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Altair's Solar Car Challenge

And the winner is....

With an emotional winners ceremony, the Altair Solar Challenge came to an end on July 18th, when we were proud to announce and congratulate the winning teams:

🥇 1st: University of Florida
🥈 2nd: University of Michigan
🥉 3rd: University of Minnesota

Watch the incredibly heart-warming reaction of the UF Gators from the University of Florida, when their win of $10,000 was announced at the event:

📽️by Innovators Educational Foundation (American Solar Challenge & Formula Sun Grand Prix)/ Cora Kennedy

Special awards went to:
🏆 Robustness: Florida Polytechnic University
🏆 Most Innovative: École de technologie supérieure
🏆 Best Use of Manufacturing Constraints: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The competition was incredibly close, and we were blown away by the quality of the submissions. It's amazing to see how these students used our software to complement their engineering fundamentals.

A huge thank you to the entire Electrek FSGP staff and all the teams for welcoming us with open arms. We had an absolute blast and can’t wait to see what the Altair Design Challenge 2025 has in store!

What was the challenge?

Teams had to put their engineering skills to the ultimate test as they joined us for a 3-day challenge during the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix event at the iconic National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, KY.

The Altair Challenge was designed to push their analysis/optimization skills to new heights. They were tasked with the re-design of a given part using only the provided Altair tools.

What's in it for participants?

Besides the chance of winning the $10,000 prize money or other great prizes, participants were able to upskill their abilities to optimize parts of their team's solar car - giving their teams an advantage in the overall contest - and in the process become better engineers.

Dates: Monday, July 15th to Wednesday, July 17th
Time: 10 am to 8 pm daily (during competition and charging hours)
Location: Event Headquarters - exact location to be announced

1st Place Prize	Judges Choice and Innovation Awards	Participation Prize
$10,000	Equipment Prizes	Altair Swag

Prepare yourself for the Challenge

Learn the Inspire Workflow

Using Altair Inspire for this challenge will make you most likely to be successful. To learn the tool we provide this recorded on-demand learning session and a live office hour session for you to ask questions.

Download the model file from the video to work along the process.
For more Learning content visit the Inspire Academic Hub and find all learning resources in one place.

The live office hour session will be held on May 14th at 5 PM (EST). Register on the right to be notified and get the webinar link.

Challenge Details

Qualifications

Team registration through the form on the right must be submitted by July 15th, 2024 (one registration per team is sufficient).
Teams are expected to field a vehicle in FSGP that is all green on the pre-race board to participate in the event on-site.
Teams need to obtain an Altair Sponsorship License (Request here)
Teams are required to agree to participate in the creation of marketing materials about the challenge (e.g. team photos, interviews, testimonials.)

Process

Altair will provide participating teams with a dedicated laptop to complete the challenge.

While teams can rotate team members throughout the challenge, the laptop must remain at the designated location at all times. File sharing with personal devices is prohibited.

The laptops come with pre-installed software to complete the challenge. We recommend using Inspire for best results, but any Altair software can be utilized.

Altair representatives will be on-site to offer guidance and support throughout the challenge.

Portrait of young man filling in application form

Submissions

Your submission must comprise the completed geometry, the finite element (FE) results, and a concise one-page report.

This report should include:

the total mass reduction with the before and after mass values,
the factor of safety for each of the 3 loading scenarios,
your intended manufacturing method, and
a brief summary of your design process.

Happy woman online on a laptop computer - isolated over white background

How to Win

The team with the ‘lowest mass’ design and accomplished design criteria wins.

Design criteria:

Passes feasibility test using a 1.2 FoS
Is manufacturable using a standard 5 axis CNC. No 3D printing should be assumed.
Fits within the provided volume bounding box.
Uses the specified 6061 Aluminum Alloy

Motion Requirements:

0.5 second impulse load in vertical direction
Damping: 15
Stiffness (K): 100
Preload: 500 lbs
Static Brake Load: 250 lbs

In the event of a tie, the winner will be decided by the time stamp on the submitted report.

Winners will be announced and receive their prizes at the awards ceremony on July 18th.