Solar Boat/ Solar Car - Challenging projects for first-year students

Troy McBride, Elizabethtown College

Abstract

The experience of first-year students working on challenging design projects such as, solar boat and solar car are presented. Upper-class students have voluntarily worked on the projects for the personal experience as well as to mentor first year students. The projects continue to be a heavy load on the first-year students at the end of their second semester, and negatively affects their grades and efforts in other courses. The instructor continues to observe strong merits of the projects but hopes to implement better incentives for students to maintain excellent time management of the project.