The solar car team of KU Leuven has won the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia on Thursday 17 October. After a hectic five-day race, the team crossed the finish line first in Adelaide. This is a first for the KU Leuven, the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and some other engineering students, Campus Group T and for Belgium, because it is the first time a Belgian team becomes world champion.
This year, 44 teams from 22 countries competed in Australia. The task was to cover a distance of 3,021 km from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south in the shortest possible time using a self-built solar car.
The 8th time, the best time
The 20 engineering students did not come onto the ice unscathed. It is already the eighth time that a Leuven team participated in the World Solar Challenge.
In all those years we have built up a lot of expertise which was transferred from team to team and this has now paid off.
This way, we came to the start of this edition with the fastest and most performant solar car. But it is certainly not a guarantee that you will win. The championship in Australia is not an ordinary race, it is a real challenge. Not only do you compete against the other teams, you also have to fight the elements: the wind, the desert, sandstorms and the ever-present risk of accidents.
The car of our Dutch colleagues from Twente went over in a gust of wind. And the car of our friends -and eternal competitors- from Delft caught fire during the last drive. The pilot was lucky to make it out alive.
More than races
The students from Leuven worked day and night for more than a year on their Bluepoint. They designed and built everything themselves, from the battery to the solar panel and the bodywork.
You start the race with a full battery, but once you're on the road, you can only recharge with the sun. The same goes for the batteries of each of the team members, everyone has to stay 100% motivated and concentrated, every unnoticed detail will be punished.
In all this, we must not lose sight of the fact that the winning team aspires to more than just winning a race, even if that is the world championship. The Leuven students' main concern is to raise awareness among the general public and young people in particular about renewable energy and sustainable technologies. Entrepreneurship is also high on the team's list of priorities.
We are enterprising industrial engineers.
Engineers with a mission. We have shown the world that Belgium and our university are at the cutting edge of technological innovation!
