The Formula Sun Grand Prix is an annual solar car track event held by the American Solar Challenge and Innovators Educational Foundation. Teams undergo an approval process by engineers before a three-day race concludes the weeklong event.
Cars’ batteries can only be recharged once during the race. The grand prix’s road-style, closed course tests the cars’ handling of curves, braking and acceleration, measuring their endurance by seeing which car can accumulate the most miles.
Solar Gators attended the competition for an eighth time, debuting a new car, Flare. The team finished fifth overall and won the fastest lap award, a $500 Mathworks award and second place in the Altair Challenge.
Established in 2012, Solar Gators debuted its first car, Torch, in 2017. The group now has over 75 members.
Upper-level engineers, who are juniors and seniors, spent an average of 20 hours per week working on the car, according to Solar Gators president Connor Ellis, a 21-year-old UF aerospace engineering senior. He noted many lower-level engineers also dedicate 20 hours per week.
Flare was designed two years ago and was manufactured during the 2024-25 school year. It was built from carbon fiber entirely by UF students.
Meeting deadlines and space constraints were the team’s biggest challenge when building the car, Ellis said.
Many team members balance a full course load, jobs and extracurricular activities despite Solar Gators’ substantial time commitment.
“It really takes people going the extra mile and putting in that time after they've already been studying or working for 10 to 12 hours that day and taking a couple more hours out of their day to go do some work and build a solar car,” Ellis said.
Solar cars are generally 15 feet long, and the team’s garage, which the UF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering provides, is around 40 feet long. Other colleges often have more space to build their cars, he said.
The team’s dedication and passion allowed them to overcome construction obstacles, he said.
“Everyone on the team works so hard, basically because their peers work so hard,” Ellis said. “You owe it to each other to put the work in to be able to produce such a high-quality car. Respect for the work that everyone else puts in is the greatest contributor.”
In the fall, the team will focus on improving Flare for next summer’s competition, he said. Making sure Flare can stay on the track for an entire race takes priority, so they don’t have to waste time making repairs.
Oliver Tumbel, a 21-year-old UF mechanical engineering senior and Solar Gators engineer, said the team used simulation tools to design the car’s aerobody in March 2024.
“Our biggest thing that we are authorizing for when designing the car is optimizing for efficiency,” Tumbel said. “We want our car to run on as little energy as possible.”
After completing the aerobody, the team progressed inwards and packaged the auxiliary and supporting systems, such as the chassis, suspension, battery pack, brakes and more, explained Tumbel.
Solar Gators is primarily funded by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and fundraisers, said 20-year-old UF mechanical and aerospace engineering junior and Solar Gators vice president Chelsea Catabia.
Chelsea Catabia.
“We fundraise for ourselves, whether that be reaching out to local sponsors or other companies to provide materials for us to use, or just money as well,” Catabia said.
The team will host fundraising events on campus in the fall.
“We’ll definitely take all of the support of anyone in the UF community,” Catabia said.
Contact Elizabeth Maguire at emaguire@alligator.org. Follow her on X @emaguireee.
