Page 24 - Blue Valley_Issue 5_2022

MOTORING

2022 SASOL SOLAR CHALLENGE

Striving to ignite curiosity and a love for science

and engineering in our younger generation

ow in its 14th year, the South African
Sasol Solar Challenge was back in full
Nforce this year. Among the nine teams
that participated was a group of high school
learners that managed to surpass their goal of
covering 1 000km by more than 200km.

The Sasol Solar Challenge entails
conceptualising, designing and building a car
that is able to cover large distances using sunlight
that is converted to solar power. This ticks all the
boxes for students both at school and university
level, in that it requires the practical application
of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics) principles.
Sasol started sponsoring the event in 2012,
four years after it began, and has continued
to do so to encourage further development in
solar technology. The challenge was inspired
by the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge that
has been held in Australia since 1987. Now run
and owned by a firm of experienced events
professionals based in Centurion, this event
has over the years attracted participants from
Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Poland, Belgium,
The Netherlands and Turkey, and has often
included the top global solar racing teams.
The eight-day event this year took place from
9 – 16 September. Starting from the Carnival
City Casino in Brakpan, the 2022 route to the
finish line at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town
went through five provinces and 18 towns that
included Trompsburg, Willowmore, Kirkwood,
Jeffreys Bay, Riversdale and Caledon. The
vehicles were required to use the public roads,
sharing space with trucks and regular traffic.
At each stage, large crowds turned out to
welcome the participants and school children
were given talks on how the technology was
being utilised.
There were a number of first entries this year
– the Genuine JV Solar Car built by the team
of high school students, as well as entries
from UNISA, the University of the Free State,
Solar Flair built by a team of private engineers
based in Mpumalanga, and the current World
Champions, a team of Belgian engineers that
entered as the Agoria Solar Team.
Strategy and adventure were the key themes
for this year’s solar challenge, with the ultimate
aim to cover the greatest distance. To make
the event more exciting, this year’s challenge
incorporated special stages, which were: a
marathon stage (which started in Kroonstad
and finished in Gariep) that required teams to
work on their solar cars in a closed and secured
area with limited workforce; as well as half and
full blind stages, where information relating to
the route was withheld until the night before Winner: Brunel Solar Team
the teams took to the road. This forced them

22 • Issue 5 2022 • BLUE VALLEY NEWS