The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s solar car team won its first ever national race last month.
Illini Solar Car won the single-occupant vehicle class of the 2025 Formula Sun Grand Prix in Kentucky in July.
The student-run organization began building Calypso, an electric car powered by solar panels, in 2022. The car debuted in 2024, and this year, the team drove the vehicle for 700 miles around race track — completing a record-breaking 223 laps.
“This is the best our team has ever performed,” said Illini Solar Car president Matthew Adler. “It’s [an] extremely exciting milestone, not just for our race team, but also all of the alumni that helped us get here.”
Calypso was put to the test against more than two dozen vehicles from other registered university — though not all were able to put a car on the race track.
Adler said multiple teams did not make it past a preliminary assessment called scrutineering, in which each race car had to meet certain requirements. He said Illini Solar Car also had to overcome several technical challenges.
He said the team equipped Calypso with a new battery to upgrade its performance. During a scrutineering test ahead of the race, he said the car’s brake pedal failed during a wet brake test.
“It was a complete shock, because this was not an issue before,” Adler said. “I ended up, you know, like taking a few people to get a ton of new parts at Home Depot, and then the mech team spent, you know, all night and making a completely new brake, brake pedal from scratch. And by the next day, we were completely ready, and it worked great.”
Following Illini Solar Car’s victory, Adler said the team is excited for its future.
“With this win, we’ve proven that we can be the best on the national stage, and so … the next logical step is to take our team to the international stage,” he added. “I won’t say much more than that, but that’s maybe a hint of what’s to come.”