After a long, hot day of preliminary heats, quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final race, the Kallison Elementary School Stampeders were crowned champions of the 22nd Texas Solar Race Car Event.
Race day was Saturday, May 12 at Gustafson Stadium.
Around 370 elementary teams, a total of 1,100 students, competed from 76 Northside schools, schools from Southwest ISD, and Village Parkway Christian School.
Awards were handed out to the top eight teams of 2018 –
8th place: Solar Sisters, Medio Creek (Southwest ISD)
7th place: Electric Feel, Mead ES
6th place: Ninja Lions, Leon Valley ES
5th place: Solar Chargers, Locke Hill ES
4th place: Jumping Giraffes, Carson ES
3rd place: Solar Chargers, Cody ES
2nd place: Motor City, Mead ES
1st place: Stampeders, Kallison ES
Solar cars is an afterschool science program for fourth and fifth grade students. They are provided a solar panel, gear box, and axle rods but the rest of the car design is up to them. In addition to learning about teamwork, students are also developing their engineering skills through the design and testing process.
Northside School Board Trustee Bobby Blount is the long-time organizer of the event which started as a mentorship project at Rayburn Middle School to give students hands-on lessons in teamwork, renewable energy, problem-solving, and science and engineering.
“I love seeing the students’ excitement as they compete,” says Blount. “This is a real-life problem for teams to solve and it’s important that students see science and math as fun. These races help do just that.”
Sponsors for this year’s event were Northside Elementary Science Department, the Northside Education Foundation, the MITRE Corporation, the National Defense Education Program, Cryptologic and Cyber Systems Division, and Raising Cane’s.
A team from title sponsor, the United States Air Force, won the Adult Solar Car Races for the second straight year.
Visit the Northside Facebook page for an album of pictures from the event.