Who We Are

We are CU Solar Boat - an engineering project team comprised of undergraduates from all ages and majors that come together to design and build a 14-foot, single occupant, purely solar-powered speed boat for the intercollegiate Solar Splash competition. 

Founded in 2015, we are one of Cornell University's youngest project teams. In 2019, we competed for the first time at Solar Splash, placed 8th overall, and won Rookie of the Year as well as Outstanding Solar System Design.  Despite being a newer team, we work to provide our members with practical engineering experience, a professional and cooperative team environment, and a unique educational experience on modern engineering problems.  

While we aim to build upon these accomplishments and improve as a competitive team, we also emphasize the importance of our work in a real-world context. With climate change being a prominent concern, CU Solar Boat aims to prove that renewable energy can be an efficient, affordable, and optimal replacement to non-renewable sources. We work to understand how to optimize our resources and build the best system possible. 

The problems and creative solutions that our teammates work on are problems that anybody in the professional industry may face as well. CU Solar Boat is a team that emphasizes learning and creativity over prior experience. We train students to become engineers outside of the classroom-setting and work on something tangible. Every year we learn from our previous designs and results, and aim to build a better boat and be an even better team.