Altec integral to solar car success

Not to brag, but Altec played an integral role in the development of the world's first solar utility vehicle.

“We made the fiberglass molds needed for the carbon fiber panels,” said Altec Composite Deisgn Engineer Austin Graham. “They provided us with the designs and then the pattern – a hard solid shape to start making the mold off of.”

At Iowa State University, PrISUm has been building a solar car every year since 1990. Named “Penumbra,” this year’s model was built on knowledge amassed by multiple departments and applied to a consumer-grade vehicle capable of running completely on solar power.

The PrISUm team brought Penumbra for a visit 1 to 3 p.m. Friday, June 16, at Altec as part of a 3-week tour of Iowa’s 99 counties.

On a day like today,” said Matthew Swift, ISU senior, “we could go forever.”

Penumbra uses a combination of solar power generation, energy storage and brake regeneration to fuel the solar car.

“Our cruising speed is about 35 miles per hour, so if we go that speed, we won’t be charging or discharging the batteries,” said Swift, noting the car can go up to 72 miles per hour, perfect for the Interstate.

Therein lies the importance in Penumbra. It was built — with the help of students enrolled in nearly every college on campus — to act as any other consumer vehicle.

“So, with this one, we really went all out,” said Swift. “All the old ones were kind of spaceship-looking, one-seaters. No practically, just solely efficiency.”

With four doors — and four seats — Penumbra has a more traditional body type than previous solar cars made by PrISUm. It also has extras like JBL speakers and MP3 integration, a space for storage in back and a window. Some of the changes don’t seem that significant until you look at the competition.

“The rear windshield, no other solar cars have that to our knowledge. In the solar car world, that’s a really new thing,” said Swift.

With Tesla talking about adding solar panels to its electric cars, the days when commercial models will be available for purchase could be closer than we think, according to Swift. Right now, the PrISUm team is more worried about how Penumbra performs at the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge starting later this year in Darwin, Australia. The competition kicks off Oct. 7 and wraps up Oct. 15 in Adelaide. This is the first time PrISUm will be competing, but there’s no question they have one of — if not the — most advanced solar car in existance.

“The older cars, they used to use motorcycle batteries. They could change batteries, but then they’d get penalized so many points,” said Spencer Seeberger, a retired industrial tech teacher who came out to see Penumbra with his wife Bev.

“He used to teach a solar cell unit,” his wife said.

It didn’t take long for one of Seeberger’s old students to wander up.

“Altec, especially in Osceola and St Joseph, pull heavily from Iowa State,” said Graham, who was one of the professional engineers working with the PrISUm team, an experience he lauds as a tremendous benefit for students and company alike. “It helps us build a talent pool to pul from. It also allows us to teach an area of materials engineering that really doesn’t get touched on very much.”

This is exactly the type of work PrISUm was created to accomplish. The advanced Research & Development program hyperfocuses on the real-world of industrial development and green energy. As it has aged, however, it’s also evolved.

““Historically it’s been mostly engineers, but it’s kind of morphed into being more interdisciplinary. Once you get, say, design majors or archietects who can sit down and make the car asthetically more than it would ever been by a bunch of engineers, or business managers who can really figure out how to get from point A to point B with all the materials all over the place. Our budget’s three-quarters of a million dollars, so having them available to help us with that is tremendously helpful,” said Swift. “We even have elementary education majors who help us with our outreach, bring down these hard scientific principles, break them down for kids to understand.”

Drawing from so many different schools of thought has already given the team an edge. Their finished product, which took one year to design and one year to build, has all the makings of a modern passenger vehicle. Now, we’ll see how Penumbra performs down under.