5. Team Lux History

Handsome Dan (1995)

In 1994, several students decided they wanted to build a solar car to race in Sunrayce 95. They named themselves Team Lux and gathered support from Professor Werner Wolf, the Yale Science and Engineering Association (YSEA), and Anthony Massini, who ran the Chemistry Department Instrumentation Shop. A number of academic design projects were devoted to aspects of the car, but little was done to integrate them. In the end, the car, named Handsome Dan, after Yale's bulldog mascot, did not come together in time for the race, but a prototype frame and body were built and the groundwork was established for future teams. (Berners Perlman and Mater 1999; Frank 2006)

Lux Aeterna (1997)

Although most of the original Team Lux members graduated, the following school year, two members remained and set about recruiting a new team. The first order of business was to complete Handsome Dan, but it soon became clear that it would not be possible to meld the separate projects. With almost two years until Sunrayce 97, Team Lux was reorganized and a plan established to build Lux Aeterna. During the first year, a prototype chassis and body were built and evaluated. Several students remained in New Haven over the summer to continue work on the car part-time, and the following year the final chassis and body were constructed as well as the solar array and electrical system. Through Sunrayce's "Adopt-a-Team" program, the University of Michigan Solar Car team provided guidance and advice. Team Lux also had a good relationship with the MIT's Solar Electric Vehicle Team, who provided additional support. (Sunrayce 1996d)

A great deal of effort was also spent in developing the infrastructure necessary for a solar car team. Much of the work on Handsome Dan had been done in Tony Massini's shop, but Team Lux needed a location for business and administrative work. An office in Dunham Laboratory was secured from the Faculty of Engineering that was outfitted with phone lines and network connections. After a sponsorship from Supreme Copy provided a fax machine and photocopier and some surplus furniture and computers were also obtained, Team Lux had a place to design, organize, and conduct their business and fundraising operations. Electrical work was performed in the Morse Teaching Center, located in the basement between Dunham and Becton Center. For body work, permission was obtained to use the garage in Mason Laboratory, across the street from Dunham and connected through the basement. This was not an ideal workspace as it was shared with a chemical engineering experiment that periodically flooded and an air-intake for the rest of the building was located in the space, making it a poor place to work with chemicals. Mechanical work on Lux Aeterna remained in Tony's shop. While Tony's shop, located in Sterling Chemistry Lab, was inconveniently far away the Team Lux office, it was well equipped and Tony was a ready source of valuable advice.

Beyond workspace, the other major logistical challenge for a new team is appropriate support vehicles. Team Lux had a fair degree of success in securing donations of older vehicles. Yale Physical Plant provided a pickup truck they were no longer using, and a box truck was received from the Peabody Museum.[63] Additionally, DATTCO inc., New Britain, CT, donated a former school bus.[64] While these were quite useful around New Haven, none of them were usable as a chase or lead vehicle. Race regulations allowed only vehicles up to the size of a 15-passenger van, and it was unlikely that the pickup truck would survive towing the trailer for the 4200 mi (6760 km) to Colorado and back for the race. The Dean of Engineering, D. Allen Bromley, provided a solution by arranging a sponsorship with Ford Motor Company. Ford loaned Team Lux a pair of 15-passenger vans for use as chase and lead vehicles, as well as a F-250 pickup truck to tow the trailer. The final item necessary was a trailer to transport the solar car. A donation was secured from Wells Cargo, Elkhart, IN, and picked up by a team member returning from winter break.

Lux Aeterna was complete in time for the May eastern qualifiers in Milford, MI, and successfully qualified, although the scrutineers pointed out several possible areas of improvement.With the car complete a month before the race, there was plenty of time to test the car, make enhancements and fine-tune systems. Lux Aeterna performed flawlessly, never having any problems more severe than a flat tire, and placed 9^th out of 36 entries raced, the best finish by any rookie team.

Lux Perpetua (1999)

Upon returning to Connecticut, much of the team was understandably exhausted after two years of intensive effort and ready to move on to other things, but a project director was chosen to lead the team in building the next generation car, Lux Perpetua, for Sunrayce 99. New students were recruited and possible designs for the next car were considered. By the spring 1998 semester, new team members had stepped into the roles of frame, body, and electrical group leaders and testing and prototyping were well underway. Construction on the prototype body and frame proceeded steadily, although a prototype car was not completed for the planned unveiling at the end of the spring 1998 semester. Work also continued over the summer, as sponsorship had been obtained from the Dean of Engineering to provide four team members with room and board for the summer.

During the summer, a great deal of progress was made on the design for Lux Perpetua. Work was also done on suspension and steering for the prototype frame, which provided valuable experience towards the final designs and a one-third-scale model of the body was constructed to validate the process. With the momentum built during the summer, many new members were recruited at the beginning of the fall 1998 semester and construction began on the actual car. Contact was made with Richard Askew, who worked at Brewer Dauntless Shipyard in Essex, CT, and who would both weld the frame and provide significant advice on composite construction.

The searches for workspace and suitable vehicles were ongoing throughout the Lux Perpetua design and construction process. During a trip to New York for EcoFest 1997, P22 broke down and repair costs were deemed prohibitive. Additionally, efforts to secure the Ford vehicles as a permanent donation failed and it was necessary to return them, so the team was without a vehicle capable of towing the trailer. Efforts to obtain new vehicles intensified and a sponsorship was secured from Connecticut Limousine, Milford, CT. They donated a stretch Suburban that had previously been used as an airport shuttle. With four rows of seats, the Suburban, which became known as "Big Burb," could carry most of the team and a great deal of cargo, plus it provided considerable of visibility for the team around campus.

Just after the 1998 spring semester ended, Team Lux attempted to participate in a small race sponsored by the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology solar car team. This race followed US Route 40 from Wheeling, WV to Terre Haute, IN. Lux Aeterna had been refurbished for the race, but problems with support vehicles prevented participation, underscoring the importance of the appropriate infrastructure. The Big Burb did not yet have a hitch to tow the trailer, so a sponsor was found who would donate and install a hitch. This was not completed, however, until nearly three days after Team Lux should have left for the race. Nevertheless, as soon as the hitch was installed, Team Lux set off to try to catch up with the start of the third day of the race in Springfield, OH. After several wrong turns and 17 straight hours of driving, Tommy broke down on I-77 just outside of Columbus, OH. After the team spent the night in a motel, Tommy was deemed unsalvageable and left with a local scrap yard. With the race getting ever farther away, the team had no choice but to squeeze the whole team and all of its gear into the suburban and return to New Haven.

Following these problems, efforts to obtaining additional support vehicles before Sunrayce 99 intensified. American Medical Response, whose eastern regional offices are located in New Haven, donated a retired ambulance that with its numerous compartment would serve well for tool and part storage. Although it was taller than an ordinary fifteen-passenger van, permission was secured from Sunrayce headquarters to use the ambulance as a lead vehicle. As the original lights and siren had been removed from the ambulance before it was donated to Team Lux, Truck-Lite, of Falconer, NY, was approached as a sponsor and they donated light bars for both the chase and lead vehicles, as well as the LED light modules that would be used in the solar car. Additional vehicles were not located until just before Sunrayce began, when two additional (normal sized) Chevy Suburbans were obtained. These trucks, which had previously been used to transport school children, had high mileage and some mechanical problems, but were a good size for chase and lead vehicles.

Although Team Lux still had their office, space to work on construction was harder to come by. By the time Lux Aeterna was completed, Team Lux had essentially taken over Tony's shop and failed to maintain it to Tony's standards, so he was hesitant to allow future cars to use the space. This was not an immediately critical problem, as Team Lux was now in the design phase for Lux Perpetua, and Lux Aeterna could be stored in the trailer and worked on outside, but it would need to be addressed. With Tony's help, Team Lux searched for a more permanent workspace. While several possibilities were considered, including renting off-campus space - something many other solar car teams have been forced to do - nothing suitable was available. For the time being, work on the prototype frame took place in the Mason Engineering Machine Shop, which was located in the basement of Mason Laboratory, and permission was obtained to continue using Mason Garage for body work.

At the beginning of the second year of work on Lux Perpetua, Tony again allowed mechanical work in his shop, after being impressed by the team's hard work over the previous year. Electrical work was based in the Morse Teaching Center (MTC), located in the basement connecting Becton Laboratory and Dunham Laboratory. CO37, with its double door and access to the Becton loading dock, was used for solar cell assembly and car wiring. By the end of the semester, Team Lux had essentially taken over this room, as well as an adjacent room, CO41, which became a staging area and occasional bedroom, as work on the car was now taking place around the clock.

Although the car was not complete, it was taken to the May 1999 qualifiers in Michigan. Because of concerns about the body attachments and the battery box, Lux Perpetua was not allowed to undergo dynamic testing. This motivated work to proceed at an even more frenetic pace. By the time the car was completed and all of the scrutineer's concerns had been addressed, there was little time remaining for road testing. Nevertheless, the car was brought to West Virginia for final scrutineering and qualifiers and successfully qualified.

As Sunrayce 99 was the first major solar car race to take place on the East Coast, it presented challenges unique from prior races. Team Lux had given some thought to how the largely north-south route would impact the angle of light striking the solar array, but was less prepared for the amount of shade from the dense trees along the route and for the general lack of sunlight due to heavy rain and overcast conditions. Little available sunlight meant little available power, which in turn meant slow overall speeds for the solar cars. The winner of Sunrayce 97 averaged 43 mi/h (69 km/h), a 6 mi/h (10 km/h) increase from the leader in 1995, and it had been expected that in Sunrayce 99 top-performing cars would travel at least as fast. However, the winner of Sunrayce 99 averaged only 25 mi/h (40 km/h). At low speeds, different design factors became important. As speeds increase, so does the importance of a car's aerodynamics, because power loss due to drag is proportional to the cube of the car's velocity, while losses due to rolling resistance are directly proportional to velocity[65] and losses due to the electrical system are mainly independent of velocity. The mechanical reliability of a car is a greater factor in a fast race, as much greater demands are put on the frame and suspension from road irregularities traveled over at high speed. Conversely, during a slow race like Sunrayce 99 these factors were relatively unimportant. Of course aerodynamics always plays some factor and mechanical reliability is still necessary, but the limited sunlight transformed the race into a contest of the ability to eek out the smallest possibly efficiency increase. Extensive knowledge of how a car performed under different conditions and strategy to maximize efficiency were what was needed to win this race.

As Team Lux had few test miles on their car, as well as intermittent telemetry problems, effective decision-making was quite difficult. Although Lux Perpetua suffered no major breakdowns, it was generally necessary to transport the car via trailer to complete each daily stage. This was the norm for most teams and Lux Perpetua placed 15^th out of the 29 qualified entrants, although this is sometimes quoted as 15^th out of the 56 teams who had originally registered for the race.

Lux Millennia (2001)

As had happened after Sunrayce 97, much of the team moved on, but there was a strong group of freshman who had spent a year working on Lux Perpetua, participated in Sunrayce, and were now ready to take on the leadership of Team Lux. Possibilities for the next car were extensively discussed and modeled in weekly design meetings, where brainstorming ideas for the next car followed was by a formal design review with interested faculty and staff. The decision was made to depart from the aluminum tube space frames of Team Lux's previous cars and construct an all-composite monocoque car. The team's momentum was dealt a blow, however, when the project director, announced that she was stepping down at the end of the school year. A replacement was found and the transition went reasonably smoothly, but the following semester the frame group leader and other key Lux Perpetua alumni also departed the project. Progress continued on new electrical systems and the plug for body construction, but work towards a monocoque frame/body stopped entirely.

With the lack of a strong leader for the frame group, the decision had been made to reuse Lux Perpetua's mechanical systems, making only minor upgrades, coupled with a new body and electrical systems. Three months was a tight but achievable time frame to construct this body and an attempt to lay-up the body followed. However, a test cycle of the mold had been omitted and the body did not release, severely damaging the mold. Initially it was thought that a new mold would be required and given the few weeks remaining before the race, it was decided to not participate in the upcoming 2001 American Solar Challenge, and instead restart the plug to mold to body process from the beginning with the benefit of earned experience. Not wanting to give up entirely on the year of labor invested in the current molds, a few members attempted to salvage them and through many hours of sanding, buffing, and coating were able to create a usable surface on them.

Despite these obstacles, the top half of the body had been successfully built by the end of the summer, and the team moved forward to complete Lux Millennia during the upcoming fall semester. Difficulties with the solar array would prevent the team from meeting this deadline, but Lux Millennia was eventually completed and over spring break 2002, road tested at Summit Point Raceway, WV.

Issues with work space also consumed much of the team's attention during the Lux Millennia period. At the beginning of the Fall 1999 semester, Team Lux was asked to move out of its electrical work space in CO37 lab, as it was needed for class activities, and into an adjoining lab, CO41. While the Morse Teaching Center and the Electrical Engineering department continued to be supportive of Team Lux in space and materials, there was some frustration over the mess that had developed in the last weeks of Lux Perpetua's construction. C041 was located off a small hallway, so Team Lux's clutter would be less visible, and it lacked C037's double doors, so it could not be used for messy solar cell assembly or frame construction.

C041 was useful as a large central work area for the team, but as Mason Garage was now needed as a staging area for building renovations, Team Lux again had no place for body work. With help from the Faculty of Engineering, another search for new work space was launched, and this time a permanent work space was finally located for Team Lux. This was a covered alley, approximately 25 by 4 m in size, which had previously been used for the long-term storage of materials contaminated with low levels of radiation. It was located between two portions of Wright Nuclear Structure Lab (WNSL), near where the trailer was parked and Tony's machine shop, but far from the Team Lux office. Evaluation of the space by the Yale Office of Facilities identified that approximately $50,000 would be needed to empty the space and properly dispose of the contents of the alley, thoroughly clean it, add a primary car sized door in the front of the space and a secondary egress into WNSL at the rear of the space, and then install appropriate building systems: electricity, lighting, heating, and exhaust ventilation suitable for working with epoxies. After discussions with Yale administrators, it was decided that Team Lux would be loaned the money to renovate the space and would repay the debt over a five-year period with the Office of Development providing fundraising assistance.

While the WNSL space, once outfitted, would solve many of Team Lux's space problems, during the Spring 2001 semester, the team also learned that CO41 would be needed for classroom use and that they would need to vacate the MTC. While it was possible an area for electronics work could be created in the rear of the new WNSL space, its distance from supporting electrical engineering faculty and laboratories was a major inconvenience in developing more sophisticated telemetry systems. A solution was found in the under-utilized IEEE lounge on the 6^th floor of Becton Labs. As there was significant overlap between the membership of Yale's IEEE chapter and Team Lux's electrical group and having their lounge cleaned, organized, and outfitted as an electronics work space would be beneficial to the IEEE, this seemed a positive solution. Unfortunately, there were large amounts of non-electrical Team Lux equipment that had been stored in CO41 and were now moved to the IEEE lounge until the WNSL space was available. This material, combined with the collection of computer and electronic exotica already present in the lounge, overwhelmed the small space.

When not dealing with logistical issues, the majority of the work on Lux Millennia was devoted to the construction of the body. In a money saving effort, the team decided to construct the body plugs itself using hardboard sheets over plywood cross sections, instead of having an outside company cut it out of a block of foam using a computer guided milling machine. Work progressed steadily on these plugs, but was very time consuming and at every stage of construction, unanticipated problems occurred, requiring a great deal of repair and revision. The molds, made using the plugs, required for actual body construction were not complete until less than three months before ASC 2001.

This was the same time as the new WNSL work, generally referred to simply as 'The Space,' was finished. As 'finished' meant a bare concrete tunnel with electricity and heat, outfitting it as a usable workshop was a difficult challenge that conflicted with completing Lux Millennia. The team was able to subdivide the space into four work bays with partitions constructed of wood frame covered in heavy plastic sheeting. In theory these would isolate the different sections of the car, allowing sanding of a mold in one bay, composite lay-up in another, and frame work in yet another. Unfortunately, this ideal did not quite work out. Each work bay was only slightly larger than a 'car-sized-object,'[66] which meant that usually an adjacent bay was required to prepare materials and layout tools, and the awkward swinging doors in the partitions also took up a great deal of space - roll-up style doors were desired, but were considered too expensive.

The John Lee (2003)

While work on Lux Millennia continued during the Fall 2001 semester, design work also began for the next two-year cycle. For the first time, academic credit would be received for solar car work, as two students enrolled in a Mechanical Engineering special project to perform the design and analysis of the John Lee, named after the recently deceased president of Hexcel Corporation, a Yale alumnus and longtime Team Lux supporter. The John Lee would be Yale's most thoroughly computer modeled and analyzed solar car. As part of the special project, a complete 3-D model of the new car was created and subjected to FEA and CFD to assess its strengths and aerodynamic performance. The new design was a departure for Team Lux, which in the past had attempted to build an efficient car, but placed an emphasis on robustness and reliability over weight savings. The John Lee would instead be an ultra-light vehicle, operating at the cutting edge of performance and striving for every possible efficiency gain. This advanced design was realized through the sponsorship of Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Stratford, CT. Sikorsky donated time in their autoclave and their automated milling machines, as well as the extensive expertise of their engineers in working with high-performance composite construction.

Even with all this assistance, the sophisticated design and the steady revisions for even higher performance, coupled with a relatively small team, led to the John Lee not being ready for qualifiers and barely being completed in time for the 2003 American Solar Challenge. Workspace and support vehicles also continued to be a challenge for Team Lux. The IEEE lounge was no longer available to Team Lux, so electrical work also needed to move to the WNSL space, although as a portion of the John Lee's electrical system was being done as an Electrical Engineering independent research project, elements were able to be worked on in the MTC. Electrical problems had plagued Team Lux's fleet of support vehicles and replacements were unable to be located. The bare minimum of vehicles for the race was achieved only through borrowing a lead vehicle and a tow vehicle from the project director's family.

The car was brought to last-chance scrutineering in Chicago not yet having received any road testing and with the array unwired. Intensive work was put in to complete the car, but due to a failure of the motor controller, it was not able to attempt the final dynamic scrutineering until the last possible moment, where the car's braking performance was deemed insufficient, with no time remaining to upgrade the brakes.

The John Lee 1.5 (2004)

Despite the disappointment of not racing is ASC 2003, too much effort had been put into the John Lee to abandon it. The mechanical brakes were replaced with hydraulic ones, the electrical system repaired and refined, and plans were made to race the car in the upcoming World Solar Challenge in Australia. Unfortunately, the team was unable to raise sufficient funds in time to take this trip, but a new goal was set to race the John Lee in the Phaethon, a Greek race taking place in May 2004, shortly before the Summer Olympics in Athens. With nearly a year until that race, the team undertook a program of extensive road testing and upgrading, while seeking sponsorships and donations to get the team to Greece and back. This effort paid off when Team Lux placed 7^th out of a field of 15 competitors, including top teams from Australia, Europe, and Japan.

The John Lee 2 (2005)

Upon returning to the United States, with a year remaining until the 2005 North American Solar Challenge (NASC), Team Lux decided that instead of constructing a new car, it would continue to refine its current car, now renamed The John Lee 2. With the anticipation that most of the NASC 2005 would be spent driving at 55 or 65 mi/h (89 or 105 km/h), it was decided to modify the car from a three-wheel to a four-wheel design in order to enhance stability. The welded titanium frame was replaced with a custom carbon fiber lay-up and an entirely new suspension was developed. The team went to scrutineering for the NASC 2005 and passed all of the inspection stations prior to the final dynamic testing. Unfortunately while doing last minute testing one of the a-arms in the drive wheel suspension broke. It was then impossible to finish qualifying for the race and there was insufficient time to repair the problem.