The grueling, 630-mile road race where the only fuel is sunlight

这场艰苦的 630 英里公路赛，唯一的燃料是阳光

On July 19th, dozens of teams of high school students will begin a five-day, 630-mile road race from Fort Worth to Fort Stockton in Texas. But this is not your typical contest. The students design and build the cars themselves, using off-the-shelf parts and 3D printed materials. The winner is the team that accumulates the most driven miles. And the only fuel they can use to power their Frankenstein-looking vehicles comes from that mass of incandescent gas that hangs in our sky: the Sun.

7 月 19 日，数十支高中生车队将开启一场为期五天、全长 630 英里的公路赛，从德克萨斯州的沃斯堡（Fort Worth）出发，前往斯托克顿堡（Fort Stockton）。但这并非一场普通的比赛。学生们使用现成的零件和 3D 打印材料，亲自设计并制造车辆。获胜者是行驶里程最长的车队。而他们为这些外形奇特的“科学怪车”提供动力的唯一燃料，来自悬挂在我们天空中的那团炽热气体：太阳。

This year is the 30th anniversary of the annual Solar Car Challenge, a contest that brings together high school students from around the country with the one goal to build the fastest, most efficient solar-powered car. The race was founded in 1993 by Dr. Lehman Marks, a Texas educator with a long-held interest in STEM. Students learn a variety of skills through the challenge, including project management, budgeting, fundraising, and engineering. But mostly, they have to build a race-worthy solar vehicle that can hopefully go the distance.

今年是年度“太阳能汽车挑战赛”（Solar Car Challenge）举办 30 周年，这项赛事汇集了来自全国各地的高中生，他们的目标只有一个：制造出速度最快、效率最高的太阳能汽车。该赛事由德克萨斯州教育家、长期致力于 STEM 教育的莱曼·马克斯（Lehman Marks）博士于 1993 年创立。通过这项挑战，学生们可以学习到项目管理、预算编制、筹款和工程设计等多项技能。但最重要的是，他们必须制造出一辆能够参赛，并有望跑完全程的太阳能汽车。

Lehman said that the Solar Car Challenge was born out of his frustration with the state of STEM education in the late ’80s and early ’90s. At the time, he had a group of students who were disengaged and uninspired by learning solely from textbooks, and seeking a way to spark their interest, he accepted an invitation from a friend at the University of North Texas, who was building a collegiate solar car for what was then a brand-new competition.

马克斯表示，“太阳能汽车挑战赛”的诞生源于他对 80 年代末和 90 年代初 STEM 教育现状的失望。当时，他的一群学生对仅从教科书中学习感到厌倦且缺乏动力。为了寻找激发他们兴趣的方法，他接受了北德克萨斯大学一位朋友的邀请，对方当时正在为一项全新的比赛制造一辆大学级别的太阳能汽车。

“We went up there and the kids were just mesmerized by the intricacy of the solar project,” he told me. “And all the way back from Desmond to Dallas, they kept yelling, ‘Doc, won’t you please let us build a solar car?’”

“我们去了那里，孩子们被这个太阳能项目的复杂性深深吸引了，”他告诉我，“从德斯蒙德回达拉斯的一路上，他们不停地喊着：‘博士，求求您让我们也造一辆太阳能汽车吧！’”

He relented, but quickly realized that high school students would never be able to compete fairly against college teams because they lacked the technical expertise and financial resources available to universities. Thus, the Solar Car Challenge for high school students was born, with the educational program officially kicking off in 1993 and the first national competition in 1995.

他最终答应了，但很快意识到高中生永远无法与大学团队公平竞争，因为他们缺乏大学所拥有的技术专长和财政资源。于是，面向高中生的“太阳能汽车挑战赛”应运而生，该教育项目于 1993 年正式启动，并于 1995 年举办了首届全国比赛。

Since its inception, the program has engaged over 85,000 students across 39 states and multiple countries, including Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, and Singapore. There are currently over 260 active high school solar projects. The event alternates formats between on-track and cross-country, with this year’s event being a grueling, 630-mile race across Texas. The five-day trek starts July 19th in Fort Worth and travels through the towns of Palestine, Round Rock, Fredericksburg, and San Angelo, before finishing in Fort Stockton. Lehman said that town residents come out and celebrate the teams each time they pass through.

自成立以来，该项目已吸引了来自 39 个州和多个国家（包括加拿大、墨西哥、哥斯达黎加、西班牙和新加坡）的超过 85,000 名学生参与。目前有超过 260 个活跃的高中太阳能项目。赛事形式在场地赛和越野赛之间交替进行，今年的活动是一场横跨德克萨斯州、全长 630 英里的艰苦比赛。这段为期五天的旅程于 7 月 19 日从沃斯堡出发，途经巴勒斯坦镇（Palestine）、圆石城（Round Rock）、弗雷德里克斯堡（Fredericksburg）和圣安吉洛（San Angelo），最后在斯托克顿堡结束。马克斯说，每当车队经过时，当地居民都会出来为他们庆祝。

”It’s not just building a car,” Lehman stressed. “It’s learning how to officially drive that car. In this coming event, one of the things I’ve been preaching to the kids is, before you ever get here, you need to put 500 miles in your car. You need to know, will it break? You need to know, even if it breaks, let it break in your own parking lot so you can fix it.”

“这不仅仅是造车，”马克斯强调说，“更是学习如何正式驾驶这辆车。在即将到来的比赛中，我一直向孩子们灌输的一点是：在来到这里之前，你们必须让车跑够 500 英里。你们需要知道它会不会坏。你们需要明白，即使它要坏，也要让它坏在自己的停车场里，这样你们才有机会修好它。”

The race typically features three categories of competition: classic, advanced, and electric-solar power, in which the teams race electric vehicles that receive energy from stationary solar power stations. This year’s challenge introduces a new division: cruiser. In this category, teams build four-seater vehicles with solar arrays integrated directly into the car’s body.

比赛通常设有三个类别：经典组、高级组和电动太阳能组（车队驾驶从固定太阳能充电站获取能量的电动汽车）。今年的挑战赛引入了一个新组别：巡航组（Cruiser）。在这个组别中，车队需要制造四座车辆，并将太阳能电池阵列直接集成到车身中。

The decision to create a new division was born out of years of people questioning whether solar cars would ever resemble actual automobiles instead of flat, highly aerodynamic vehicles with a driver often crammed beneath a wide solar panel. Indeed, many of the cars barely resemble anything you would recognize as road-worthy, appearing more like a mix between futuristic spacecraft and high-tech go-karts.

设立新组别的决定源于多年来人们的质疑：太阳能汽车是否能看起来像真正的汽车，而不是那种扁平的、高度空气动力学设计、驾驶员往往被挤在宽大太阳能板下的车辆。事实上，许多参赛车看起来几乎不像能在公路上行驶的汽车，更像是未来飞船和高科技卡丁车的混合体。

Lehman said the organizers wanted students to build solar-powered vehicles that looked like real passenger cars, with solar cells integrated into the bodywork itself, room for four passengers, four doors, and a trunk. He believes this helps demonstrate that solar-powered transportation can have practical applications, allowing people to imagine what future solar-assisted passenger vehicles might actually look like.

马克斯表示，组织者希望学生们能制造出看起来像真正乘用车的太阳能汽车，将太阳能电池集成到车身中，并拥有四个座位、四扇车门和一个后备箱。他认为这有助于证明太阳能交通工具具有实际应用价值，让人们能够想象未来太阳能辅助乘用车可能的样子。

“People would say, ‘Oh, this is really neat, but it’s not reality,’” he said. “Now we can show them what it could be. And I think that’s a step up.”

“人们过去常说，‘哦，这真的很酷，但这不是现实，’”他说，“现在我们可以向他们展示它可能成为的样子。我认为这是一个进步。”