Me pictured with Gato del Sol V in Spring 2016 (my freshman year).

Introduction

From my freshman year at UK, I became involved with the UK Solar Car Team. The University of Kentucky Solar Car Team (UKSC) is a student organization that designs, builds, and races fully solar-powered vehicles. UKSC competes in two main races: the Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) and the American Solar Challenge (ASC), both of which are governed and regulated by the Innovators Educational Foundation (IEF).

FSGP is an annual track race that the team competes in. The main goal for teams in FSGP is to complete as many laps on track as possible within three days of competition. On the other hand, ASC is a bi-annual cross-country race in which teams will caravan and drive their solar cars on public roads over a course of seven to ten days. The winner of ASC is the team that is able to travel from the starting location to the finish the quickest.

When I first joined UKSC, the team was experiencing major struggles with fundraising and having a solid image. As a voluntary, non-profit student organization, it can be extremely difficult to maintain long-term support and pass information along from generation to generation, and that is what ultimately happened to the team before I joined. These issues led me to join the Business subsystem instead of the Mechanical subsystem because I realized that I could help the team much more if I focused my efforts on improving on our financial and marketing aspects. I was promoted to Business Lead halfway through my freshman year, and since then, I have had an active role in leadership with UKSC.

Me driving Gato del Sol V during our Fall 2016 Kickoff event.

2016 - 2017: Business Lead and Media Lead

As Business Lead, my main focuses were to secure support for the team through financial and in-kind donations. This was important in 2016, as we were preparing the team to attempt running in ASC 2016 but still needed more funds in order to race. Although the team was not building a new vehicle (Gato V still complied with regulations then), the team and I began establishing some precedents for how the team secured funding for logistics as well as beginning to brainstorm how the team could begin fundraising for its next vehicle, Gato del Sol VI.

Moving forward from the 2016 season, I transitioned into being Media Lead for the team. My duties were still similar to what I did as Business Lead, but I also added a larger focus on heavily revamping our digital assets and establishing a standardized image for the team. As Media Lead, I also heavily focused on creating multimedia content for the team. For specific examples of my work in photography, videography, and digital design, please visit my Multimedia page.

Heading into 2017, the team started to shift towards design and preparing to build Gato del Sol VI. Previous cars often “cannibalized” its predecessor for vital components and built around them. However, UKSC wanted Gato VI to be a brand-new vehicle from the ground up - many of our existing components had become worn and unreliable, and the team saw a potential to heavily increase in vehicle performance if given newer materials and components. That being said, in order to build and race a brand new vehicle, the team would ultimately need to raise about $120,000 worth of monetary donations, materials, and machining time. This was a fairly daunting task for the team, especially with the low budget that had been present for the last few years. This challenge did not make us give up though. Throughout 2017, after tirelessly promoting and building up what this project truly gives back to the students who partake in it, the team began to see some of its largest supporters commit to seeing Gato VI built.

Me pictured with Gato del Sol VI at FSGP 2018.

2018: Becoming Team Manager

In January of 2018, I became Team Manager of UKSC - a move that my predecessor had begun to prepare me for since early 2017. As Team Manager, I had to continually find ways to address the developmental, logistical, and administrative challenges that we faced on a daily basis while still continuing to build up the expectations and abilities of the team to members, supporters, the College of Engineering, and the University. Working with our Subsystem Leads, I found ways to motivate and grow the team as we pursued our goals with designing, building, and racing solar cars.

Becoming Team Manager was a large dream of mine, because it provides the ultimate challenges in solar car racing. With a new car in the works, new supporters that the team had never seen before, and new team members who were ready to learn, I had a vision to see Gato VI get built, become one of the most competitive vehicles that UKSC had ever made, and get the team to finish ASC for the first time since 2010.

Ultimately, 2018 became one of the most challenging years for the team and me to work through. The team started facing numerous design and manufacturing issues and delays and started falling behind on finishing Gato VI. For nearly every single day in the spring semester of 2018, many of us would stay at the garage almost all day and night to inch closer and closer to completing the car. This was difficult because not only were members working on building a full-sized vehicle but also were juggling schoolwork, other projects, and life all at the same time. However, the members that I spent so many late nights with were all committed to the team and to the project - something that I was very proud to witness. Unfortunately, our luck fell short during ASC 2018 - we experienced a suspension failure during dynamic inspection and were not able to compete in the race. While this failure was deeply saddening and painful to witness, the team and I learned tremendously from it as well as all of our experiences with the overall development and manufacturing of Gato VI.

Me pictured with Gato VI after returning from FSGP 2019.

2019: Year of Redemption

With the disappointments in 2018 fresh in our mind, 2019 was all about the team’s redemption. None of us wanted to fail again, and with 2019 being the team’s 20th anniversary as well, we wanted to make sure we did everything we could do to put UKSC on top. As a result, we prepared as much as we could for FSGP 2019. Usually, Team Managers only run one race season before graduating or moving on; because I started my Team Manager term earlier in my path, I was lucky to have a second chance at running another race and showing that we really were capable of being competitive.

At the garage, we always joked that “Strategy Number 1” is to get the car working properly - which is often a lot harder than it seems. January 2019 marked the first time the car fully ran again since its suspension failure; this first outing with the car marked so much relief for us, but also showed us how much work we still had ahead. Throughout Spring 2019, many testing sessions were conducted to understand the fundamentals of Gato VI and start practicing for the race. For the first time with Gato VI, and effectively for the team in many years, we were able to collect valuable data on the car and understand the true potential of our capabilities.

Of course, testing is still completely different from racing. Right at the end of June, we headed to the Circuit of the Americas to compete in FSGP 2019, still trying to figure some of our new systems on the car. We headed to FSGP with three goals in mind: place first through scrutineering (technical inspection that also determines the starting lineup of the race), get a top 5 in the race, and try to get the fastest lap and break the track record if our strategy allowed us to.

Our team on the COTA podium at FSGP 2019. One of the most surreal experiences so far in my life.

Immediately, we were reminded with how difficult it can be to achieve these goals. Scrutineering presented a host of challenges, especially when it came to a few of the dynamic tests. Luckily, we were able to figure out our issues right at the end of the last full day of scrutineering and qualify fourth for the race. During the first day of racing, we were able to keep pace with the leaders and quickly got up to third place. We were finally able to see Gato VI’s true pace.

The second day of racing proved much more difficult - nearly everything that could have went wrong did. From a simple mistake at the start of the race, it seemed like we could not catch a break the entire day. Even the most gut-wrenching thing that can happen to a solar car happened to us: part of our solar array came up and essentially flew off the car! We faced so many critical issues throughout the day, but the team never gave up on fixing them, and as a result, we managed to still hang onto third place.

The third and final day of the race, however, proved how capable our team truly was. We had zero issues at all throughout the day - the car stayed on track continuously, and for the majority of the day, we had the best pace among the leaders. All the hard work put into the car by the team was finally being proven and shown to others. Once we knew we were locked into 3rd place overall, we came together to make a decision about going for the track record.

Me pictured with Gato del Sol VI and our track record certificate after we returned from FSGP 2019.

At the time, the track record was a 4 minute 30 second laptime, put down by Iowa State University in 2015. While we were discussing strategy for our attempt, Polytechnique Montreal (who ultimately won 1st place overall) went for a hot lap and broke it, getting the record down to 4 minutes and 17 seconds. We knew it would be a tough lap to beat, but we were prepared.

In addition to my roles on the team, I have also served as a driver since 2017. Over the months preceding FSGP, I prepared as much as I could for a potential fast lap - this included studying COTA extensively, practicing laps on sim racing platforms, and even getting a bit of coaching from some professional racers. From the team’s end, we knew that the car was capable of a fast lap - simulations had proven it so.

Once we were ready, I hopped into Gato VI for the last time and went out for the biggest lap of my life. Crossing the line, we were ecstatic - we put down a 3 minute 48 second time, shattering the old record by nearly 42 seconds and beating Montreal’s by nearly 30. We couldn’t believe it ourselves - between the track record and finishing 3rd overall (out best finish in 10 years), it was such an unbelievable way to cap off our 20th anniversary. We finally were able to validate and show how capable our team could be.

I have learned a lot about what it takes to a run a team - but I still have a lot of learning to do. Without this team, I would not have been able to have so many of the experiences that have shaped me to be who I am today. FSGP 2019 reminded me why I want to race for the rest of my life - the lows in racing are very lows, but the highs make everything worth it. At the end of the day, the track record laptime was just a number - the amount of work, time, effort, and sacrifices that everyone on the team had to put in to make it happen is what made it so amazing. I’ll always remember my time with UKSC: I truly would not be who I am if I wasn’t involved with this team. The team gave me a lot of opportunities and experiences that I will never forget, and I will always be grateful that I was able to be involved with a student organization that did so much.