The year is 2018, the location is Clark County Fairground Lake in Springfield, Ohio. The competition is the 25th Solar Splash World Championships and the participants are 12 colleges from around the world. On Saturday June 9th, the winner is revealed. That winner is…Cedarville University!!!
The Fourth Year Winning
Cedarville University has been a participant in the Solar Splash competition for 18 years out of 25. They have won 11 times out of those 18! One could say that they can definitely handle their solar boat business.
What makes 2018 and this win special is that it marks Cedarville University‘s 4th win in a row. Now, that is impressive!
The team that made it possible this year is made up of five recently graduated seniors: Josh Heanssler of Rockport, Maine; Will Heinig, Plain City, Ohio; Andrew Nelson, Buchanan, Michigan; Josh Schroepfer, Chesapeake, Virginia; and Jonathan Cox, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Performance at Solar Splash
The video above is by Cedavrille University and it highlights their solar boat at the 25th Solar Splash competition.
The team was able to score second place at the Qualifying Event, the Solar Endurance Event, the Sprint Event, and for the Visual Presentation aspect.
They came in third place at the Solar Slalom Event and for their Technical Report.
Their overall points are what made them the winners this year which proves that you do not need to be number one at every event to win overall!
Being present at the competition for 15+ years has taught them many other things such as on-the-spot problem-solving. This skill came in handy while the team was demonstrating their boat for a local TV morning show when all of the sudden, the electric motor shorted out. This happened a mere 24 hours before the competition was about to start. The team pulled it together and made it work and came on top! “If we hadn’t put on the demo, the problem wouldn’t have popped up until we got to competition, and that would have been rough. As it was, we had a 24-hour notice. We were able to take it apart, find the problem and fix it that night.” said Dr. Gerry Brown, associate professor of electrical engineering and co-advisor to the Cedarville Solar Boat team.
The team will also be participating in the Dutch Solar Challenge and we can’t wait to update you on that!
Check out Cedarville University‘s own blog post about their experience: https://www.cedarville.edu/News/2018/Solar-Splash-4-Peat.aspx
Thanks for reading! What are your thoughts on Cedarville’s fourth win? Let us know in the comments below!
Related:
The Solar Splash 2018 Winners!
