On Thursday, the brand-new Solar Boat Twente team revealed the design of their solar boat in the DesignLab at the University of Twente.
The student team is already counting on a podium finish at next summer’s Monaco Solar Boat Challenge.
Solar boat races are nothing new. The first races started more than ten years ago. But Solar Boat Twente is now bringing the phenomenon to Twente. This will be the first time that a solar boat has been built in Twente.
The foundations for Solar Boat Twente were laid last spring by mechanical engineering students Jasper Admiraal and Hidde Pik. In September, they joined forces with 13 other students to embark on the design and construction of their boat.
Podium finish
“We put together a group of 15 enthusiastic students in no time”, explains Hidde Pik, himself fanatical about water sports. “We are building a high-tech solar-powered boat and are aiming for a podium finish from the outset. We may be ambitious, but we are also realistic. We believe that Twente has everything we need to achieve this goal. The University’s research groups have a lot of expertise that can help us in such areas as control technology and fluid dynamics. With our boat, we are determined to show that Twente student teams are capable of much more than building fast and sustainable cars, even though there is no marine engineering here.”
Design
Hidde Pik on the innovative design of the Twente solar boat: “We plan to steer the solar boat electronically rather than mechanically, which is quite innovative in this field. Existing teams also use hydrofoils, but that makes it difficult to achieve a constant height relative to the water. That sometimes makes it tricky to sail efficiently, with minimum possible resistance.”
Monaco
Solar Boat Twente will compete in the Monaco Solar Boat Challenge (July 2017) at the start of the open class. This class is the most challenging, since teams have to build the whole boat themselves. In the other classes, teams are often given a ready-to-use boat and/or electronic systems.
The Twente team intend to begin construction of the new boat in 2017. They will face their first major challenge in May at the Eneco Solar Boat Race 2017 (the Dutch championships) in Akkrum in Friesland.
More information
Solar Boat Twente consists of 15 students at the University of Twente studying Werktuigbouwkunde, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Design, Technische Natuurkunde, Biomedische Technologie, Advanced Technology, Civil Engineering and International Business Administration.
See also: http://solarboattwente.nl/
