I had the pleasure of attending Solar Splash 2008 this past weekend. College engineering students from all over the U.S. plus a team from Canada and a team from Turkey attended. Events included slalom, endurance, and sprint. The boats are powered by solar energy. For the endurance event, the photovoltaic panels are installed on the boats; however, for the sprint event, the students are allowed to remove the photovoltaic panels from the boats and run from pre-solar-charged batteries.

The shooting conditions were very challenging. I used my K10D + DA50-200 + circular polarizer for all shots. I was fortunate to be invited by one of the officials to shoot from the safety boat on the morning of the endurance event.

All 92 posted shots can be viewed in my Zenfolio gallery for those interested:

Zenfolio | Scott A Miller | Solar Splash 2008

For more information about the teams, etc. here's the Solar Splash website link:

Welcome to SOLAR SPLASH

The Setting

Setup for Endurance

Ready to Go

The Sprint

We Have Liftoff

[LaRee]

You should be proud of the images you captured of this event Scott. Good work. I love #41 in your gallery. It sure looks like a beautiful place to hang out for the day!

[sajmmiller]

You should be proud of the images you captured of this event Scott. Good work. I love #41 in your gallery. It sure looks like a beautiful place to hang out for the day!

Thanks LaRee! Overall, I'm pretty happy with what I came away with, aside from the chigger bites! I'd probably do a few things differently the next time, but 20-20 hindsight is wonderful, isn't it?

Considering that we had very strong winds prior to the event, and rain the day after the event, the weather was perfect for the boats and comfortable for the spectators, and yes, it was a pretty nice place to hang out between rounds.

I appreciate your comment very much.

[sajmmiller]

Cedarville University, the overall Solar Splash 2008 champions, will be using one of my photos in a press release! Of course I was happy to oblige.

Solar Splash is a great event that doesn't receive nearly the attention, sponsorship, or funding it deserves, especially since many of these students may be involved in solving some of our future energy challenges.

Here's the photo that Cedarville asked to use:

[Marc Langille]

Scott, that looks like it was a lot of fun! Congrats on the photo being used too...

Regards,
Marcc

[sajmmiller]

Scott, that looks like it was a lot of fun! Congrats on the photo being used too...

Regards,
Marcc

Thanks Marc! It WAS a lot of fun!

[KrisK10D]

great series Saj... congrats in being published too

[sajmmiller]

great series Saj... congrats in being published too

Thanks for looking and commenting Kris!