Welcome to Team PrISUm

Team PrISUm is a multidisciplinary, student-run organization at Iowa State University (ISU) which designs, builds, and races solar powered electric vehicles across the United States every few years in the American Solar Challenge. Outreach and education are also important aspects of our project as we attempt to raise awareness about solar energy and efficient transportation. Don't hesitate to email us if you would like to have our solar car at an event.

This project would not be possible without our current and past sponsors. We encourage you to take a look at our sponsorship page and download a copy of the corporate sponsorship packet or an adopt-a-cell form to find out how you can help us pave the way towards a future in renewable energy!

2010 American Solar Challenge

Team PrISUm is currently building its tenth solar car, which will be competing in the 2010 American Solar Challenge in June. This race is of historic value to our team because it will be our 10th race with our 20th anniversary car. We look forward to another exciting season of solar car racing!

Team News Articles

Thanks to Don Hummer Trucking - January 19, 2010

Team PrISUm would like to thank Don Hummer Trucking for donating a semi truck and driver for a weekend so that we could transport our molds to and from Wichita, Kansas for machining.

Foam Mold Machining at Harlow Aerostructures - January 18, 2010

January 15 kicked off a busy weekend for Team PrISUm. We began by submitting our Mechanical and Electrical reports to the American Solar Challenge race officials. Then we arrived at Harlow Aerostructures in Wichita, Kansas, where employees graciously donated a weekend of their time to machine the foam molds we spent so much time constructing last semester. It was exciting to see the molds finally take the shape of our new car and we are forever thankful to the wonderful people at Harlow who made this possible. For a more detailed look at the process, check out Flickr gallery or watch the video from the event. Looking ahead, we have several busy weeks of sanding and priming the molds before we can leave for our carbon fiber layup trip in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Bald Eagle Days Convention - January 10, 2010

In early January, Team PrISUm travelled to Rock Island, IL to attend the 2010 Bald Eagle Days Convention. This three day expo focused on conservation and provided an excellent venue for us to present our solar car to the general public. Thanks to everyone who attended the event and we hope to return next year with a brand new car after a successful summer race!

P10 Project Update and New Sundial - December 12, 2009

There’s been a lot of work going on at the PrISUm garage over the past few months. We are proud to report that we have completed construction of the top and bottom molds for the car body and will be getting them machined in January, thanks to a substantial donation of time and services by Harlow Aerostructures in Wichita Kansas. We are putting the finishing touches on the aluminum tube frame design and wrapping up stress analysis computations before we can send it out to be welded early next year.

We have placed the order for the solar array on our next car, which represents a substantial portion of our project budget. The cells are currently being assembled into modules based on our specifications. We are continuing to use mono-crystalline silicon A-300 cells by SunPower, which are about 21% efficient. Additionally, the electrical team is prototyping the electronics system that will be used on our tenth car.

Many team members will continue working through the holidays to ensure that we are ready to present our mechanical and electrical report to American Solar Challenge officials on January 15. The 1100 mile cross country race in June is fast approaching and we are excited about the prospect of having a brand new solar car to show off in the spring.

Our Sundial newsletter for Fall 2009 has just been released and will be mailed out to team sponsors in the coming weeks. On behalf of everyone at Team PrISUm, happy holidays!

Sol Invictus Test Run Video - November 8, 2009

After displaying our solar car at the Iowa State Engineering booth before Saturday's football game, we took Sol Invictus out for a test drive. Sol Invictus is our ninth solar car and is now officially retired, but we still use it for outreach events and testing while we build our new car. At this particular testing event, many new team members got to drive the car for the first time. This is important because we are starting to think about drivers for the 2010 American Solar Challenge. We've posted a movie of the car in action at our videos page.

New Time and Format for General Meetings - November 3, 2009

Starting Monday, November 9 our general meetings will be held an hour earlier starting at 7:00PM. We realize that college students value their time and probably don't like sitting through a long general meeting every week. However, it is important that all team members attend the general meetings because this is the only time we can bring together members of both the mechanical and electrical teams to discuss the current status of the project and give important announcements. To make attendance more worth while, we are dramatically shortening the general meetings. Additionally, starting at 7:00 will allow more time for everyone to return to the garage after the meetings to organize projects and be productive. PrISUm directors are always open to suggestions from team members about how to improve our meeting structure.

Naming Our 10th Solar Car - October 26, 2009

It's that time again! Our new car is currently referred to by it's project number, P10, but we have started the compiling a list of potential names for the final car, which will be voted on later this year. If you would like to suggest a name, send us an email at solarcar@prisum.org.

PrISUm Website Overhaul - October 23, 2009

Our website has undergone it's second major revision this year. The first revision focused on bringing the website up to modern code standards and addressed numerous cross browser compatibility issues. This update offers a brand new navigation bar along with updated content and additional pages. The website will continue to evolve and expand as we strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. Although we have conducted quite a bit of testing on the new site, there are sure to be some issues that didn't catch our attention. Your feedback would be much appreciated so that we can quickly address issues and make future improvements to the website. Please send us an email or contact our media director, Evan Stumpges, with your input and suggestions.

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