Solar Car Challenge

Register Your Team

Altair's Solar Car Challenge

Win $10,000 or other prizes for your team

Are you ready to put your engineering skills to the ultimate test? Join 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 is designed to push your analysis/optimization skills to new heights. You will be 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 will 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. 

 

  • 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.

Register Now

Challenge Details

Solar Teams

Qualifications

  • Team registration through the form on the right must be submitted by June 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.)
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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.
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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.
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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

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.

Have questions about this challenge? Ask us in the Altair Community.

Ask Here

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