Message from Mr. Domer: (July 20th, 2023)

WOW - this has been an ADVENTURE!!! I am sure many have already found out - unfortunately the Solar Car Challenge (SCC) has been canceled due to a Medical reason among 1/2 of their staff. Because of this, they no longer had enough staff to continue on the event forward and had to cancel it on our planned rest day in El Paso, TX. I pray that the SCC Staff make safe travels home and are able to bear through the medical concerns and make it out well. I also want to take a moment to whole heartedly thank the entire SCC Staff for all their passionate support for the SCC event, teams and all participating students!!! A special shout out to Dr. Marks and William Shih as they are some of the best people you will ever meet in life!!! 

Our Watertown students are home safe at this point. We spent a VERY STRESSFULL day (7/19) changing flights, canceling rental cars, canceling hotels, and working through soo many hurdles - but the team was able to get on a flight late from Southwest and fly into Milwaukee where their parents picked them up at 1:30am to get home. I want to thank our coaches that were on the trip with me as they were amazing!!! Randy Johnson, Tim and Heather McGuire! THANK YOU. I also want to thank my school administration for their hours of help from home trying to get our team to navigate this complication and bring the team home! I have never experienced such a stressfull day in my life of things going wrong over and over - but we got through it together. I also want to give a shout out to the best customer service lady I have ever worked with who helped us get our flights figured out after a crazy couple hours. I am messing up the name as I lost the sheet of paper I wrote it on in the chaos but shout out to Lluvia at the Southwest Airlines desk in El Paso Texas - WOW. Thank you for your patience and kindness as we were stressed out beyond measure - you deserve a gold star (or a raise). 

This year has been a LONG YEAR. I think every student in our team, every coach, and most parents will attest this has been a long year for our team to endure with this project. As we reflect on the build - it always seemed like nothing could go right the first time (or 2nd, or 3rd.) We were constantly rebuilding things for various reasons and never got ahead on the car. Even 2 weeks before we left for the event, we were changing motors and getting the car to drive for the first time days before we left. We arrived in Texas nervous that we would not be ready. WOW were we wrong - as a first year team, our kids worked their buts off in Texas thru scrutineering, the car passed through each station with ease (1 station with so much ease the car tried driving on 2 wheels). Everyone commented on how amazing our car looked, how well it was constructed, and how well our team was working together. Even though our team was amazing, I don't want to ignore - that week of scrutineering was probably the most stressfull on our team of all year and our kids managed it like champs. We had many many growing moments in the team - and though those moments are some very tough times for people to get thru, you can not create those scenarios in a classroom. I said every time to the students 1-on-1 as we worked thru them - most people dont learn these lessons until they are adults, and you are going thru this now. Though it is tough, you are going to grow more because of these life moments. I am always proud of when students can learn soft skills and life lessons through our program as they are only learned thru life and not the classroom. Back to the stress - we were in Texas thru a HEAT ADVISORY the entire time. Above 100 degrees every day (We are from Wisconsin!!!). We had one day that the team was up for 21 hours!!! Adults broke down, kids broke down, the car broke down - we got through it. The car passed scrutineering and most of us thought the stress would lift a little as we started the race. We were wrong... The next 3 days of race leading up to the rest day - the stress continued. Car was struggling to perform as we wanted and we were still learning every minute about the car. The kids were struggling to communicate well to each other, themselves and the team and that was stressful as we worked through that. The heat got worse every day of the race. As coaches we continued to work with the kids and to slow them down and better communicate. Race day 1 - we got over 90 miles!!!! It was a huge success - but we found out on race day 2 we think our mppt charger for the solar panels went to sleep on day 1 which is why we think the battery never charged. So race day 2 we started with only 20% of battery. We spent ALOT of time sitting at rest stops letting the panel charge the battery once we figured that out. and I think race day 2 was even more successful than day 1, we started with 20% battery - sitting a ton of the day to charge and we still got 50 miles traveled!!! The panels were working so well day 2 that we got the battery up to 100% again by end of day, so race day 3 we were starting back at 100% battery again. Race day 3 was amazing - the kids made a plan of what they wanted to drive and what they wanted to trailer over big hills. They set a goal of getting 90 of the 100 miles available. We were able to start through the starting gate with all the other teams for the first time in the 3 days which was awesome. We passed a bunch of teams in beginning which gave the team good feelings. and we continued to work through our issues with the car. In the end - the car did what we wanted it to and we got the 90 miles. That is the biggest win so far with the performance. The team was in great spirits with this success! But from there things go haywire as we learn that evening of the medical issues among the SCC Staff and the event being canceled. The team was heart broken and sad and emotional, but they understood the situation and were soooo great at their flexibility over the next day and a 1/2 as we worked through the massive change to come.

I am soo proud of our team!!! Words will never express what this year meant to me from starting this crazy adventure last August to now - our kids are the best out there!!! Our sponsors stepped up to make this possible for our students and they may never know how much that money or support really meant to us and the opportunity it provided!!! Thank you Sponsors, supporters, mentors, advisors, parents and all! 

CELEBRATION: please watch our social media to come, we plan to have a cook out celebration in early August where we want to invite EVERYONE!!! Have the car available for you to drive!!! Have the Tech Ed labs open to view, kids ready to answer questions, and some good food. Everyone is invited (families, sponsors, AND THE COMMUNITY). 

Thank you again to everyone - but most importantly thank you to our students. You have gone through one of the toughest year of my life together (and that is on top of Covid in my opinion). We came out the other end together, changed! You touched my heart and I will treasure these moments for ever - thank you.  (Domer)

p.s., website will get more pictures updated when we settle down, we have lots to share :) I put a couple memorable ones below here.