On Friday 29^th May the Fourth Annual Buggy Race took place on the tennis courts at Concord. This year the object for the budding engineerswas to design the fastest solar powered buggy and it proved to be just as popular then last year’s hover buggy race. A record number of teams entered the competition and this year there was a separate race for the Lower School entrants.

Physics teacher Mr Lewis, who masterminded the event said, “The aim of the solar buggy race this year was to provide the students with as many options as possible in the choice of materials and to allow a wide range of engineering designs.

The solar panels had many wiring configurations which involved series and parallel combinations. The students had to check to see which configuration worked best. Also two different types of motor were supplied and the wheels could de driven by gears, chain or just connected directly to the motor. Cardboard, solid plastic sheet and hollow plastic sheets were supplied. The hollow sheet seemed to offer the most strength for the least mass and was used by most of the teams.

Many completely different designs emerged and many demonstrated ingenuity and a range of good engineering solutions. The reflecting foil supplied in the kits was hardly used in any of the designs. Quite correctly most of the teams discovered that the extra mass of a reflector did not merit the slight gain in power from the panels. The engineering properties of sellotape were found to be unreliable when the motor fell off the fastest buggy.”

In the Senior school race, the winning buggy was designed and made by Stephanie Poo, Ashley Lee, Sasa Zhoa and Winston Lee ; in second place was the buggy designed by Sanjay Chandran, Daryl Mark, Yit Lin Yeow and Kenneth Lock; Wen Fu Wong, Jonathan Yek, Adrian Lim and Haow Bin Tee’s design came third. The most imaginative design was awarded the buggy designed by Fiona Yeung, Jasmine Tee, Rose Ng and Juventia Indahyang.

In the Lower school race which was overseen, by Dr Alan Herbert, the winning buggy was ‘Superken’ which was made by Ken Hsieh, Geoffrey Tsang and Sheng Wei Wang (Form 4). Second place and the most imaginative design was awarded to Jessica Chang and Nagima Madi (Form 4).

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to Mr Lewis for all his effort in organising the event. The winning buggies will go on display in the Science Department.