Local tekkie has major role in world solar car challenge

A local college student is spending these fall days of his last year at the U of M in Australia; where he hopes to show the world solar-powered vehicles can work, and work well. The University of Minnesota has a solar powered car entered in the World Solar Challenge car race this week and Arlo Siemsen, Chisago City, is the team’s programmer. The race course cuts across Australia from Darwin, on the north coast to Adelaide, on the south coast.

As the Press went to print the team was a little over half way through the 3,000 mile course. (We will try to contact Siemsen after the event conclusion.) Siemsen is responsible for how the solar car manages itself and how its systems interface. The car is dubbed “Daedalus” and is a carbon fiber chassis with a specially designed 16 kilowatt hour battery and can travel 480 miles even at nighttime. It charges off a solar array or the electric grid. It seats two. Top speed is 80 mph. The solar challenge press information says 99 percent of the race action is taking place on Stuart Highway, so cars will adhere to existing speed limits. The U of M car is registered in the “practicality” race, not the one for speed. This Cruiser Class has 10 teams from all over the globe in it.

In total there are 45 teams in all the classes. Two people can ride in Daedalus, and yes, it has Minnesota license plates. The race started Sunday, October 6 and the finish is expected October 13. Follow the U-of-M team progress on the web at worldsolarchallenge.org. Press readers first met Siemsen years ago when he was part of a local group of mostly home-schooled kids, who were killing it at state Lego robotics building and programming competitions. These kids were beating everybody in the state and the region and annually were making it to national events. Technological career fields were just beginning to be packaged to resemble fun and games in order to attract the next generation of very young genuises.