A team of high school students overcame multiple challenges in their effort to build an award-winning solar-power car, but their perseverance paid off as they took home second place in a national road race.

Brazoswood High School’s robotics team finished as the runner-up for the Solar Car Challenge hosted by Texas Instruments on July 21 at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. It was Brazoswood’s first time in the competition.

At a high speed of 35 mph, the Brazoswood team covered the 417-miles over four days, 18-year-old team captain Evan Cobb said.

Only four cars in their divison made it to the finals after going through the four-day scrutineering process, in which teams had to make quick adjustments to meet final race-day requirements, said Amy Pope, Brazosport ISD’s director of Career and Technical Education and Fine Arts.

The team of about 10 students faced several challenges in designing and constructing their car, getting to the competition and during it, Cobb said.

“It’s really hard to say what the most difficult part was because it’s in different stages of knowing what we’re going to do — designing it, actually getting the parts, ordering and building it,” Cobb said. “There’s just such a process and it’s such a huge task that actually getting started and making that effort to — OK, I can’t do the entire solar car, but I can work on just the turn signals or I can just connect the tires better. Just kind of being dedicated to that was probably the toughest challenge, especially with we were on the fence with being on time.”

Although they had worked with their robotics teacher all school year on the project, the students faced a new challenge when their teacher resigned before the competition.

Now, they needed someone else to step up to help them get to competition day. Pope along with four teachers — including agriculture teachers Gail Coulter and Chase Watson — made it their mission to help.

“Between the two of us (Coulter and Watson), he told me what to get and I went and got it and they built it and got it going,” Coulter said.

Her job was student support, running and purchasing at the end, she said.

The challenges continued when they got to Fort Worth, team welder Fares Garcia said.

“We really weren’t aware of anything. We got here and we didn’t know what to take. What was important? We forgot a welder,” Garcia said. “So I had to borrow a lot of people’s safety equipment because we didn’t bring any jackets or anything safety. So it was a challenge with just being safe for myself and my car. We kind of managed it through the other teams because everyone was really friendly. Everyone showed they knew we were beginners, so they were all helping.”

Along with their second place finish, the robotics team took home the Guntis Terauds Award, which is presented to the solar car team displaying the highest level of courage in the face of engineering obstacles, the plaque states.

The team came in under the $20,000 budget they had to build the car and transport it with the help of sponsors including Wood Group, Dow Chemical and the district, Cobb said.

“When we first started speculating how much, we estimated it’ll be about $20,000, including transport fees,” Cobb said. “But with sponsorships and with discounts we’ve gotten from a lot of our providers, the car itself ended up costing about $7,000, either $7,000 or $8,000. It was estimated to be $10,000. And the ISD covered most, if not all, our transfer fees. So I don’t have a number for that.”

The car is completely battery-powered and generates its energy from the sun by the use of the solar panels, he said.

Their design was the most car-like in the competition, while other teams had more futuristic models that weren’t exactly in the shape of a normal car, Garcia said.

The runner-up finish was great, Cobb said.

“That felt really awesome because the first-place team, they’ve gotten first place last year as well. So us being a first-year team, our school hasn’t even done this project. We’re not just new kids. We’re new at everything here” Cobb said. “So being able to get from that point to getting second place. And if we did the race, and then were to do the race again, we could have given that first-place team a run for their money. Just because of the things we didn’t know.”

Garcia was also really excited. He took the trophy as soon as he could get his hands on it and posted everywhere on social media, he said.

Both teammates agree that the camaraderie on the team was amazing and one of the greatest parts of the whole experience was getting to know their teammates throughout the year and competition.

Watching them overcome so many obstacles was an inspiration to the teachers, Coulter said.

“It was amazing watching these young people brainstorm and problem solve on the go with just like, this is a problem, we got to fix it and they fixed it. They figured out what the problem was and they made it work,” Coulter said. “Their teamwork grew. Their skills just improved tremendously as far as communication and being able to work with each other.”

The district is in awe of their work as well, Pope said.

“We’re beyond proud of them. We would have been beyond proud of them had they not even placed but they overcame so many obstacles,” Pope said. “They just kept pushing and pushing and pushing until everything was complete and passed scrutineering so they could actually get to get on the track. So I think what I would say the district is most proud of is just the resilience, the passion to complete the project. And then just the never give up. They never gave up so we’re proud of them.”

Gayla Murphy is a news writer and copy editor for The Facts. She can be contacted at 979-237-0155.