Two members of Iowa State’s solar car team, Team PrISUm, returned to Ames recently from a three-week expedition to Australia.

Jason Hill and Brenton Rothchild, sophomores in computer engineering, left for Australia in October to observe their sister school, the University of New South Wales, in action in the World Solar Challenge, the largest solar car race in the world.

“It really opened our eyes up to quite a few design considerations … that we can adapt to make a newer and faster car for Sunrayce 2001,” Hill said.

Hill said although he and Rothchild did not actively take part in the operation of the Australian car, they did get the chance to watch the Australians in action.

“We tried to stay back a bit and observe how their individual members worked together,” he said.

Hill said the New South Wales team finished 18th out of 42 cars, despite running into some problems during the race.

“It took seven days to finish the 3,000 kilometer route because of technical problems with the solar array and cloudy weather,” he said.

They didn’t get to do much sight-seeing, but Hill said that wasn’t why they went to Australia.

“The goal we set out with when we left was to look at designs … and bring that knowledge back to our team,” he said.

Hill said the New South Wales team expressed interest in sending some of their students to Iowa for the Iowa Sun Run in May of 2000.

“It’d be really great to see some New South Wales students up here. It’s always nice to have somebody to bounce your ideas off of to see if they’ve had success or failures from them in the past,” he said.

Nick Mohr, project director for Team PrISUm, said he was looking forward to using the knowledge his team members brought back from the land down under.

“It was a great opportunity to get some of our team members to the World Solar Challenge. Certainly when you put students in a different environment, it’s a great experience,” said Mohr, junior in mechanical engineering.

But after spending three weeks away from school, Hill and Rothchild were glad to be back in Ames.

“It felt good to be back home and back at Iowa State. Surprisingly enough, I missed going to classes,” Hill said.

In other related news, Hill said Team PrISUm currently is holding a “Name the Solar Car Contest,” where students may e-mail their suggestions for the name of ISU’s sixth solar car to [email protected]. The winner will receive a free T-shirt.