Thank you for your kind comments guys. Those pics are awesome James, and the videos are brilliant too. Thank you for posting them up. The tyres were indeed secondhand! Jon said they had gone off 2 laps before the driver change, and I think I got about half a lap out of them. Throwing it around was the only way to get it round really.

and here comes my usual picture post....












again....PM me if you need the full pic...

Quote Marko...." I thought hard about the “24hr rule” and this one but figure that even after a decent night’s sleep, lie-in and afternoon chilling-out in the sunshine I’m still feeling/thinking the same way…

Good to see you take good advice Marko ;-)
Regards
Pat

hi,
was wondering what the top cars weighed in at during the formula student event,

Jude berthault
Ets Fsae
Steering & brake system leader

quote:

Originally posted by terra_dactile:
hi,
was wondering what the top cars weighed in at during the formula student event,

Jude berthault
Ets Fsae
Steering & brake system leader

http://www.imeche.org.uk/formulastudent/pdf/FS2006%20Of...s%20Class1_1_200.pdf

Regards, Ian

I hope that all of you guys saw the pit girls the coventry team had this year, and the effect that it had. Our car was regarded as one of the most photographed failures (our competition didnt go great with wet running and a broken driveshaft in the enduro).

We did have some great marketing though (even though the marketing event was real shit, my fault) because we had the pit girls, we set up a Scalextric set for people to play on and had a raffle for people to win sets.

I hope next year we arent the only ones who bring some skin with us next year (I am obviously not counting the germans in their lauderhausen).

Matthew Poat

Former Head of Marketing
Coventry University Team

Latest employee of DMS TEchnologies (Makers of Varley Red Top Racing Batteries)

Very nice shooting there, RacingManiac. I also put some photo's of are on my site, check them out on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22744532@N00/sets/72157594211147533/

Congrats to U of T on their latest F Student win. You guys really have that track figured out.

Looks like Graz brought another excellent car... I'd definately watch out for them next year

quote:

Originally posted by Schumi_Jr:
Congrats to U of T on their latest F Student win. You guys really have that track figured out.

Looks like Graz brought another excellent car... I'd definately watch out for them next year

looking forward to seeing the 06 Waterloo in action at the shootout....tough luck for you guys this year at Michigan. You guys had a really nice car....

Nice work placement there!

Was wondering if anyone could comment on car weights at FStudent.

-Lightest?
-U Toronto
-Helsinki
-TU Graz
-Oxford Brookes

Thanks

Steve, there is a post further up the page from murpia with a link to the results. All weights on there if you scan through. If I remember rightly, Delft weighed in lightest at 125 kg.

Cheers,

Current issue of Racecar has a write up (by me) on FSUK - 06. Its got a green Honda on the cover

quote:

Originally posted by Big Bird:
Steve, there is a post further up the page from murpia with a link to the results. All weights on there if you scan through. If I remember rightly, Delft weighed in lightest at 125 kg.

Cheers,

Thanks. I will endeavor to read the rest of the thread in the future.

quote:

Originally posted by ss_collins:
Current issue of Racecar has a write up (by me) on FSUK - 06. Its got a green Honda on the cover

OK write up Sam. One problem though "No winged car has won an FSAE event" If you mean FSAE specifically as the Detroit event fine, but it was in the FS article so I asume you meant all of them. A basic fact check would have shown up Cal Poly Pomona's FS win with some of the biggest wings ever built.

As is often the case, the best words about the comp came from Geoff Pearson, credit to you for publishing his words on the correspondance page.

Once again though you use the FS article to get all excited about a poor car (UCLAN last year, Maribor this) just because it was a bit different. Now the same year Cal Poly won at the NEC event Maribor debuted with a car and performed well. You can pretend they have difficulties other teams don't but that car 5 years ago was better than the 05 and 06 cars and the team has regressed rather than progressed in that period.

As for the list of retirement reasons, you need to read you editors comments about shooting fish in a barrel and think about the fact that you aren't reviewing a professional series - did the Le Mans 24hours report have such a list??

Ben

quote:

Originally posted by ben:
As is often the case, the best words about the comp came from Geoff Pearson, credit to you for publishing his words on the correspondance page.

Well said Ben. Also I was please to read CAWs editorial comments and Pat Symonds 'Debrief' comments too.

quote:

Originally posted by ben:
Once again though you use the FS article to get all excited about a poor car (UCLAN last year, Maribor this) just because it was a bit different. Now the same year Cal Poly won at the NEC event Maribor debuted with a car and performed well. You can pretend they have difficulties other teams don't but that car 5 years ago was better than the 05 and 06 cars and the team has regressed rather than progressed in that period.

An instance of the 'human interest' journalistic angle, maybe? A shame though that neither Racecar nor Racetech have this year highlighted the problem faced by many of the UK team's student members, who are not allowed to actively contribute to the manufacturing and fabrication of their racecars.

Often the 'Health and Safety' argument is used. But rather than educate students on the safe use of hand and machine tools the policy seems to be 'don't touch!' What example is this to set to student who once graduated (and chartered, presumably, as most Universities laud their 'accredited' degree status) may be responsible for forming H&S assessments, risk assessments etc. as part of their daily engineering role?

Those University staff members who make these policies need to be reminded of the consequences, and what better forum for debate than the mainstream motorsport engineering international press?

Regards, Ian

quote:

Originally posted by murpia:

An instance of the 'human interest' journalistic angle, maybe?

Unfortunately this occurs a little too often for my liking with the current generation of RE.

Still some good tech content (modelling fluid structure interactions in the current edition) but it's dangerously close to being the Sam Collins world motorsport travel log at times.

Good point though Ian about H&S and the problems of getting a car built. CAW's comments of mentoring were spot on and I think FS needs this. At FSAE each team alsways had a mentor allocated at the event - is this still done?

Ben

Hi chaps,

we are aware of the situation re H&S but is there any solution??

Winged car - I thought one had but Steve Daum insisted not!

we have more FS coverage coming - it can get too much to pile it all into one issue so it filters out eventually.

Its not credited but I also write the debrief section (unless stated otherwise - like the NASCAR page).

re my travel guide - sometimes it does seem that way but we try to produce a balanced issue with something for everyone (in engineering terms) so that means sometimes I have a whole pile of stuff in one issue and next to nothing in others.

The top level of our readership are seriously good motorsport engineers so we need to cater for them, whilst at the same time cater for 1st year students and club racers.

Ben I'm sure I owe you a beer - we should meet up sometime and argue about poor FS cars vs good FS cars.

Oh and if you think me and Elliot 'shooting fish' was harsh - wait till you see Stanniforth's view...

quote:

Originally posted by murpia:
Often the 'Health and Safety' argument is used. But rather than educate students on the safe use of hand and machine tools the policy seems to be 'don't touch!' What example is this to set to student who once graduated (and chartered, presumably, as most Universities laud their 'accredited' degree status) may be responsible for forming H&S assessments, risk assessments etc. as part of their daily engineering role?

Those University staff members who make these policies need to be reminded of the consequences, and what better forum for debate than the mainstream motorsport engineering international press?

Regards, Ian

At Hertfordshire, we are expected to fabricate/build the car (with the help of the manufacturing department for precision items, as well as other CNC companies).
This also goes for the Class 1-200 entry, all of the modifications were done by us, many of which carried over onto the Class 1 car. Hence both cars looking very similar on the outside. Most noticeably of which was the radiator.

The technicians we have are very good, showing us how to do things. And once they think your good enough, they start to trust you.

I think its really important that engineers should be able to fabricate parts. Its surprising how many people get lost in a workshop, not knowing what tools to use. Which leads to the accidents, so the Uni decides to remove the students from workshops on H&S grounds, rather than correcting them, or providing suitable training.

Excellent thread, excellent input from all concerned, especially earlier comments on design integrity. The "tragedy" is that i think much of what is being said is lost to a large proportion of those who need to read this stuff, because it is filed under the FStudent results thread. I notice that we have had 8000 hits on this thread (and I imagine a good 1000 of those would be myself, murpia and Ben). And reading through the contributors, most are Eurocentric. Over 40,000 hits on some of the other results threads. Just an observation, and a bit of a shame.

On the other hand it's no coincidence that this forum is well populated by people from teams that consistantly perform well.

Having the humility to realise that someone else might know better is a big part of understanding your competition and feeding that back into you own designs.

On the H&S issue, my experience was similar to that of Chris from UH - more freedom once the trust is built up. And before the protestations start, we also started off with "No you're not using the machine shop" persitance is key.

Ben

OT Geoff - I'll be in Melbourne from 12/9 to 19/9, obviously working at the weekend :-)