These Pasadena high school students will race from Texas to California in solar car challenge

Nov 28, 2023

Very few people can say they’ve raced 1,400 miles from Texas to California.

But starting next week, students from Pasadena’s Polytechnic School will make that trek in an all-electric car they designed and built on their own, all while still in high school.

Starting July 16, Polytechnic will be one of nearly two dozen high school teams from around the country competing in the 30th annual Solar Car Challenge, an 8-day event spanning Fort Worth, Texas, to Palmdale, Calif., where students race roadworthy, solar-powered vehicles they engineered themselves.

The challenge was first created in 1993 by former educator Dr. Lehman Marks, who was looking for a way to inspire students to take up interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses as well as alternative energy.

Three decades later, more than 65,000 students have directly benefited from the challenge, according to organizers, with 200,000 people expected to view the students’ creations over the course of the race.

“Students who take part in the Solar Car Challenge have a 23% greater chance of going into a STEM career than students participating in other STEM programs. This is the top project-based STEM program in the country,” said Marks, who acts as event coordinator.

“We teach the kids how to build a plan, come up with a budget, fundraise, how to engineer the car and manage the project, all while they’re learning about how to harness energy from the sun to make a car go down the road.”

Teams began working on their 2023 entries since last September, relying completely on their own ideas and concepts for the design outside the workshops, camps and on-site visits giving students a crash course in green technology.

It can take years for teams to move from this initial concept phase to their race-ready finished product, so more than 250 teams in various stages of street soundness, from every state and as far away as Singapore, are constantly working on their designs in anticipation of the next upcoming solar race.

Pasadena’s hometown team, whose car has been dubbed The Sun Fortress, is a 4-horsepower, 293-kilogram vehicle equipped with four solar panels that can reach top speeds just over 28 mph.

According to Poly’s team website, students have been working for hours each day since school let out last month to have The Sun Fortress ready to hit the road later this month.

After departing Fort Worth, teams will have a first night pit stop in Snyder, Texas, before resuming the next day where they’re next checkpoint will be 200 miles away in Carlsbad, NM. There, the racers will have a chance to showcase their designs to the public at a showcase in the Walter Gerrells Performing Arts Center.

From there, teams will race to El Paso, where there will be another opportunity to show off their engineering feats to the public, before hitting checkpoints in Florence, then Wickenburg, Ariz., and finally Twentynine Palms, Calif., and the finish line in Palmdale on July 23.

“My favorite moments in each race are when we interact with children in the towns we visit,” Marks said. “Watching them see themselves in these roles and seeing the spark of innovation in their eyes is why we come back year after year.”

Part of the challenge will be to successfully navigate all the inevitable bumps in the road bound to materialize when teenagers who can’t legally drive engineer a concept car for a four-state trek across the desert.

Weather conditions, road construction, car maintenance, and team experience will all play a part in crowning the winner, which will go to the team accumulating the most miles driven over the journey.

“The cross-country race requires teams to develop really strong logistics and contingency plans,” Marks said. “Each team will not only have their solar car driving this route, but a lead car and two chase vehicles.”

Before setting off on the course, teams must pass a “scrutineering” of their car, an evaluation done by a panel of judges at the Texas Motor Speedway — where the event is held on a closed course every other year — the weekend before the race, which qualifies teams to compete.

Cars are required to equip a roll cage, “crush zones”, safety harnesses, horns, communications, turn signals, and a fire extinguisher. Race officials also closely monitor individual cars throughout the race with their wireless computer network.

Polytechnic will be joined in the race’s Classic division by fellow Golden State participants Palo Alto High School and their solar car, nicknamed The Beast. Another SoCal entrant, the Solar Falcons from Palmdale High School, will compete in the Advanced Classic division for the second year in a row.

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