A few engineers recently went to Auto City Speedway in Clio, MI to test the handling and reliability of the car at low speeds. I test drove the car for 35 miles at around 35mph on the small, half-mile track. There is a cross in the middle of the circuit so we had a blast driving some large figure eights. However, the support vehicles were the university minivans, which handled the course worse than Infinium. Sudeep and Kevin each had a chance to drive Lead while Jeremy followed in Chase.

It was a warm day, but I was driving just fast enough for the air duct to function; there were no fairings on, so a lot of air was scooped into the cockpit.

Handling a turn

Infinium with Chase on the track

The night before unveiling was packed full of good times as we scrambled to add polish to Infinium. A few of us stayed up really late making sure all the details were ready.

Aubrey was up the latest of all, sewing together the massive block M veil. He is quite the seamster, as he likes to be called. Hopefully the team will get many more years of use out of his hard work!

Eric spent several hours sanding and painting the steering wheel and control plate. Not only does the steering wheel allow the driver to control the car, but it also allows our engineers an outlet for creative expression.

Jeff was up also, preparing Infinium's LED lighting for the big day. The LED's are mounted on aluminum core printed circuit boards to provide maximum heat dissipation. This was the team's first attempt at aluminum core PCB's, and it turned out well! Thanks to Saturn Electronics for manufacturing the special boards and Visteon for providing the LED's.

Picture by Eliyahu Gurfinkel, The Ann Arbor News

Senior John Federspiel, left, and sophomore Ethan Lardner, members of the University of Michigan Solar Car Team, wheel the 2009 model into its place for a promotional photo session on North Campus on Thursday morning.

University of Michigan students ready latest solar car for its day in the sun
by Dave Gershman, The Ann Arbor News
Saturday June 06, 2009, 12:01 AM

It's sleek, it's fast, and, yes, it's powered by the sun.

University of Michigan students have high hopes for the latest solar car.

"To win the World Solar Challenge in October," said John Federspiel, who will be a senior in mechanical engineering in the fall and is the crew chief on the solar car project.

The annual race across Australia, which draws college teams from across the globe, will be the first test of the car, dubbed Infinium.

U-M has placed third three times, though it has won a similar race, the North American Solar Challenge, five times.

Read the rest of the article at the Ann Arbor News

I'm here at the workspace where earlier today we successfully completed the first open road testing of Infinium.  After our initial tests in a North Campus parking lot this weekend where many of the team members got the chance to drive Infinium, we outfitted our lead and chase vehicles with hazard lights in preparation for public roads. 

This morning we got out to the workspace early for all of the necessary safety checks and route preparations, and then our test driver Gerald Chang took the wheel as we rolled out onto Mansfield Road for for a few hours on the bumpiest road on earth (Mansfield Road).  The test went off with only a few technical hiccups despite the rough road conditions, and according to Gerald, even on Mansfield the ride is pretty smooth and a ton of fun.  Everyone else on the roads seemed pretty interested in the car, and we were able to count more than a few turned heads as we went by.

Check back after the unveiling for pictures of the test, I'm pretty sure some people snapped a few (I was occupied driving lead).