Bridger Solar’s solar-powered car near completion

Transportation is one of the larger hurdles when it comes to sustainable energy, according to Forbes Magazine. What better way to prove a future exists for sustainable transportation than through a student-built, solar-powered car? The MSU Bridger Solar club — a team of mostly engineering students — is setting out to do just that. 

The car has been a year-long project and is finally nearing completion. Soon it will enter an endurance race to be held this coming summer in Bowling Green Kentucky at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park, said Eric Foran, vice president of Bridger Solar and a junior studying mechanical engineering. “We’re building the body of the car right now and it has to be done by the end of the semester.” 

The race will take place around mid-July, Foran said. The contest and race are organized by the American Solar Challenge, he said. According to their website, the American Solar Challenge is a multi-day, cross-country collegiate race, challenging students nationwide to build and race solar-powered cars.

“It’s a 24-hour endurance race, over three days,” Foran said. The goal is to be able to race as many laps as possible on full solar power, he said. The drivers also switch out every four hours for safety purposes. “You have to wear a helmet and you have to have a full five-point harness,” he said. 

The drivers will be sitting in a roll cage, which has to be designed to sustain the force that would compress the cage if the car were to roll or be impacted by another car, Foran said. The drivers also have to keep water in the car to stay hydrated in the summer heat. “We’re in Kentucky, in the summer, in an enclosed little box which is designed to draw in as much sunlight as possible,” he said.

The process starts with brainstorming ideas and aligning them with competition regulations, Foran said. The biggest regulations they adhere to are related to safety. They need to make sure the car is safe in the event of a roll over, crash, lithium fire or general failure. The goal is to create an aerodynamic, efficient car that takes in more solar energy than it expends. Through computer-aided design models, the car starts to come together, he said. 

Now, the team is starting to weld parts together, laying carbon fiber and assembling “all the bits and bobs” as Foran put it.

This year’s club is relatively young, Foran said. “We have a lot of freshmen that have just joined and are actually being able to get the experience, to really apply all of the things that they’re learning or are about to learn.”

About 200 people have handled the car in some capacity at this point, Foran said, but a team of 20 is currently in charge of the project. This includes mechanical, electrical engineering and business majors. It also includes communications majors to run their website. “It’s a team effort for [the car]” he said. A 10-person team will physically make the trip for the race in mid-July. 

At the beginning of the year, Bridger Solar wasn’t sure if they’d have enough funding to build a car and make it to the race, Foran said. But they were encouraged to compete in order to if, nothing else, have fun and get the experience. 

Although the budget’s tight, the club got enough funding to build and compete. MSU Giving Day, which took place last February, brought in a lot of the funds, Foran said, but the team is also being sponsored by Hyundai’s New Horizons Studio R&D Center. 

Although building and racing the solar-powered car is the main focus of Bridger Solar, they also participate in outreach events to boost funding. “We’ll go to the Earth Day events and in the past we’ve gone to a science school for homeschooled kids. We give them a run down about what solar energy is,” Foran said. 

To learn more about Bridger Solar, visit https://montanastate.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/bridgersolarteam. To learn more about the American Solar Challenge, visit https://www.americansolarchallenge.org/about/american-solar-challenge/.