Small Town News

Beacon team wins solar sprint car race

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Second straight victory for Cape

For the second year in a row, Beacon Middle School brought home the first-place trophy in Delaware's solar sprint car race. One of Beacon's teams won the race; another team finished in the top 10 of the design competition.

The school has competed in 16 of 17 annual competitions, said technology teacher Don Schlater.

Students receive materials, such as foam boards, motors and solar panels, from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, which hosts the yearly race.

A team of four eighth-grade boys made minor modifications to the design they won with last year to make the car quicker, said team member Ben Young.

"To end up with less weight, we cut the foam sides in half," Ben said. "Weight really matters in the design."

Another Beacon team placed sixth in the state for car design.

"The guys won for the fastest car last year. We decided to work on design. We made a hippie van," said Hannah Tolbert.

She said she and teammates Michele Bahtiarian and Sarah Schlater are Beatles fans, so they included a yellow submarine on their solar vehicle, designed to

look like a Volkswagen bus.

This was Sarah's third year of competition but the first for her teammates.

"It was lots of fun. Definitely worthwhile," said Michele.

Hannah said students could visit a DNREC booth at the race to learn the importance of solar power and energy efficiency. "We really enjoyed making the cars. In our tech class here, we already built cars of wood, and we could apply what we learned to this," she said.





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