Windshield Viper
Event Location: Virtual
Competition: Junior Solar Sprint
Division: 7-8 (JSS Blue)
School: Cornerstone Learning Community
Team Size: 3
Amery, Kai, and John
Junior Solar Sprint- Blue Division
Hello! Our team is from Cornerstone Learning Community Tallahassee, FL! Our group includes:
Amery Keller, 8th grade, as the head Graphic and Visual Arts Director (2nd year)
John Marty, 8th grade, as the Constructive Mechanical Engineer (1st year)
Kai Okui, 7th grade, as the Logic and Creative Mechanical Designer (1st year)
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Photo and Basic Info
Our car is inspired by the red African Bush Viper. We designed our car with the red, spiked scales of this specific snake. We used alcohol markers and gold paint to add more highlights to our car. We have a mechanism that allows us to move our solar panel lower or higher depending on the sun’s placement in the sky. (The two triangular metal pieces shown above is the prototype version of the final mechanism).
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Car Details
Our car has these components:
- Wheels x5
- Battery Pack x1
- Motor x1
- Metal pieces x6
- Bolts x2 Bolt Nuts x2
- Rubber band seatbelt x1
- Soloar panel x1
- String Spring
- rubber band (on the wheels) x5
- paint
- pizzazz x100%
Measurements:
Length: 25 1/2 cm
Hight: 8 cm
Width: 11 cm
Hight with Solar Panel: 15 cm
Weight: 306.37 g
Gear Ratio: 30:40
Front wheels: 1 1/2 cm
Back wheels: 1 1/2 cm
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Car Pictures
Front of car
Back of car
Right of car
Left of car
Top of car
Underbelly of car
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Design Process
Our design process has been a wild one! Here we have the design log for the first 7 weeks for our solar car. Unfortunately, we could only log the first 7 weeks, but we ended up with a finished car that ran well!
| Date | Time Spent | Activities |
| December 2, 2022 | 1 hour | We came up with the design for the car’s frame and chassis. |
December 16, 2022 | 1 hour | We secured the chassis and built the frame. |
| January 6, 2023 | 1 hour | We used around ideas of the tilting of the solar panel. |
| January 13, 2023 | 1 hour | Added the back wheels and refined the motor position and added “Canada” to the bottom of the car. Irrelevant, but entertaining. |
| January 20, 2023 | 1 hour | We added the battery pack. |
| January 27, 2023 | 1 hour | We finally got around to implementing the tilting of the solar panel. We primed the car for painting with white paint. |
| February 3, 2023 | 1 hour 10 min | We started painting snake scales on the car, with alcohol markers and paint. We ended up finishing today. |
| February 10, 2023 | 1 hour | We had to change our one wheel drive to three, because the drive was too weak. |
Here we have our transforming drafts for our car concept. We worked one class period on drafting, then we got to work building our frame for our chassis.
After our sketches were done, we started making our car and designing it.
(Post image of pre-paint car + pictures of process work here)
Car Performance Video ________________________
Car Explanation Video
Thank you so much for taking the time to review our website! It means a lot and we are ever so grateful!
-Sincerely, The Vipers
Your design drawings were excellent. I loved the theme of your solar car and its spiked scales like the African Bush Viper. I would like to see this car run at EnergyWhiz in-person. Great team work.
Clever play on words for the title. Interesting design with the 3 wheels in the rear and V -split in chassis. I would like to see this one race in person!
Love the job titles! Great job. This is very detailed!
Really cool car. The V shape and 3 rear wheels are unique, as well as the solar panel support. Great job!
Very innovative design. I don’t think I’ve seen a car with three drive wheels before. I would love to see it run on a guide wire on a smooth track to see how fast it can get. It probably has very good low end acceleration. Also, you documentation was excellent.
👌 👏 😍 great job team !!!
Lovethe design
Really nice work. Very creative design and execution. The adjustable solar panel is very innovative and well executed. Additionally, loved the extra enthusiasm of “Pizzazz x 100%.” Good luck in all stages of the competition. We’ll be pulling for y’all.
I enjoyed seeing the engineering and artistic design elements in your solar car. Good luck!