More than a year of planning and design, thousands of dollars and countless hours of hard work paid off this past summer for the ISU solar car team, Team PrISUm.

The team finished 16th in the American Solar Challenge, a 2,247 mile trek from Chicago, Ill. to Claremont, Calif., the longest solar car race in the world.

From July 15 through July 25, Team PrISUm members raced their Odyssey solar car from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. almost every day. They completed the race in 92 hours and 39 minutes.

The winner this year was the University of Michigan with a time of 56 hours, 10 minutes, and 46 seconds, followed by the University of Missouri-Rolla (57:30:52) and the University of Waterloo (62:00:18).

The first few days of the race presented both electrical and mechanical difficulties for Team PrISUm.

“From the start, the power trackers – devices that send energy to either the motor or the batteries – weren’t working properly,” said Valerie Sandefur, project director of the team. “By the second day of the race, the Odyssey wasn’t being charged properly. Both MIT and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology were kind enough to loan their spare power trackers to help us, which was wonderful of them, because if any of theirs broke, they wouldn’t have had any spares.”

After fixing the electrical difficulties, Team PrISUm faced a mechanical problem with the suspension on the fifth day of the race.

“This was due to incomplete force-analysis and a rushed suspension system,” said Sandefur, sophomore in English.

A machine shop in Amarillo, Texas, was called, and a new suspension system was manufactured out of better material. It was installed during the team’s overnight stay, she said.

“By the time we reached Albuquerque, NM, . all of the bugs were worked out of the car, and the last four days we basically played catch-up,” Sandefur said.

During this second half of the race, the team increased its standing from almost dead last to 16th place out of 30 upon the culmination of the race. The finish was the best place the team has ever received in its 11-year history.

On the ninth day of the race, the team broke another school record, traveling 312 miles in one day.

“A lot of advances were made and a lot of ground was broken in battery technology,” said Nick Mohr, Team PrISUm’s former project director.

He was optimistic for the team’s future.

“The team has the capability to do well in two years [at the next ASC],” said Mohr, senior in mechanical engineering.

Though the American Solar Challenge may be over this year, “the Odyssey has thousands of miles left on her,” Sandefur said. “Team PrISUm may do the Formula Sun, a track-style race, this next summer. There is also the Sun Run, a tour of several schools around Iowa. The next ASC is in 2003, and the team is already building their next car, which will be the seventh car produced by ISU.”

Until that car is completed, the Odyssey will be the car the team uses to train its drivers and look for design ideas.

“We may redo the electrical system and some of the mechanical systems, but the general design, such as the body molding, we have down pretty good,” she said.

Team PrISUm will be having its first general meeting Sept. 17th, Sandefur said, and is looking for a place to help continue work on the next car and hopefully make another record-breaking finish at the next race.