NSU Checkers
Event Location: Cocoa-FL
Competition: Junior Solar Sprint
Division: 4-6 (JSS Green)
School: NSU University School
Team Name: NSU Checkers
Project Name: Checkmate
Team Size: 2
Checkmate
| Car Name: Checkmate |
| Team Name: NSU Checkers |
| School Name: NSU University School |
| Team Members Names: Grace S and Ryder C |
Design Documentation
Top View without Solar Panel
Side View #1
Side View #2
Back View
Front View
Underside of Car
Special Feature of Car – our gear ratio is small on the motor and medium on the axel.
Special Feature of Car – Large, flat wheels in the back to get traction on the drive wheels and smaller ones in the front. Both have rubber for traction.
Project Log
| Date | Hours | Tasks / Work Done | Obstacles Encountered | Modifications to Car |
| 8/28 | 1 | We drew our idea of what our car will look like. We started to gather materials, such as the board. | Since it was our first time building a solar car, it wasn’t easy to come up with a building plan | |
| 9/4 | 1 | We grabbed materials for our car and we started to work on the steps for the wheels | ||
| 9/11 | 1 | We started gluing pieces of the body and planning where we would put everything. | ||
| 9/18 | 1 | We decided on which gears to use. We put a small gear on the motor and a larger gear on the back axel. | ||
| 9/25 | 1 | We marked the hole to be cut out for the gear on the back axel and finished the decorating of the car | We had trouble marking out the hole for the gear on the body of the car | |
| 10/2 | 1 | We worked on collecting materials and planning both the front and the back axles but ended up not gluing them on. | ||
| 10/9 | 1 | We added the rubber grips to the wheels and we added the straw-like pieces for the axles to stay still on the car body | Wheels and gears on axles | |
| 10/16 | 1 | We put on the wheels onto the front axle. We also put a gear on the back axle. We drew a line on the axle to make sure that the gear is in the middle of the axle. We put the back wheels on. We glued both wheels/axles to the car body. | We had problems fitting the wheels and then placing them correctly. | Wheels and gears glued on car body |
| 10/23 | 1 | We made the circuit. We did the wiring, and we put the motor onto the car body. We put velcro on the body, and then we put velcro on the battery pack, Then put them together so that the battery wouldn’t fall off. We connected the motor to the battery using the alligator clips on the wires. | Circuit w/ motor and battery on car body. | |
| 11/1 | 1 | We tested the car and it crashed into the wall. When we were running it and my partner caught the car, she did not catch it, leading to the car running into the wall. The car hit hard and everything fell off. | Car crashed into wall, motor fell off, battery pack fell off, and the back axle fell off | Car semi-destroyed |
| 11/13 | 1 | Fixed it from the crash. Glued on the axle, put on the motor, put on the rubber band. Tested in hall, ran well. | Pieces back on car | |
| 11/20 | 1 | Tested car, broke again. Started to fix car. | ||
| 12/4 | 1 | Made it so that the battery was powering the motor again. | ||
| 12/12 | 1 | Added support pegs that hold up the solar panel. We glued the velcro to the pegs so that we can take the solar panel off and put it back on. | Finger got cut while cutting velcro | Pegs to support solar panel added to car |
| 12/18 | 1 | Decorated the car. | ||
| 1/8 | 1 | We fixed our pegs because they broke off and we started to put the guidewire holder on. The guide wire attaches to a board that’s coming out of the car with binding clips to hold the guide wire. | Almost burned finger, wire broke. | Guide wire holder added |
| 1/15 | 1 | We put the solar panel on by velcroing it to the wood pegs on an angle (front pegs shorter than back pegs) so that it could face the sun. Re-glued guide wire holder. | Solar panel attached to car | |
| 1/22 | 1 | We tried to run our car on solar power but ended up running on battery. Solar panel came loose because the car ran over a bump which caused the pegs to pop up and off. | Car would not run on solar power. Also, solar panel came loose. | |
| 1/29 | 1 | We ran our car three times on battery power. Wheels broke off because it ran over a bump again. | Wheels broke off | |
| 2/5 | 1 | Ran our car 2 times on battery. Had to fix the guide wire by gluing it back on. We used the heat gun to remove the piece of wood mounting the guide wire. We moved the wood support 1 centimeter forward. We glued another piece of wood to the side of the first piece of wood, and then mounted the guide wire onto the second piece | Guidewire and wood remounted. | |
| 3/5 | 1 | We tested the car outside. The car didn’t run when hooked up to the solar panel. | The solar panel didn’t work. | |
| 3/12 | 1 | We replaced the solar panel with a new one because the solar panel wasn’t running. We ran the car outside on the solar panel with a distance of 7 meters. It ran well and straight, but it was slow. It ran over a stick and it the wooden pegs supporting the solar panel came off again. We fixed the supports by re-gluing the pegs to the car body. | The car ran over a stick on the course and the solar panel supports came off. | Changed solar panel |
| 3/15 | 2 | We tested the car outside, it was straight but slow. We changed the wheels to try to make the car faster. We took the larger diameter wheels off of the front and replaced them with smaller diameter wheels. After we changed the wheels we took pictures. We tested the car outside on solar panel to see if the car was faster with the wheel change. We ran it on a distance of 20 meters and it was much faster! | Replaced the larger diameter wheels in front with smaller diameter wheels. | |
| 3/19 | 1 | We recorded videos outside of our car running and we fixed our wooden pegs again. We worked on the webpage. | The posts that support the panel keep getting loose and breaking | |
| 3/26 | 1 | We glued on the posts again, and then worked on the webpage. | ||
| 3/27 | 2 | We worked on the webpage. Our teacher soldered the wires on our car. | ||
| 4/2 | 1 | We tested the car outside in the sun. It ran very slowly. We will have to figure out why. We worked on the webpage. | For some reason the car is running slowly. |
Design Drawings
Design Drawing: Top View
Design Drawing: Side View
Final Car Specifications
| Car Size with Panel | Length: 26.5 cm | Width: 10cm | Height: 12.5cm |
| Weight with Panel | 325.10 g | ||
| Wheel Size | Front wheels: 3.4cm | Back Wheels: 4.0cm | |
| Gear Ratio | motor gear: axel gear 10:40 = 1:4 |
Materials Used
| Item | Approx. Cost |
| New: | |
| Pitsco Ray Catcher Solar Vehicle Kit | 48.75 |
| Pitsco Ray Catcher Solar Panel | |
| Pitsco Wheels, w/ rubber bands (2) and axel (1) | |
| Pitsco Motor (3V) and small black gear | |
| balsa wood for car body | |
| spacers for bearings (4) | |
| alligator clips (2) | |
| Solar Made large black gear, wheels (2), and axel (1) | 4.10 |
| AA battery pack with switch | 1.40 |
| piece of black binder comb to hold guide wire | 0.15 |
| 1/4″ dowel for wood pegs | 0.20 |
| Pipe cleaners (2) | 0.32 |
| Consumables (all used from the school Innovation Lab): | |
| Markers | |
| Duct tape | |
| solder | |
| velcro | |
| hot glue | |
| Recycled materials: | |
| small plastic cups (3) |
Test Results / Trial Runs
Test Runs 1 – date: 1/21/25
Weather conditions: Ran car inside in hall.
Ran on panel or battery? Ran car on battery.
Observations of results: Everything fell off of the car. Disaster.
Any recommendations for improvements: We have to fix the car.
| Attempt | Time, s (seconds) | Distance, m (meters) | Speed, m/s |
| 1 | 7.34 | 17 | 2.32 |
Test Runs 2 – date: 1/29/25
Weather conditions: Ran car inside in hall.
Ran on panel or battery? Ran car on battery.
Observations of results:
Any recommendations for improvements:
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 8.21 | 17 | 2.07 |
Test Runs 3 – date: 2/5/25
Weather conditions: Ran car inside in hall.
Ran on panel or battery? Ran car on battery.
Observations of results: Had to fix guide for the wire after our first run.
Any recommendations for improvements:
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 8.59 | 17 | 1.98 |
| 2 | 7.56 | 17 | 2.25 |
| 3 | 8.13 | 17 | 2.09 |
| 4 | 7.38 | 17 | 2.30 |
Test Runs 4 – date: 2/26/25
Weather conditions: Ran car inside in hall.
Ran on panel or battery? Ran car on battery.
Observations of results:
Any recommendations for improvements:
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 7.75 | 17 | 2.19 |
| 2 | 7.63 | 17 | 2.23 |
| 3 | 7.65 | 17 | 2.22 |
Test Runs 5 – date: 3/12/25
Weather conditions: Excellent sun.
Ran on panel or battery? We ran on solar panel outside.
Observations of results: The car is running slowly and turning.
Any recommendations for improvements: We have to think about what to change to increase our speed. We also have to fix the axel alignment so that it goes straight.
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 4.97 | 7.2 | 1.45 |
| 2 | 5.89 | 7.2 | 1.22 |
| 3 | 5.37 | 7.2 | 1.34 |
| 4 | 5.47 | 7.2 | 1.32 |
Test Runs 6 – date: 3/15/25
Weather conditions: Excellent sun.
Ran on panel or battery? We ran on solar panel outside.
Observations of results: Veered slightly left for first 4 runs. After we changed the front wheels it ran straight and faster.
Any recommendations for improvements: It ran slowly so we decided to try to change the front wheels to a smaller diameter set of wheels. The times were much better after the change. Now it is running fast and straight!
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 9.75 | 20 | 2.05 |
| 2 | 8.35 | 20 | 2.40 |
| 3 | 8.16 | 20 | 2.45 |
| 4 | 8.36 | 20 | 2.39 |
Solar panel times after we switched the front wheels from larger diameter to smaller diameter. It ran faster and straighter after the wheel switch.
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 6.91 | 20 | 2.89 |
| 2 | 6.78 | 20 | 2.95 |
| 3 | 6.68 | 20 | 2.99 |
Test Runs 7 – date: 4/2/25
Weather conditions: Excellent sun.
Ran on panel or battery? We ran on solar panel outside.
Observations of results: We didn’t change anything but it ran a lot slower than last time. We will have to try to figure it out before the competition.
Any recommendations for improvements: The only thing that was different was that our wires were soldered by our teacher. We will have to check our wires to see if there is a bad connection.
| Attempt | Time, S (seconds) | Distance, M (meters) | Speed, M/S |
| 1 | 8.41 | 18 | 2.14 |
| 2 | 9.03 | 18 | 1.99 |
| 3 | 11.65 | 18 | 1.55 |
Video of Our Car Running
Car Features Video
Additional Information
Drawing of Our Original Car Idea
Electrical Schematic: This is our schematic of the electrical circuits. It is the same DC motor in both drawings.
thank you for the feedback we appreciate it 😁
You all did such a great job! The only critique I have is that very large, bulky steering device. You may get more speed if you lighten that somehow. Great job!