Staten Island Borough Science Festival

Today Seagull Solar took the car to the Staten Island Borough Science Festival, hosted at the Petrides campus. It was one of the most energizing public events we have had so far.

Students from across the island had a chance to see the car up close and pepper us with questions. We talked about solar efficiency, how the battery and charging systems work, what it actually takes to design and build a race car from scratch, and the logistics of getting the whole operation to Texas for competition. It never gets old watching a kid’s face change when they realize the whole thing runs on sunlight.

Petrides was a gracious host. We connected with Mr. Cintula, the music and band director there, who introduced us to several physics students who had real questions and real curiosity about what we had built. We also had a conversation about potentially using the Petrides track for testing, which would be a significant resource for us as we dial in the car before ASC.

We were honored to meet Dr. Roderick Palton, Superintendent of District 31, and Deputy Superintendent Nick Frangella. Having that level of district leadership come see the car and engage with our students means a lot, and it speaks to the kind of attention this project has earned.

The most technically exciting moment of the day came from an unexpected collaboration. Stanley from Pi Top was at the festival, and one of our students, Amen, joined him in putting together a CAN bus sniffer using Pi Top hardware. Our car is running an Arduino-based driver information system we developed in-house, and Stanley’s sniffer was able to connect to it and achieve bidirectional communication. He turned on the turn signals, activated the brake lights, and beeped the horn, all from the sniffer interface. Watching an unfamiliar system talk to our car in real time, at a public event, was a genuine milestone. The CAN architecture is working, and now someone else proved it.

Good day for the team. More to come.