Sponsor a Cell!
Help us make Project D a reality!
We are now in the final stages of developing and building our fourth-generation car, codenamed Project D. This car represents the culmination of two years of relentless effort to field a faster, more powerful, and more efficient car than we have ever raced before, but we need your support to get us across the finish line and ensure that Project D can shine brightly and represent our team and the University of Illinois well at the 2026 American Solar Challenge.
By contributing to our Sponsor-a-Cell campaign, you are directly supporting our mission to bring Project D out into the world and propel our journey forward in this new era of education, technology, and sustainable energy.
What is Sponsor-a-Cell?
By sponsoring one of Project D's solar cells, you are supporting the development of our fourth generation car, Project D, and supporting our team as we strive to race it at the 2026 American Solar Challenge. By making a donation of $50 or more to adopt a cell, we will include your name on Project D's secondary (display) top shell.
About Project D:
Since our creation in 2014, Illini Solar Car has built and raced our three generations of solar vehicles, Argo, Brizo, and Calypso, around the world. Traveling thousands of miles across the United States and Australia, Argo placed 7th at the American Solar Challenge in 2018 and 4th at the Formula Sun Grand Prix in 2019, while Calypso placed 1st at the 2025 Formula Sun Grand Prix and broke a track record. We have continuously grown in both size and knowledge, bringing hands-on learning to hundreds of emerging engineers, developers, businesspeople, and many other campus majors along the way. The 300+ students on our team gain unparalleled experience in their fields as they embark on the challenging journey of designing, building, testing, and racing state-of-the-art solar vehicles.
In order to maintain our team's competitiveness and keep up with the ever-changing technological landscape and shifting race regulations, we strive to develop more powerful and more efficient generations of solar vehicles every two years. Project D, our fourth-generation car, represents our team's continued drive to compete at the highest levels of solar car racing and build upon our success of previous years.
