De La Salle to create the Solar Car. Minor sponsors are J. Walter Thomson, Creasia, Tuason Racing School, La Isla Lispana, and Sun Power.

Source

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Good luck to our students. I hope they win in the competition.

Oh man that would be so great not only for the country but foe the environment as well. Too bad Big Oil and its lobby will never let anything like this be mass produced.

Yoooooooo!!!

Yeah Right! like the Water Powered Car by Engineer Daniel Dingel

the government did not pay attention to it.


An engineer named Daniel Dingel, who used to work for NASA, has developed a car that uses plain tap water and/or sea water for fuel. The technology utilizes a mini-reactor in the car that splits the water molecule into hydrogen & oxygen, with hydrogen being burned off as fuel.The emission released out of the exhaust is clean pure water vapor or water- absolutely no pollution, in fact, it cleans the air. He now has 6 cars running on water, the first car drove out in 1969, over 30 years ago. We have a 15 minute video of a Dingel interview, test drive and engine demonstration of one of his water-fueled cars that we wish to show you. (See end of letter on how to obtain the video). He also has various other water-powered inventions- all are patents pending.


Even President George W. Bush announced last May , “we’re running out of energy in America”. Richard C. Duncan, Ph.D of the Institute on Energy and Man, say that “(By 2012) oil extraction from wells will be physically unable to meet global demand (the evidence is from the oil industry itself)”[2] “the collapse will be strongly correlated with an 'epidemic' of permanent blackouts— worldwide. When the electricity goes out, you are back in the Dark Age.” [3] With 500,000 known uses of oil including fertilizers (farms/food supply), medicine, computers, plastics etc., petroleum conservation is necessary and urgent. And former Reagan Energy Secretary Don Hodel says, ‘We're sleepwalking to disaster.’”[4]

You may have read of several car manufacturers developing hydrogen fuel cell car technology. But these cars of tomorrow have had huge obstacles from appearing on the roads. Mainly because they are designed to run on hydrogen liquid not plain water, which then brings on the multi-billion dollar dilemma of changing every gas station into hydrogen liquid fueling stations. And car designs must make room for huge cold storage tanks holding enough hydrogen liquid for the customary 300 miles, making these cars difficult to design, costly to manufacture and some consumers fear, perhaps, highly ignitable. The solution to these obstacles may still be decades away, though we hope, will come on time.

Daniel Dingel seemingly have surpassed all those obstacles. By burning regulated hydrogen as needed, the storage & combustible problem is minimized. By using tap or sea water, there is no need for a filling station. By using aluminum in the tank, he claims the car is not ignitable. Does Dingel have the solution? We can’t say, but this timely technology demands investigation, support and development.


^^^^ I got this from Yahoo

i saw it on tv, made by students of de la salle university...but i was wondering, it is too small, even a child cant man the vehicle....remote controlled???

Probably the cockpit is like the size of the one you see in a go-cart.