Solar-powered racecar begins trek today

The UA's solar-powered racecar, Turbulence, is on the road today, racing in the American Solar Car Challenge, the longest solar car race in the world.

The race began Sunday morning in front of the museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and will end July 20 in Claremont, Calif.

By Tuesday night, the Arizona team had fallen from 10th to 12th place in the race, and had completed 629.23 miles ÷ just under a third of the total length of the race.

The route along Route 66 has been a little bumpy for Turbulence and crew, however. During the qualifying rounds on July 11, the car's power trackers broke, and had to be repaired the next night. The team also worked Saturday night to fix the left side of the car's nose, which was damaged in the trailer on the drive from Wisconsin to Chicago.

The race resumes everyday, weather permitting, at 7 a.m., with cars departing at 1-minute intervals, based on the their standings from the previous day.

For more information, visit the official race website at www.americansolarchallenge.org.

Residence life now all under one roof

Residence Life reopened today after moving into the new El Portal Building at East Sixth Street and North Highland Avenue earlier this week.

The new building will now house all of Residence Life's services, including customer services, facilities administration, residential education, residential computing, conference services, information services and the director's office. There is a single phone number for the office, and the business hours will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The moving dates, July 11-15, were selected "to minimize the impact on students and others in the campus community," said Residence Life Director Jim Van Arsdel for UA News Services.

El Portal is the first part of the Highland District Housing project to open. It is made up of the new offices and three residence halls, the first of which is slated to open next month.

Villa del Puente, El Portal's neighbor, will be a co-ed, 300-person dorm named for the bridge between its two buildings. The last two halls in the district are supposed to open in Fall 2004.

KUAT nets awards for programing

Four KUAT-TV staff members were the only winners in Tucson of the Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards during a ceremony held at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts last month.

Arts reporter Sooyeon Lee won for a piece done on the future of Tucson's art community, which ran as a special on "Arizona Illustrated," the station's weeknight newsmagazine.

Dan Duncan and Tom Kleespie also won awards for a segment that appeared on "The Desert Speaks."

Videographer Martin Rubio won for his work on a documentary about a Tucson glass artist.

The Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television and Arts and Sciences presented the awards. The chapter covers a region that includes Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, as well as parts of California, Texas and Wyoming.

The station also received seven nominations during the ceremony.

For a complete listing of winners and nominees, go to www.rockymountainemmy.org.

Senior blasts off to NASA space program

A UA senior was recently selected to participate in the 2003 NASA Spaceflight and Life Science Training Program at Kennedy Space in Florida.

Agricultural and biosytems engineering senior Michael Liga will spend six weeks in the program this summer learning about flight operations and their relationship with life sciences. Specifically, he will design and carry out experiments that are related to the human exploration of space. He will also learn about the environmental impact of having a launch site.

The Spaceflight and Life Science Training Program is open to college undergraduates in the fields of life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering and computer science.