Following the Eclipse 5 car, the members of Eclipse completed their studies and very few experienced alumni remained in the team. So, a new team was created, without a lot of experience, but with a lot of motivation! We knew that the design of Eclipse 5 had been optimized a lot, to the point of being difficult to manufacture. So, the design of Eclipse 6 practically started from a blank sheet, hence the 4-year delay for the manufacture of the car. The mechanical design of the car had to be easier to manufacture, a design that was not breathtaking, but was robust enough to cover the long distances of a competition. 

 

The Eclipse VI team participated in the World Solar Challenge 2009 competition. Due to a design problem of the MPPT circuit (Maximum Power Point Tracker, Solar panel power optimization circuit), it was impossible for us to recharge our batteries. This earned us a very bad position in the standings. We were only able to ride at the start of the race and once again in the middle of the race. This issue was fixed by Eclipse team members 6 au back from Australia. A new circuit has been designed, documented and successfully used by the Eclipse team 7. 

 

The team retains a great lesson from this experience. In a team of students, it is practically impossible to evolve the design from one prototype to another since the experienced people leave and the documentation of the designs often leaves something to be desired since_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b- 136bad5cf58d_members only work part-time. So the objective of teams like Eclipse is not to invent the best prototype of the future, but to teach students the life of an engineering project through experience, to promote new technologies, to visibility at ÉTS, to seduce people who are making their career choice. Eclipse 6 fulfilled this role well, even despite a poor ranking in the 2009 WSC competition.

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• Highlights:

  • Attempt to participate in the Global Green Challenge in Australia in 2007

  • 24th position at the 2009 World Solar Challenge competition