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Cambridge University Eco Racing (CUER) are the UK's leading solar car racing team. The team of 60 Cambridge students design, build and race solar-powered vehicles. Founded in 2007, their first prototype vehicle, ''Affinity'', became the first solar-powered car to drive legally on UK roads. The team compete in the biennial World Solar Challenge. CUER's race vehicle for the 2013 race, ''Resolution'', is known for its innovative tracking plate design, and unusual teardrop shape. Its latest vehicle, ''Evolution'', builds upon this previous design and will be entered into the 2015 race. ==Background== Cambridge University Eco Racing is based in the University's Department of Engineering and comprises around 80 undergraduate members from several departments of Cambridge University. As well as having a large student body, the team is strongly supported by a number of academic and industrial advisers, including Hermann Hauser and Tony Purnell. The team was founded in 2007 by Martin McBrien, inspired by the solar car team at MIT. Its first vehicle, ''Affinity'', was designed and constructed in early 2008 and was used as a prototype and display vehicle rather than for serious competition. In June 2008, ''Affinity'' was driven from Land's End to John O'Groats to raise awareness of sustainable energy. As part of the End to End venture, it was endorsed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to legally drive on UK roads, and became the first such vehicle to qualify. CUER runs outreach events at local schools and has been featured in a wide range of local, national and international media. In July 2008, work began on the second generation CUER vehicle, ''Endeavour''. Following design work by a number of students in the Engineering Department, and with the support of the advisory board, the team competed in the 2009 World Solar Challenge, a 3000 km marathon across Australia. They came 14th, of 26 competitors, after a battery failure severely hindered their chances of competing effectively. ''Endeavours 2009 entry was launched by Jenson Button at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Over the next two years, they continued redesigning and refining Endeavour, resulting in a car with much improved aerodynamic properties and more reliable batteries. The team used CFD simulations to make minor tweaks to the canopy, and tested the car extensively at a local airfield, before heading out to the next World Solar Challenge in October 2011. There, after the hardest race on record due to a combination of thunderstorms and bush fires, they came 25th out of 37 teams.〔()〕 Since then, the team designed a new vehicle, Resolution, to compete in the WSC in 2013. This vehicle differed from CUER's previous vehicles in that the design team chose to prioritise aerodynamic efficiency over power-generation - opting instead to use a sleek "tear-drop" design to reduce the car's drag coefficient while also making use of efficient satellite-grade Gallium Arsenide solar cells to maximize the amount of power generated for a smaller surface area of solar panels. Although CUER entered Resolution into the WSC 2013 race, it was unable to fully trial the design as the vehicle crashed during testing in Australia - damaging the solar cell array - and was subsequently unable to compete in the race. CUER's newest vehicle and Resolution's successor, Evolution, is its entry into WSC 2015. It implements improvements that addresses many of the stability and structural problems that affected Revolution, while maintaining the new design. The team hopes to use the race as a proof-of-concept for Evolution's design and identify areas for improvement in future race cycles. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cambridge University Eco Racing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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