TEMECULA, Calif.—A team of students from Diamond Bar High School won Metropolitan Water District’s fourth annual Solar Cup event Sunday by placing first in the sprint races, second in the endurance race and winning top prize for their technical reports.
The six-month Solar Cup program, in which high school teams build boats from kits supplied by Metropolitan and then use $3,000 donated by their local water agencies to equip the boats with solar-collection panels and batteries, motors and steering systems, culminated in a three-day event at Metropolitan’s Lake Skinner reservoir near Temecula.
This year’s event drew more than 800 students from 34 high schools throughout Southern California, and was attended by an estimated 2,000 onlookers.
Three schools—Chino Hills High School, Claremont High School and Canyon High School of Anaheim—tied for first place in Saturday’s endurance race. During the endurance competition, teams mount solar collection panels on their boats and navigate a 1.5-kilometer course for an hour and a half, attempting to finish the most laps in the allotted time.
Chino Hills High School took second place overall, and placed second in the sprint races down a 200-meter straightaway. Charter Oak High School of Covina took third place overall, and placed third in the sprints.
“Despite Saturday afternoon winds that brought choppy water and caused us to end the endurance race early, and the threat of high winds and rain Sunday prompted us to move up our sprint heat schedule, I think this was the best year yet,” said Wes Bannister, chairman of Metropolitan’s Board of Directors and a four-year Solar Cup volunteer.
“A seminal moment,” Bannister said at Sunday’s awards ceremony, “was a teacher telling me that involvement in Solar Cup was responsible for five of his students changing their minds and deciding to go to college and study engineering, and that’s what it’s all about.”
In addition to Solar Cup’s opportunities for students to apply their textbook lessons in math, physics and other disciplines, and for Metropolitan and its member water agencies to tell them about Southern California’s water supply and water quality issues, the water agencies hope to foster future employees.
This year’s Bart Bezyack Spirit of Solar Cup Award went to Indio High School for its good cheer and perseverance despite numerous setbacks. Bezyack was an enthusiastic member of the 2003 Solar Cup team from Canyon High School, and helped organize his school’s 2004 team before he passed away from cancer.
In addition to building and racing the solar-powered boats, the teams are required to attend several workshops, write several technical reports, and present a display on some aspect of solar-powered water conservation. The first place award for visual display was won by Canyon High School for its construction of a solar-powered grey-water filtration system that provided hot and cold water to an operating sink.
Canyon Springs High School won second-place for its visual display, and Millikan High School of Long Beach won third place. The prize for Hottest Looking Boat went to Murrieta Valley High School, and the Teamwork Award went to Gabrielino High School of San Gabriel.
This year’s Solar Cup winners overturned the event’s three-time first-place team, Canyon High School of Anaheim. In the 2005 event, Glendora High School had placed second and Nogales High School of La Puente had placed third.
Complete results can be viewed here.