After making it to the top ten in last year’s Solar Splash event, the University of Southampton academics and students now hope to repeat the same with their solar-electric-powered boat. Better lab facilities, carbon finer expertise and some superlative advances in solar technology have enabled Team Tarka to eye the top spot at the event, which is scheduled from 9-13 June 2010 in Arkansas.

Led by Dr Peter Wilson at the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science, the team has actually started work to build and design a light and efficient boat. It will be “one of the most sophisticated solar-powered boat ever designed within the constraints of the Solar Splash competition. Furthermore, this is now a University wide team, with significant contributions from the schools of Electronics and Computer Science, and Ship Science”, says Dr. Wilson.

Now, the team is pursuing collaborators interested in crafting and devising green boats for this year’s contest.

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