Like The Cannonball Run. Only It's High School Students in Handmade Solar-Powered Cars.

Beginning at 9 Sunday morning, three students from W.T. White High School will drive to Colorado in that very ride you see above: a $30,000, corporate-sponsor paid-for experiment nicknamed Quetzalcoatl. (Kids today -- what's wrong with a '66 Chevelle SS 396 with a a 360 hp, 396 cubic inch engine?)...

By Robert Wilonsky

July 16, 2010

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Beginning at 9 Sunday morning, three students from W.T. White High School will drive to Colorado in that very ride you see above: a $30,000, corporate-sponsor paid-for experiment nicknamed Quetzalcoatl. (Kids today -- what's wrong with a '66 Chevelle SS 396 with a a 360 hp, 396 cubic inch engine?) The three, captained by Alexander Madere, are part of the Longhorn Solar Corps and are among two dozen teams taking part in the annual ritual known as the Hunt-Winston School Solar Car Challenge , which begins at the Texas Motor Speedway and wraps up, if all goes according to plan, eight days later at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.

Says W.T. White physics teacher and team sponsor Louis Glover in DISD's official release: "The goal of the challenge is more about managing the solar power successfully during the event rather than being the first team across the finish line." And, once they finish with this, they will begin work on those solar-powered water taxis. No? My bad.

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