Day three

For a day with less than a minute of boat running today was intense. Our boat is running well and we are slick at running it. We performed as predicted in the sprint race, losing some ground with a time in the middle of the field. We are happy, however, that it will not jeopardise our competitive ranking and we envisage a recovery with our strong event; the endurance race. Our commitment to assisting the Mexican team in their qualifying efforts came to a head this morning; after their near sinking yesterday they found their motor to be inoperable. Despite being the smallest team we split up for an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at repairing their systems. The boat was almost completely rewired by myself with help from representatives from Carnegie Mellon and Cederville universities; within 45 minutes. The proprietary brushless motor, being tied into the system's controller, prevented the necessary controller replacement from being possible; ultimately consigning the Mexican team to a retirement from the competition. In the meantime as well as running the battery charging strategy and preparing the boat for competition the rest of the team fine tuned the telemetry system to extend its range; not strictly necessary but a luxury to confirm the accuracy of our readings. Our lasting impression of the day remains the New Orleans boat which ran a 23 second 300m, its acceleration is literally explosive.

Richard, Team Tarka

Day two report

Another succesful day on the water gave us cause for encouragement. As we departed from the paddock area we were leading the event overall but with the top teams still to qualify we await further results with baited breath. Our major limiting factor currently is the boat's propellor, with such a low pitch we are unable to deliver the copious power that our electrical system is able to generate; causing us to lose a couple of seconds in the sprint racing over our rivals. Given the nature of the competition, however, we are confident this will not stop us from maintaining a high ranking. Our lead in the, all be it restricted, standings is in no small part thanks to our placing of 4th in the scoring for the technical reports. It was quite something watching some of the faster boats sprinting and I, for one, would love to have a greater emphasis on speed in the marking to encourage more high speed development. Given more support in the future we will be back with a competitive high speed configuration. Less fortunate were the Mexican team who employed our assistance in retrieving their sinking boat, which had been damaged in transit. We hope they will be able to patch the holes and qualify in time tomorrow. Good luck guys.

Richard, Team Tarka

Contest day one.

Today saw the start of the organised event and we pitched up with our towels earlier than everyone else, not because we're organised but because we're still waking up at 6am. We were subsequently moved on but were fortunate enough to be placed next to last year's winning team, from whom we intend to learn much. With a little fettling we passed the technical inspection, although we're still to find out whether they will allow our batteries as they are on the borderline of being too heavy. People seem to like our boat and the general consensus appears to be surprise at the speed with which we were able to construct it. Our work space accommodates us easily, especially when compared with the larger crews and they are all larger than ours. The boat spent the day standing proud, the most obvious boat from the entrance and looking smart with all its sponsorship decals, the union flag welcoming all interested parties. Interested parties were in plentiful supply throughout the day and I've become used to being introduced as 'Richard, the one you won't understand'. We left the boat this evening ready for our seaworthiness trials tomorrow morning and headed for a provided supper at the university football team's stadium. Some more calculations await our attention this evening, as does a pack of beer.

Richard, Team Tarka

First update from Arkansas

After spending yesterday fixing the multitude of broken boat parts we were able to commence testing today. The boat was run for approximately 4 hours in variations of the endurance configuration. A close to optimum configuration has been found and further analysis of data later tonight will allow us to select a number of parameters that are still unclear. The boat performed well and we are optimistic that it is competitive, in the endurance configuration; based on the information gleaned from local competitors. We are prepared to be shocked by the speeds that the faster boats may reach in the sprint configuration. Observations have shown that the local boat uses two motors, which are identical to our one; an extravagance we simply could not afford. The custom props are another significant difference that with extra funding and time next year we intend to consider. Despite our low cost solution local observers appeared to be impressed and we were pleasantly surprised at how much running we achieved; the sun here is good, for the boat at least. We are now off to sample the delights of the local brewery, wish us luck. Team Tarka

IEEE talk

Peter Wilson gave a talk hosted by the IEEE student branch this evening, on the progress of Team Tarka and the Solar Splash competition. We were also recruiting for a team for Solar Splash 2010. Please get in touch if you'd like to be involved next year.