00:00Good to see it's a sunny day there mate, that's a plus.
00:05What have you seen so far this morning?
00:09Absolutely, it's a relief for us and even more of a relief for them.
00:13We're in Nunamar at the moment, 40 kilometres outside of Darwin,
00:16but some of the teams that are leading this charge
00:18have almost double that length ahead of us already.
00:21Teams took off from Darwin at around 8am local time this morning.
00:25They left from outside the front of Parliament House
00:27and soon barrelled into the vast territory bushland.
00:30They were greeted by a large crowd of vans along the side of the road.
00:34Lots of flag waving, a couple of patriotic chants,
00:37keeping in mind that competitors have come from all over the world to compete in this event.
00:41Now there are no shortage of spectators out here alongside the highway either.
00:45Plenty of locals have set up camping chairs
00:47and were keen to wave and to cheer on the solar cars as they came by.
00:52I think we've just got one coming by now.
00:55Look at that.
00:57Ooh, some speed to it.
00:59Yeah.
01:01Straight out of the future.
01:02Yeah.
01:03But yeah, that might get a little bit more scarce as we go further on into the bush.
01:07Not sure how many people we'll be seeing alongside the Stuart Highway,
01:10but hopefully we'll get more of the same when we get into Catherine, Tennant Creek
01:13and a couple of those regional town centres.
01:15Yeah, it is quite bizarre watching something like that just travel on that desert landscape down the highway.
01:19What is happening in terms of the science and the innovation there?
01:25Yeah, well, it's fascinating.
01:26So this event is primarily for testing the engineering skills of these young solar scientists
01:31and these solar engineers who are trying to use the minimum amount of resources to harness the maximum benefit.
01:37Now that can involve harnessing the power of the sun.
01:39It involves aerodynamics.
01:40As you saw, there's plenty of funky shapes and sizes hitting the road this morning.
01:44But it also involves a couple of funky and fresh features that you wouldn't expect to see in some of these solar vehicles.
01:50Things like self-made GPS systems or AI chatbot companions that have been implemented in the cars,
01:55air ventilation systems built into the seating, all sorts of fresh stuff.
01:59On the flip side, there are a couple of big companies who are using this event as an opportunity to test some of their latest developments in the solar space.
02:06We've seen perovskite solar cells being used in some of these cars, said to be more efficient in enhancing the power of the sun
02:12than standard solar cells currently on the market.
02:14The tyres being used are made from, I think it's 55% recycled tyres, and they're starting to make their way onto the market as well.
02:20So it's exciting because of the competition, but also exciting from a science and engineering perspective as well.
02:26It is indeed, and as we said, a nice sunny day there, which is a plus. How's the race looking so far?
02:33Well, it's the Dutch who are well in the lead this morning.
02:36There's three teams from the Netherlands who, last time I checked, were in first, second and third place.
02:40Brunel, 20 and top Dutch, they're leading the way.
02:43In fourth place are the reigning champions, the Belgian team in Optus.
02:47And then coming in fifth, we've got our very own Western Sydney solar team.
02:50That's the leading Aussie team so far.
02:52Of course, plenty of time and a couple of days left to go as well.
02:56So we'll see how it fares from here.
02:57It's amazing. Good on you. Thanks for joining us this morning.
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