Monday, July 28, 2008 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com '3 SOLAR CAR From Page 1 taking pictures." TheMichiganteamwasinthelead for almost the entire race, trailing only on the first day of driving when it had to stop to fix a minor electri- cal problem. But that 20-minute stop was the only stop the team made for repairs, which team members said was one reason they did so well. "Reliability is one of the key things," said Engineering senior Steve Hechtman, Michigan's proj- ect manager. "As they get more miles, teams start to get more problems with the car," said Hechtman, who was also one of Continuum's drivers. "Once we left Fargo we just started pull- ingaway from the other teams," he said, referring to the required stop all the cars made in Fargo, N.D. NASC organizer Dan Eberle said building a reliable car is "the first cri- teria" for a successful solar car team. "There's two things that really make a team," he said. "One is they're very well-organized. Two is that they've been able to stay on the road," he said, discussing Con- tinuum's crew. Eberlesaidhe was stillsurprised how far ahead of the field Michi- gan was. He noted that Michigan uses gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells on the car, which can provide almost 50 percent more power than silicon cells but are nearly twice as expensive. "The people who came in first are the people with the high-perfor- mance cells," Eberle said. Luke Martz, director of fund- raising for Iowa State University's PrISUm Solar Car Team, said he thought the different cell types teams used had a major impact on the race. PrISUm, which placed eighth, uses silicon cells. "There's not anything that I hold against any other teams that did use gallium cells," he said. "But it's like apples and oranges." Darshni Pillay, operations man- ager for the University of Calgary Solar Car Team, said she didn't think the gallium cells provided a significant advantage. Her team, which uses the more expensive cells, came in sixth. "I really don't think that would have been a deciding factor," she said. She said the regulation on the surface area of the cells negated most of their advantage. CORRECTIONS Please report any error in the Daily to: corrections@michigandaily.com MORE ONLINE at michigandaily.com/thewire Car RepaIr - cowtpetttve t-es - .e trax bade to oampu5 - faMLww owoea - 30 eaS P TO Professional Automotive ProAutoTechs.com *. . Technicians 734.665.9707 The Driving Force in Auto Repairs" fl STUDENT ,, i * Estimated $7,800 value. Some restrictions apply. APARTMENTS ItLetd70o..a~~.t.,y. STUDFNTA A T E T 2 1 Puy -------- ----- SyS