Bay Area high school students build solar-powered car to compete at Texas Motor Speedway
A team of Mountain View High School students is building a completely solar-powered car in order to compete on a Texas racetrack this July.
In the home stretch of the project, Ryan Liu, a rising senior at MVHS, takes a moment to appreciate the months and months of work that he and his Garage 803 Racing peers have put into the project.
"To be able to watch everything come together, I think it's really been a wonderful experience," he said.
Come race time, several members of the team will take turns behind the wheel of the vehicle, driving it under the hot sun along the Texas Motor Speedway. The goal is to drive as many miles as they can over the course of four days.
"The temperatures are going to be very high, so we are going to be taking shifts," Liu said.
They'll be racing towards the finish line against 26 other teams from other high schools throughout the country.
"Hopefully we'll be able to finish that race," said Tyler Wang, another member of the team.
But the big picture of the project – academic curiosity – goes well beyond the finish line.
"Getting introduced to more complicated and advanced topics in engineering that you wouldn't usually get exposed to in the normal high school curriculum," Wang said.
"All of us want to go into some sort of STEM field, some sort of engineering field," Liu said.
So, this project is just the beginning for these future innovators.
"I think the automotive field is very interesting right now," Liu said. "It's a very interesting position as we try to find more alternative sources."
"I'd probably like to get into motorsports," Wang said. "I've always loved racing, and I think it's a good way to use my engineering major, hopefully."
Aside from the tangible lessons that are reinforced by intellectual and physical challenges on the daily, the students are getting a crash course in the age-old lesson of if you believe it, you can achieve it.
"If you asked me last year, I would never think this would have been possible," Liu said. "Just to see it in front of you. It's a wonderful feeling."
"If you have something that you want to do and you really put your mind to it and take action on it, I think that you can pretty much do anything," Wang said.
The 32nd Annual Solar Car Challenge race begins on July 20.
