top of page
Elizabeth Opalek
Solar Splash Boat
The UD Solar Splash Team is an engineering competition team dedicated to building our own solar powered boat. Solar Splash competes against other schools in an international competition held the first week of June.
During competition, each team competes in three events: the slalom, sprint, and endurance. Each team competes in three runs of the slalom and sprint, head to head with another team, and the endurance is a two hour event where the goal is to complete as many laps as possible. Additionally, each team submits a technical and video report, which also factor into scoring. Each team must also pass a variety of technical inspections to be allowed to compete. Once inspections are passed, all power must come from solar panels.
With technical inspections in progress, we had to think on our feet to fix issues brought up, like our lack of motor cover, in order to compete!
The hull was fabricated by us using donated plans from SaltBoatWorks. We used plywood attached by zip ties, then fiberglass and epoxied over it to seal it from the water. I learned a lot of practical skills about tool use and building during this phase of constructing the boat.
We designed our electrical and solar systems from scratch, around the pieces we already owned. The majority of our design work last year was aimed to get us to competition, but this years designs aim to improve upon last year and put in components that allow us to collect testing data.
This year, I am the treasurer of Solar Splash, as well as part of the Hull, Business, and Technical Report teams.
Skills Gained:
- Budgeting
- Technical Writing
- Grant Writing
- Project Management
- Fabrication
- Professional Communication
- Practical Prototyping
- Building
- Teamwork
- Leadership
- Problem-Solving
- MatLab
- Workflow Management
- Troubleshooting
- Organization
- Documentation
- Mathematics
bottom of page