Michael Shanks - site 2006: Solstice: the Life of a Solar Car

Posted at Mar 26/2006 09:01PM:
[chris witmore]: Carrie, beyond your great analysis of your personal relations with the solar car, you have pulled together a great history and set of resources for the project. A real contribution.

Posted at Mar 25/2006 04:12PM:
Sebastian De Vivo: Carrie, you clearly put a lot of work and passion into this project, and it shows. Your questions are clearly well-defined, and your exploration of the solar car as a gathering remarkably executed. I enjoyed reading through the many connections you draw out. The navigation is solid, and you incorporated many of the issues discussed in class into your own analysis. Wonderful job!

by Carrie Bobier

This project is an analysis of my relationship with Stanford's newest solar car, Solstice. It is a narrative of my history in the project, the history of the car, the aspirations and dreams and many hours that I shared with 20 other Stanford students in its creation.

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BACKGROUND

These pages are designed to familiarize the reader with the inner workings of the Stanford Solar Car Project, and its newest car, Solstice.

What is a Solar Car?

An overview of solar car parts and terminology. How does it work?

The Race

What's a solar car race like? This page details the North American Solar Challenge 2005, where Solstice won first place in Stock Class.

ANALYSIS

These pages are a gathering of my personal thoughts and perhaps those of some other team members on the greater significance of Solstice. These pages are sure to hold overlapping and interlinked material.

Back to the Future

What is the relationship of the car to time, the past, and the future?

Solar Car as a Social Gathering

How does Solstice act as a meeting place, a social gathering? What grounds does it provide for intellectual and social conversation? How does the car interact with the human (driver, builder, etc)? What networks does the car create?

The Symbolism of Solstice

How does the car represent its designers, drivers, viewers, followers? How does it represent Stanford University, or the companies who sponsored its design? What image or identity does it project? How are team members viewed in light of being involved in the project? How is Solstice used as a tool, and how does it use people as tools?

Tradition and Revolution in the Stanford Solar Car Project

How does Solstice embody the "Stanford" brand of solar cars? How is it different? How much of solar car design is craft, and how much art? What ideals of the team does it project, and how does Solstice reflect the time and place of its design?

CONCLUSIONS

What Makes This Car Go: A Summary

What are the driving forces behind the solar car? What is its purpose, who are the people who built it, what does it do for them?

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Solstice Media

Links to news articles featuring Solstice, as well as a link to the Lexus commercial in which Solstice starred.

Solar Car Teams

Links to various solar car team websites.

Posted at Feb 21/2006 11:33AM:
[klfsong]: The future? Is this where we are going? Might you even look at how energy is now collected and what Bush just proposed we do in his State of the Union address?

Posted at Feb 26/2006 03:56PM:
Daniel Steinbock: The questions, "what image or identity does the solar car project" and "how is Solstice used as a tool" are particularly interesting, especially in light of the information in Back to the Future about the enormous cost and fragility of these cars. Though the 'image' may be of a 'car of the future', it seems to be nothing of the sort -- this 'car' is designed to race once and then retire, using a plentiful natural resource. To me this connects directly to the old soap box derby races -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_box_derby -- where kids design unpowered cars that only use gravity for propulsion (they race on hills). Again, it comes down to purest streamlined efficiency in design to be the winner in an artificial competition. Is it a car? No. Cars are re-usable, and meant for transportation of people and goods. Solstice is a solar-powered, four-wheeled symbol of engineered energy efficiency.