Belinda Larisch showed off the ‘Photon Torpedo’ at UNBC this week – photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – A new mode of transportation is under construction in Prince George.

The ‘Photon Torpedo,’ is a solar electric vehicle that borrows its name from the popular Star Trek television series.

A look at what the finished project will look like

“Any trekkies out there will recognize the term,” says Belinda Larisch, both an adjunct professor at UNBC and the person responsible for launching the project.

“It’s a solar powered electric vehicle, single occupant, it has three wheels and is designed to go about 35 kph with a range of 30 km. That is entirely based on the number of batteries that I plan to put in here.”

Work on the vehicle started last year in the Maker Lab at the Two Rivers Gallery and has been built from scratch.

One of the many projects on display during this week’s Green Day festivities at UNBC, she says the goals of the project are to create awareness of energy issues, to explore alternative energy options in the north and to engage the community of Prince George in these issues.

“It’s about education I would say and a lot of engineering minded people having fun. I’m kind of personally out to prove a point that living in the north we can still make use of the sun,” says Larisch.

“Now granted this vehicle at the times of year when we have low amounts of daylight, this vehicle will not be able to handle our roads. It doesn’t have snow tires but seasonally when the sun does shine all day long, you can charge (the batteries) all the time.”

Once they buy batteries, she says the goal is to have it driving around Prince George this summer.

“As long as we can get the flexible solar panels which are becoming more and more affordable out of China, we can mould these solar cells to the body except for the windshield area.”

Anyone interested in participating in this project can do so each Thursday night at the Maker Lab.