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21 September 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Johané Odendaal and Edward Lee
UFS Solar car
Team UFS entered the Sasol Solar Challenge for the very first time this year, competing with seven other teams and showcasing their technological input and innovation.

Excitement. Nervousness. A thousand thoughts going through our minds, but primarily “Are we really ready for the challenges that lie ahead?” and “What did we get ourselves into?” In the moments leading up to this year’s Sasol Solar Challenge, these were the thoughts and emotions of Team UFS, who entered their solar car, Lengau.

“But I had confidence in the team,” says Dr Hendrik van Heerden from the UFS Department of Physics at the University of the Free State (UFS) and project manager of Team UFS who entered the challenge for the very first time this year.

Testing perseverance

Entering the Sasol Solar Challenge – a biennial competition that has been running since 2008 – Team UFS competed against seven other teams (representing local and international universities, high schools, and engineering teams), sharing the public roads of South Africa with trucks and regular traffic, sometimes experiencing steep mountain climbs, testing not only their technological input and innovation, but also their perseverance over an eight-day period. 

“One of our main challenges was the long time on the road, to which the heavy weight of the solar car, efficiency of the solar panels, and the effective charging of the battery contributed,” says Dr Van Heerden, stating that these problems were difficult to tackle with the small budget they had. “We, however, stayed positive and was determined to pull through.” 

“We were also open for learning from the other teams, the scrutineers, and observers regarding the mechanical, electrical, and body of competing solar cars. Thus, building knowledge and collaborating is a success we celebrate,” he adds.

In the end it paid off, as Team UFS completed the race, covering a distance of more than 500 km and ending in seventh place overall. The team that finished with the greatest distance covered within the allotted time won the challenge, in this instance the Brunel Solar Team, covering 4 228,2 km.

Dr Van Heerden believes that they did exceptionally well for a debut team, proving themselves against the best. “I am of the opinion that this challenge made us stronger and gave each of us a new perspective on how we should approach life,” he adds.

“As we are all enthusiastic about science and engineering, this challenge inspired us to build towards a future where renewable energy could be an important source of energy in South Africa.”
For a debut team, we did exceptionally well, proving ourselves against the best. – Dr Hendrik van Heerden.

Learning the ropes

The teams left Carnival City in Johannesburg on 9 September 2022 and arrived at the finish line at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on Friday 16 September 2022.

Talking about the next race, Dr Van Heerden says he wants to build a better, more effective solar car. “We strive to continuously improve the design, technology, and science going into our car,” he says. 

“For this challenge, we were interested in learning about the mechanical, electrical, and overall body of a solar car. Hence, our solar vehicle was designed well enough to participate and reliable enough to succeed.”

According to him, their focus will shift to competing against the other teams for the next Sasol Solar Challenge. “We will also be more prepared, since we now know what to expect from the challenge. It was our first time participating in the Sasol Solar Challenge, and we’ve learnt so much from the past two weeks – we will carry that forward to the next challenge.

 

News Archive

SAB World of Learning Brewery bid awarded to Kovsie Brewing
2017-11-28

Description: Kovsie Brewing 2 2017 Tags: Kovsie Brewing 2 2017 

Visitors from SA Breweries (AB InBev), Khosi Mogotsi,
Patience Selesho and Zinhle Ngcobo with
Dr Jan-G Vermeulen and Dr Errol Cason from
Kovsie Brewery.
Photos: Moeketsi Mogotsi

With the recent procurement of SAB by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), a Belgian transnational beverage and brewing company, the 500L educational brewery located at the SAB Cyril Ramaphosa World of Learning, became available for donation. After an initial shortlisting of three universities, the SAB World of Learning Brewery was awarded to the University of the Free State (UFS) to be managed by Kovsie Brewing.

Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research at the UFS, approved the application for a micro-manufacturing liquor licence right in the middle of campus, which effectively put the UFS bid in a class of its own. It is part of her vision that entrepreneurial activities must be visible on campus”

Sixteen universities were approached to obtain the brewery for their respective campuses.

Kovsie Brewing is an initiative started by postgraduate students at the UFS Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology in 2012. The main objective of this initiative was to expose BSc students to brewing as a practical application of the scientific fields presented at the department.
 

Description: Kovsie Brewing 1 2017 Tags: Kovsie Brewing 1 2017 

Label mock-ups made by
Dr Jan-G Vermeulen from
Kovsie Brewery entered into
the yearly  SAB Intervarsity
Brewing Competition. Kovsie
Brewing has won the best label
competition in 2013, 2014 and 2015
and was placed in the top three in
2016 and 2017.


First brewing and fermentation school
Dr Errol Cason, project leader at Kovsie Brewery, said: “Over the past five years the small-scale experimental brewery has steadily grown to the point where we obtained institutional support to establish the first Brewing and Fermentation School at the university.

Dr Cason explains that the primary role of Kovsie Brewing is to establish an accredited fermentation-based curriculum at the UFS to educate undergraduate and postgraduate students in the scientific process involved in the production of beer. “In addition, the donation enables Kovsie Brewing to provide practical job-related training and skills development on industrial grade equipment,” he said.

Emphasis on entrepreneurship
The secondary role is for Kovsie Brewing to function as a multi-disciplinary platform to stimulate the interaction between students from various fields of study. Currently Kovsie Brewing has well-established cooperative projects with both Marketing and Entrepreneurship programmes.

“In the future, Kovsie Brewing will expand on these multi-disciplinary interactions by incorporating other departments of the UFS with the focus on product development, logistics, as well as the legal aspects concerned with brewing,” Dr Jan-G Vermeulen from the Kovsie Brewery team said.

Corporate social investment representatives from AB InBev recently visited the university. Among others they met Drs Vermeulen and Cason. During their visit they also looked at other university projects, including the Department of Paediatric and Child Health and the Universitas Hospital, the Engineering Sciences Department and the Naval Hill Planetarium.

Khosi Mogotsi from AB InBev said: “It was wonderful to experience the passion with which UFS staff do their work.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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