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Photon
1
DAY
1.
Solar
Splash 2001 was held on June 20-24th at Hoyt
Lake, Dellaware
Park, Buffalo
NY.
Our team came in early just before the beginning of the official
inscriptions. After where the inspections. Electrical
inspection : Nothing to report... Only green flags!
Mechanical inspection : Some rules we did not understand well
and we have to comply.
First day was done before Photon had touched water.
On the other hand, the Mixer - organised for inter-team mixes
helped us knowing judges and other teams.
DAY
2.
Retaking mechanical inspection (2 orange flags) we gained the
right to put Photon on water. Trouble : there is no boat
ramp on site as we taught, like the ones on about every boat
lakes... Therefore, we had to borrow some poles to raise Photon
and lower it in the lake. Thanks to the team from the College
of New Jersey. Under the eyes of several other
teams wanting to know more about the boat from ÉTS, Photon
touches water for the first time, under the cheers of every team
members.
There are 2 qualifications events - maneuverability (for the
endurance) and sprint. One can also choose to try the
solar slalom at the same time, which is a totally different
event. The Slalom uses the sprint configuration, but maneuverability
is done under the "solar" configuration, used by the
endurance. Our choice : Slalom, since our skipper,
Dominique Cauchon, was trying the vehicle for the first time and
we wanted to make some adjustments... until the direction
fails... one piece of the direction unglued inside the handles.
Repairs, acquisition of new stuff, these where the end of that
day for Photon.
DAY
3.
Qualifications are until 11h45. No event was passed by
Photon. We go for the sprint, done after a false start.
Then, second try at the slalom. This time, another piece
broke, again in the control handles. 15 minutes available
for qualifications... Photon and its team works on water
to fix the broken direction...
temporary method: VISE-GRIP as handles. Photon was on pad
at 11h44 for its final qualification in maneuverability, which
has been done on low speed. The afternoon, instead of doing our
competitive Sprint, Photon changed its directional
control.
DAY
4.
It's raining... the endurance race is postponed and instead are
the Sprint finals. The endurance will be held on the final
day. Photon gets ready for its Sprint and goes on water
for it, but an electrical system failure causes a false start...
no points for the sprints, only "DNS" (Did Not Start).
The team works all evening on the electrical systems.
DAY
5. final
Everything is ready for the endurance, the event where Photon
wants to gets a maximum score. According to the schedule,
two endurances heat are held. Laps are noted, counted at
quarters and the two heat counted together as total. Photon
starts the race, but some disconnections in power systems
occurs, lowering the vehicle's efficiency.
Second endurance heat... A battery being killed by the first
run, Photon finds spare ones from our friends from the
team from Kensas
State University. Having them registered as second
endurance battery
set, we can go with second heat. Ok, those are not the
same type... adaptation must be made to the connectors...
without proper equipment, we used again VISE-GRIP! At the
start signal, a failure happened and the Photon team fix
the trouble, again on water and get the crowd's acclamations. Photon
finish the endurances with a total of 19 laps even with the
failures.
Overall :
At the end of that fifth
day was held the award ceremony. Photon went overall 14th
on 20 inscriptions. The group's efforts where rewarded by the Outstanding
electric system design award presented by IEEE. Then, t-shirts exchanges! Most wanted by Photon members:
of course, Kensas
State and New
Jersey. On other hands, several americans where
seeking the canadian t-shirts... We want to thanks again all our sponsors that help us to live
this beautiful experience.
SOLAR
SPLASH ®
The
World Championship of Solar Boating
June 16-20, 2004
Buffalo, NY
It's
not too late to sign up for the 2004 event!
Fill out the entry
form as soon as possible.
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for 2004 NEW 1/24/04
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