Wrapping up the American Solar Challenge, the chart above shows the final official distances. The chart places optional “loops” driven at the end of each stage, even mid-stage loops. At the bottom of each bar is the final placing, with a star marking MOV (Cruiser) cars. The notation “(Tr)” identifies cars that trailered or were deemed to have trailered.
Below is a logarithmic visualisation of the MOV (Cruiser) scoring. The final score (last bar in each group) is the product (visually, the sum, since the chart uses logarithms) of seven factors:
- The distance driven d (in miles)
- The distance driven with penalties d’ (in miles)
- The average number of people p in the car
- The reciprocal of the total external energy usage E (in kWh)
- The practicality score P (out of 100)
- The speed derating T (1/70.86 = 0.014 for AppState)
- In grey, the reciprocal h of 171,780 (the longest distance driven, times 100)
This is equivalent to the way that the scores are broken down officially (since C = d’/1717.8 and D = d×p).
The final score for AppState is 1/4.2 = 0.24, as in the official results. Esteban (Poly Montreal) achieved the highest score through low total external energy usage, but was demoted to third place after missing a turnoff early in the race, which prompted this retrospective modification to regulation 12.11.C:
“Any team leaving the tour route must rejoin the route at the same intersection where they left the route or they will be considered to have trailered from their last completed route step before going off route. Their Load On Trailer Time will be the time that they went off route.”
PrISUm (Iowa State University) was forced to withdraw early on due to electrical issues, so scores 4th in the MOV (Cruiser) class.
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