NUsolar at the Evanston Green Living Festival

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We showed off our solar car at the Evanston Green Living Festival on Saturday. SC5 was parked in the circle drive of the Evanston Ecology Center alongside electric bicycles and an electric car by Ecological Products, a representative from I-GO Car Sharing, a Chevy Volt provided by Phillips Chevrolet, home wind and solar power installations from WinSol, and more.

Despite the persistent rain, a great (and green) time was had by all. People in the community came to learn about ways to make their lifestyles more sustainable and help others do the same. There were exhibitors in areas such as composting, green outreach and awareness, recycling, education, home gardening, green energy, green transportation, and environmentally friendly consumer products; I wish I had time to visit a few more of them.

The team answered  questions from the curious, including ones about range, batteries, solar charging, speed, and design. We also told them about all the things we learned through designing, building, and racing the car. Some kids played with the raindrops on the solar array while their parents spoke with us. We couldn’t resist, either.

You can push raindrops together to make huge blobs like the one in the lower left!!

Later on, a reporter from Evanston Patch interviewed the team’s chief engineer, junior Matt Filak. Parts of his interview can be seen in this story from Patch.

A reporter with the Evanston Patch interviewing Matt Filak

We also made time to enjoy the festival. Highlights include the shrimp po’ boys from Hummingbird Kitchen food truck and being able to see a Chevy Volt up-close. Also, I’d like to give a special thanks to Glenn from Ecological Products for letting us test-drive his electric bicycle by riding it all the way back to campus!

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