EDGEWATER, Md. — It looks like something you would see in the movie "Back to the Future."
A car, made from scratch by high school students, powered by the sun.
"We’ve been working for two years now on this car, specifically," said Vincent Barilaro, a student at South River High School.
The car C2, or Challenger, was built by students in the school's Solar Hawks club. The club started three years ago, with the intention of building a solar-powered car to enter in the Solar Car Challenge in Forth Worth, Texas every year.
Barilaro said they entered C2 in the competition last year but it didn't pass "scrutineering", which is a rigorous exam by a panel of judges.
"Most of this year has been spent re-fabricating what we’ve done from last year, going ok this was a terrible choice," Barilaro said. "We’ve spent nearly a year making up for those decisions and making slight improvements."
This year, the Solar Hawks are competing against 31 other teams from around the country. If they pass scrutineering, they will drive C2 around the Texas Motor Speedway for up to eight hours a day, over a period of four days. The car that logs the most of amount of miles, wins the challenge.
"The big part of it is getting it up to speed. This car needs to go approximately 15 to 20 miles per hour in order to participate in the race," said Barilaro. "The sun is powerful but it’s hard to harness that energy and keep it going at that speed for so long."
The students are up for the challenge, and that's what drew them to join the club in the first place. Many of them, like Ben Shamah, knew nothing about building cars, much less building a car powered by the sun.
"I didn’t know anything about mechanical engineering at all, like at all," he said. "Building a full-sized solar-powered car as a bunch of high school kids, that’s insane."
Shamah now leads the team's mechanical division. The members have all found their niche, from mechanics and engineering, to fundraising.
"Its been a little stressful but it’s also been really fun because we’ve had a lot of experiences where we’ve gotten to not only build the car and then test it, but we’ve also gotten to grow as a friend group," said Lillian Goldbeck, who does fundraising and outreach.
"The amount I’ve been able to learn, structural integrity, frame materials all of that, it’s been really magical," said Shamah.
It's also been a true labor of love, with setbacks and triumphs. Their adviser, physics teacher Randy Warrilow, could not be prouder of the team.
"I have not in three years, I have not regretted one single minute of my involvement with this. This is an opportunity unlike any other opportunity," he said.
And it exposes the students to careers they might otherwise have not considered, especially jobs in STEM.
"It’s opened up a lot of paths and been really able to show that this could be a true career for me," said Shamah.
"It has helped me explore a bunch of different career paths. I now feel confident in doing a bunch of different things," said Barilaro.
To track the Solar Hawks progress through the Solar Car Challenge, click here.
For more information about the Solar Hawks and how you can support them, click here.
