American Solar Challenge kicks off at the University of Minnesota

The American Solar Challenge began at the University of Minnesota as student teams launched a 1,500-mile trip in cars powered by the sun.

Organizers said 19 teams from around the world will be competing over the next eight days.

“The future of STEM is looking bright, especially with what we’re seeing these students do,” event director Gail Lueck said.

“We’re traveling over the next eight days from Minneapolis, Minnesota down to Amarillo, Texas following some of our nation’s scenic byways,” Lueck said.

While the race will begin in Minneapolis, the host university will not be competing this year.

The University of Minnesota team said engineering issues at the track led them to step back so as not to endanger any members of the team.

“Ultimately what it came down to was we had some engineering issues at the track, and the team made the decision to preserve team member safety,” University of Minnesota team leader Himal Trivedi said.

Trivedi and Cole Lundequam said they are already looking ahead to next summer’s race in Australia. They said the project has also helped prepare them for future jobs.

“Having a project to work on with ultimately your peers that eventually become some of your best friends because you’re all doing something that you love doing,” Lundequam said. “The actual having done all the process of a real engineering job already is exactly what recruiters look for when they come to a project-based engineering club.”

“Even if I don’t work in the solar industry or I’m not working in an engineering role, there’s so many other soft skills that you learn, communications, leadership, management, delegation of work and what needs to be done, resource management, all of that is going to help out, no matter where I end up in life,” Trivedi said.