Srutineering Update!
Principia Solar Car Team
Cheers solar enthusiasts!
Tuesday was a great day in Darwin. We began the morning finishing up preparations for scrutineering. We also got out on the track for a 30-minute session with Hayley behind the wheel. We loaded the car and were ready to go an hour before our scheduled time, so we decided to head over early and complete the team registration.
When we arrived at scrutineering, we were able to get a good look at some of the other team's cars including Stanford and University of Michigan. As we saw other teams cars, it was fun to think about what we want Ra 10 to look like.
At this race, scrutineering is set up a bit differently than it is at the American races. Instead of having a separately scheduled time for each station, teams take their car through all the stations beginning at their scheduled time.
There were a few holdups with other teams at some of the stations, so we ended up bouncing around to stations as they opened up. All three drivers easily passed egress in the allotted 15 seconds and were officially weighed in and registered. All the other stations went pretty smoothly as well, with quick label maker fixes coming in handy when we needed more electrical warning stickers and the Principia name on the front of Ra 9.
Overall, we were green on all stations except for batteries and support vehicles where we received reds for having a separate supplemental pack and a few missing items and signage in our lead, chase, and truck.
Yesterday, we spent the day making fixes to ensure we could move our reds to greens, and generally preparing all our equipment for camping. We are excited to sleep under the stars on Sunday, but we are even more excited to tell you that we are now GREEN on batteries and electrical. After we register our final team members who will be arriving Thursday and demonstrate that our Australian CB's are functioning properly (the CB radios are arriving from Perth today), we will be green on support and ready for Saturday's dynamic scrutineering.
Thanks so much for your continued support. Don't forget to tune in to PIR at 4pm central to hear our live updates.
Until tomorrow,
Annika