Solar Speedster’s Solar Car
Event Location: Cocoa-FL
Competition: Junior Solar Sprint
Division: 7-8 (JSS Blue)
School: Orlando Gifted Academy
Team Name: Solar Speedsters
Project Name: LeSpeed
Team Size: 2
By: Miguel R, 7th grade & Everett D, 6th grade
Design Drawings
3d Printed Blueprints (outdated car)
Ultimately, we had to discard the car body and ball joint to better the lighter stuff.
Car Blueprints (New car)
Featured Images
Design Log
When we first started building the car (3/24/25), we discussed using a ball joint so we could adjust the solar panel depending on the sun’s position in the sky on the day of the competition. We used the first day working on the solar car to brainstorm ideas for our design. We spent the whole day doing this.
We then 3-D printed our frame and super glued balsa wood on top of that. (3/26/25 and 3/27/25) We did have to work out sizing issues later on with the frame, axles, and wheels. We spent two days doing this.
After that, we mounted the ball joint to the wood and then attached the solar panel to the ball joint. (3/28/25) We also attached 6 magnets to the balsa wood to support the solar panel more when in a race. (3/29/25). We spent two days doing this.
After this, we built our ping pong ball container, which we had to redesign later on. (3/28/25 and 4/4/25). We spent two days doing this.
We then spent multiple days figuring out the mechanical aspects of the solar car such as the motor and batteries. (3/29/25 – 4/3/25) After that, we started to personalize our solar car using spray paint. We spent multiple days doing this.
Both team members were present throughout all of the above tasks completed for the solar car.
Unfortunately, when we tested our car (4/4/25), it was too slow and heavy. We decided to remodel the car to make it smaller while taking away some unnecessary parts. I made a new battery holder and car body (all 3d printed) and decided to use a plug board (for wires) to make everything easily testable and accessible (4/5/25).
We tested our car for the entire next day (4/6/25).
Components
Junior Solar Sprint Deluxe Kit – $41.99 – New
Balsa wood – Free – Reused
Frame (3d Printed) – $0.80 – New
Magnets – Free – Reused
Wheels – $0.50 – New
Ping-Pong Ball Container – $0.25 – New
Superglue – Free – Reused
Accelerant – Free – Reused
Hot Glue – Free – Reused
Electrical Tape – Free – Reused
Batteries – Free – Reused
Ball joint + Lego – Free – Reused
Battery Holder (3d Printed) – $0.30 – New
Plug-in Breadboard for Wires – Free – Reused
Miscellaneous Wires – Free – Reused
Design Documentation
Video
(the link for our video)
Tests
Test 1: Battery Powered/Cloudy/2:20PM on 4/5/25
Distance Traveled: 10m
Time: 4.5 sec
Speed: 2.22
Comments: Kinda slow, we may want look into and see if any of the electronics are bad.
Test 2: Solar/Sunny/2:25PM on 4/6/25
DIstance Traveled: 10m
Time: 3.95
Speed: 2.53
Comments: Definitely faster but still kinda slow.
Test 3: Solar/Sunny/2:45PM on 4/6/25
DIstance Traveled: 10m
Time: 4.1
Speed: 2.43
Comments: Slower unfortunately.
Finished Car Specifications
Our solar car weighs 284 grams.
Our solar car’s front wheels are 6 cm in diameter, and its back wheels are 3.5 cm in diameter.
Our solar car’s gear ratio is 8/7.
Our solar car is 33 1/2 cm long, 11 1/2 cm wide, and 10 1/2 cm tall.
In conclusion, our car is very small and uses innovative things like the custom made battery holder and plug in breadboard. Unfortunately, our car is pretty slow.