Solar Team Twente is one of the most innovative student teams in the world. A double interview with founder Joost Kuckartz and the manager of team 2025, Daniël Blik.
Diligent students who are "a little crazy" and a significant social problem. These are the critical ingredients for a student team. At Solar Team Twente of the University of Twente (UT), students push the limits of the solar car to accelerate the transition to sustainable mobility. Recently, the 2024 team finished in second place in the Sasol Solar Challenge.
What's that like, being at the head of a solar car whose expectations seem to increase yearly? Tin (smiling): "Number one is beating Delft." Then, seriously: "We do always do well, but we have never won the World Solar Challenge (in Australia, the most important race for solar cars, ed.). So we do feel that pressure, but that also makes it fun."
On the shoulders of giants
As to why that has never worked out, opinions differ. "There is always something," said the team manager. A gust of wind that blows the car over, a battery that is just a few kilos too heavy, a bad qualifying lap. "Last time, we started forty minutes after Belgium's car and finished twenty minutes behind them. So actually we were better. But so then we didn't do well in qualifying. You can say that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. And the involvement of former team members is huge; we have several app groups with hundreds of members following all the races closely."
Kuckartz and Blik meet at Solar Team Twente's new office on an industrial estate in Enschede. The team has experienced significant professionalization over the past year. Yes, it smells like toast, techno hits play in the background, and a few crates of beer are piled up here and there, but the workshop is the size of half a soccer field. In a room above the workshop, about 20 chairs are crisscrossed. "Sorry for the mess; we had a meeting yesterday," Blik apologizes.
That was different in 2005 when Kuckartz founded the team. Solar Team Twente was UT's first student team and started from a small room on campus. The idea came about when Kuckartz saw students racing in Australia. He also wanted to be a part of that and initially applied to the solar team at TU Delft. Kuckartz, then a bachelor's student in electrical engineering, was not accepted. The team consisted entirely of master's students. He did not leave it at that and founded his squad.
"We just started then. We had nothing except for some lectures by Wubbo Ockels at TU Delft. How do you find sponsors? How do you make sure all the parts form a whole? We had to invent everything ourselves."
Perseverance and military precision
That is also immediately Kuckartz's most crucial lesson: perseverance. "The race was in October, and my team still didn't have a sponsor for March. In fact, at that time, the building had yet to begin. There were team members who didn't believe it would work out. But we didn't give up." There was no time for test laps - but the team finished in ninth place and was the best newcomer. Kuckartz: "I remember that we had a flat tire along the track during a test run on the track. Nobody knew exactly what to do."
Twenty years later, Solar Team Twente changes a tire within 1.5 minutes and follows a predetermined protocol with military precision leading up to and during the race. As the race gets closer, there is a transition to be made from a student team to a professional race team. Blik: "We'll jump a hole in the roof if we can make the car 10 minutes more efficient with new technology. But you can have such an efficient car; if your team doesn't perform well in Australia, you lose that time gained in no time."
Blik himself completed his bachelor's degree in Business IT last academic year. Although he has only just been officially installed at the time of the interview, he can't imagine what it's like to sit in the lecture halls; time is already going “way too fast for him.” Over the next year, they are working on the car they will use to go to Australia in August 2025. “Normally the competition is in October, so we have two months less. That does make it extra exciting.”
'Noaberschap'
The priority is building a car as fast as possible. However, the student team also wants to show that Twente is a high-tech region.
Unlike many other solar teams, the team does not have one primary sponsor. More than 150 companies and partners are involved in building the car. Blik: "We deliberately choose not to appoint a main or title sponsor and to work with the entire region. I can't pronounce the word well (laughs), but we call that 'noaberschap'."
Kuckartz: "Yes. On your own, you go faster, but together, you get further. I think it typifies our region very well. Noaberschap is a mentality in which you are there for each other, want to make time for each other and get further together. That fits very well with high-tech: many supply chains are becoming increasingly sophisticated. One company alone cannot produce and assemble a complete car; you need a chain. In Twente, we understand that cooperation pays off. So it's no coincidence that there are so many market leaders in high-tech systems and materials in Twente."
This year, the team proved that it is rightfully one of the world's most innovative student solar teams. The solar car RED X covered 4168 kilometers in the challenging South African landscape. Solar Team Twente came in second with a car clad in Sharkskin. This unique texture, inspired by the skin of sharks, reduces drag by creating small eddies in the air currents along the car's hull. This improves aerodynamics and lowers energy consumption while driving.
"Cool, right? We all sat here glued to the tube," Blik says enthusiastically.
Kuckartz: "I'm very proud of how far the team has come. They are working very hard. In the spirit of Noaberschap, the team can always use new partners and companies. So if anyone thinks, 'Hey, cool, I can help,' please join! We can do more together, and the work is far from finished!"