POCATELLO — Grace Lutheran students are engineering a brighter future after they conceptualized, designed and built a solar powered car to compete in the 31st Solar Car Challenge held in Fort Worth, Texas.
The biannual challenge is designed to support and motivate students in the fields of science, alternative energy and technology as the various teams build a solar powered vehicle from scratch and then compete against other teams as they race around the Texas Motor Speedway for four days to see which vehicle can go the greatest distance.
Around 33 teams from across the United States will be driving down to the competition and this will be the first time anyone from Pocatello and potentially all of Idaho has competed in this event.
Beginning around August of last year, eight students from Grace Lutheran’s STEM program rallied to the cause and began a lightspeed effort to build a solar powered car before the competition began on July 11.
“The purpose is to get students involved in engineering and really learn what’s involved with the different aspects — electrical, mechanical or wherever their interest lies, and encourage them to pursue that in the future,” said Ben Anderson, the Grace Lutheran STEM teacher and mentor for the project.
The vehicles will go through an incredibly rigorous evaluation from judges known as “scrutineering” to ensure each car is up to the standards required for the competition.
“I think one of the first steps we had to get through was figuring out what the rules from the competition were to build everything within those specifications,” said Logan Friesen, one of core student members of the group. “We read through that, figuring out what size motor can we use. What kind of battery can we use? Once we got all that, we started looking around, shopping around, seeing what we could find. Once you get those pieces, you can start to figure out how you’re going to all integrate them onto the frame.”
Friesen also contributed in numerous other ways, working on the mechanical side, welding and utilizing their computer-aided design program Onshape.
Another integral student team member, Chris Ulland, who is the team captain, was heavily involved in many of the steps during its conception and construction and oversaw much of the processes.
“One of the things that we really thought about when we were designing it was the idea of practical engineering,” Ulland said. “Instead of building our own custom parts for x, y and z, if we can, for example, borrow a part on a motorcycle. It’s a lot easier building the vehicle up a lot quicker.”
Welding began back in February and with barely a skeleton formed the team had to make a decision by March 1 if they would go forward with the competition. The registration fee was $2,500, a fairly sizable investment, but the collective decision was made to commit.
“From that point on, we finished the frame for the most part at the end of the school year and then from the end of the school year until the middle of June is when we really got our first test drive with the rolling frame minus the panels. We then got the panels on and drove with the panels probably (late) June,” said Anderson.
Over the second semester and into the summer, the student team went from eight members down to four and then down to the final three, including Friesen, Ulland and a Czech Republic exchange student named Crystoph Oresky.
Now, with the competition looming and all the long hours dedicated to spit-shining their creation, there is a level of excitement and nervousness from everyone involved.
“I simply remember at the beginning of the semester sitting down in the classroom with our group of eight people on the team trying to figure out how do we break down this project to build an entire car,” said Ulland. “Driving it around after completing everything mid-June, it felt really fulfilling sitting there realizing we built this. We designed and built this ourselves. Now, as we’re driving down with the car in the trailer behind us it’s really exciting, but also a little bit nerve wracking.”
Ulland and Friesen both expressed some worry surrounding the scrutineering segment before the actual race, where a lot of teams can get disqualified if the cars do not meet the specific parameters required to compete.
“I feel pretty much the same as Chris just it’s a little bit scary going into the competition having to go through the scrutineering for the first time,” Friesen said. “We’re not totally sure what to expect. Some of the parameters and some of the rules are less clear than we would like them to be.”
Despite some concerns surrounding the process to even get the vehicle onto the raceway, Friesen feels confident that if they can pass the judge’s inspection that they will have a good opportunity to compete.
This opportunity not only provides in-depth practice, but much like the strong base on which their solar vehicle is built, lays a strong foundation for skills they will utilize into their futures.
“Both Logan and I are heading to college to study mechanical engineering, so this opportunity to build a car in high school and go through the engineering process with this project has been some absolutely incredible hands-on experience for both of us,” Ulland said. “I think we both have walked away with a lot of appreciation for this project.
Friesen added, “Even if you’re not thinking about STEM as a career, I think it’s still just a really unique opportunity to build something from the ground up and see the fruits of your labor working and getting to compete with that too.”
Regardless of the final outcome, the framework of this project has provided a strong foothold for the engaged students and is likely just the beginning of their burgeoning careers in the engineering field. While Ulland and Friesen will move onto their collegiate careers and Oresky back to the Czech Republic, there will always be more opportunity for young high school students at Grace Lutheran to accomplish greatness.
“All of our experience is leaving,” Anderson said. “I’m at the point where I’m going to be building a new team. That would be a big thing that I want to bring to the community. We’re looking for the next team to go down to Texas and race in 2026.”
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