From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. Maragon Private School Olympus pupils competed in energy and chemical company Sasol’s Solar Challenge from September 27, which comprised driving a solar-powered car over eight days covering 2 000 km from Pretoria to Cape Town. Jonathan Rodin tells us more.

Jonathan Rodin:
The race is held in South Africa every two years, in collaboration with motorsport controlling body Motorsport South Africa and Paris-based nonprofit association Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile.

Maragon Olympus, located in Pretoria, was one of the first schools to compete in the race since it was first held in 2008 with its Solar Eagle solar car. 

Maragon student spokesperson Joel Miruho tells us more about the project.

Maragon student spokesperson Joel Miruho:
“We are from Maragon High School Olympus and we are being trained for jobs in the future, where technology meets education. Now through all our activities going towards the Sasol Solar Challenge, we get 25 students who are involved with the whole race in general.

These students are learning so many things. There’s a logistics crew, a design and build crew, and I’m personally in the public relations and marketing committee. I’m learning so many things and I’m bonding with so many of my friends.

Through all these activities, I know for a fact that when I finish school and want to go out into the world and see where I fit in, I will be able to use my skills learnt here in the Sasol Solar Challenge of 2014.”

Jonathan Rodin:
The initiative started in November 2013 to ignite pupils’ imaginations and natural curiosity about the world and help them access the necessary skills in science and technology.

Maragon student spokesperson Cronje Oosthuizen explains why the school’s project is unique.

Maragon student spokesperson Cronje Oosthuizen:
“We got involved in this project now for about a year and its been a great success so far. The thing about the project itself is that it trains our students and gives them a practical sense of what they want to go do one day. After our students matriculate, they already have a sense and they already have some experience in the field itself.

For example, people who want to study engineering, they worked on the car itself. The people who want to do project managing planned the whole route for us. They planned where we are going to go stay, what we are going to go eat.

The whole thing is student based and that’s what makes our seem just a bit different from the rest, because all the other teams are universities from South Africa , as well as internationally; and they’ve got the top engineering students, people that do research (what they want to do one day), and we’re just doing this as an extra-curricula after school.

We’re just there to break the expectation of what they have for us. We just want to surprise South Africa by being amazing in this race itself.

Our solar car drives and we’re ready for the race itself.”

Jonathan Rodin:
The solar-powered car has a 6 kW hub motor, which is driven by a 74 V lithium polymer battery that takes about four hours to charge, depending on the weather.

Solar Eagle driver Darren Neethling tells us about the preparation for the drivers.

Solar Eagle driver Darren Neethling:
“To prepare for this race, we have to do a minimum of 10 hours prior driving in our vehicle just to make sure we reach our safety standards and one of the drivers has to be the engineer – has to be an engineering of the actual vehicle.

How this race is basically going to work, is that its an eight day trip, and it works in different stages – each day is a stage. We’re going to cover approximately 250 km a day. So the ultimate goal is to obviously finish, while the sun’s still shining.

So it’s going to be a bit of a challenge. It all comes down to game plan and the strategy, and I believe that we’ve got a great one.”

Shannon de Ryhove:
That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.