The American Solar Challenge's Gold "Sun" Awards
Innovators Educational Foundation approached us in the beginning of 2022 to create a new traveling award to replace their ‘Wilson Cup’. This award had traveled all over the world for 30 years to recognize the winners of the American Solar Challenge.
The American Solar Challenge is a competition to design, build, and drive solar-powered cars in a cross-country time/distance rally event. The event has had over two decades of organized races in North America. This year, the challenge was an 8 day, 1400+ mile competition split into 4 stages. Teams drove their cars along the Oregon National Historic Trail from Independence, MO to Twin Falls, ID.
We were tasked with a few goals for the new American Solar Challenge award:
Two traveling awards, as the event is now split into two distinct vehicle classes (Multiple Occupancy Vehicle and Single Occupancy Vehicle).
Longevity of design and materials.
A gold metal design for both awards.
To differentiate the awards, it was requested that the MOV award have a dark wood base and the SOV have a light wood base.
Smaller replicas of the 2 large main trophies for the podium finishers to keep.
We designed and created a 13.875" diameter machined aluminum "sun" that was polished and gold anodized. The “sun” was mounted on a white oak base with engraved metal plates. One of the white oak bases was stained to be a darker shade. Overall, the awards stood at just over 25” high.
For the individual awards, we created a polished aluminum “sun”, mounted on different-sized maple or walnut bases- utilized to define each place within each vehicle class.
See other examples of custom awards to inspire your next creation.
2022 American Solar Challenge winners.
Photo courtesy of: https://www.americansolarchallenge.org/