Day 2

The 2nd meeting of the Spartan Superway Project began with a series of "lightning talks," in which each team gave a short presentation on their sub-projects.  Each of the teams gave some insight as to the work that had been done on the project so far, as well as what the teams were hoping to accomplish for their project's future.  The lightning talks took most of the allotted class time, so the solar team spent the rest of the class discussing design issues with the class instructors.

The actual physical design of the full scale track will be based off of the model seen below.  One of the design parameters that was discussed was the angle in which the solar panels will be aligned.  Ideally, the solar panels will be oriented at an angle in which the surfaces of the panels will be perpendicular to the sun's rays.  However, due to the Earth's tilt, different angles will be ideal in different parts of the year.  The solar team will have to either find a way to make the panel angles adjustable or find a compromise between the two angular extremes.  The solar team agreed to do research on the subject, as well as search for design specifications to discuss during the next class meeting.

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