Build and race your own solar powered race car!

This kit is designed for experimentation by a curious mind....

It is easy to put together and to modify and adapt to investigate solar power, physics, and basic electronics. 

We have designed several solar car kits for educational use in schools and universities since 2006, and that experience has been used to offer this kit.

This kit has been designed to be:

• Easy to put together (and take apart),
• Work in the UK (although still needs some sun!),
• Reusable,
• Constructed of low impact materials as much as possible, and
• Configurable to produce different designs.

This design uses hook & loop tape so that different wheel designs and motor configurations can be quickly and easily created and investigated. It can also be easily broken apart for re-use.

Crocodile clip electrical connectors can be quickly altered.

This design has two high-efficiency solar panels and a geared solar motor which helps the unit to move forwards even under quite low light levels. This helps our design to run in the UK with low solar irradiance. Due to the gearbox used, the car is not super-fast, so don’t expect record breaking speeds!

Note: Sunlight is still required so this kit may not work on more cloudy or very overcast days.

We include different sized motor wheels so that the speed and torque of the car can be altered.

The kit comes in a re-usable cardboard box and has been mainly built from laser cut plywood.

This kit is very simple to put together and requires no additional tools at all. It is designed for all ages, but only above the age of 5 due to some small parts within the kit.

We have created some learning resources for experiments with this kit.

This design is fully open source with all design files available here:

https://github.com/curiouselectric/solarcarkit

We are hoping to expand this range so that the solar base used can also power other equipment for a wider range of solar experiments.

Note: At present this kit is only available in the UK. Please email me for international orders.