Finally, we're done with the design report! I've spent way too long working on these images, so I thought I'd share them with everybody here. We're pretty proud, this is a revolutionary design for us from the top-level on down to most components.

University of Washington Design Images

Anybody else care to share theirs?

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

Wow Denny, after all the rubbish I had to wade through on the 'plane from Australia last year, you can't believe how pleased I am that at least one team heard what I had to say about illustrations that actually showed the judges what your car was all about.
Congratulations mate, Magnificent!!!
PDR

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Denny, do you mind me asking exactly how you came up with these images?

are they from a package that specialises in rendering solid models?

or are those images from the CAD package itself?

Frank

a question for Pat..

these "drawings" ..

i remember people saying DONT use 3D renderings, DO use drafts

should this be modified to read ONLY use 3D renders if they are good.. otherwise use drafts?

regards

Frank

Very nice Denny, good job.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae

The only thing I can say is Damn!!!!!!
Those are nice. What program did you use to do that?

"A woman is a lot like a beer, they look good, smell good, and you would run over your own mother to get one." Homer Simpson

Damn Denny, I don't think I'd share our photos after seing those. And we were really proud of ours..... tried to follow Pat's advice (a first for our team).... but not to that level.... we only had Pro-E available though.... what else did you use? Lightwave/3d-Max/other?

SAE - dream college....Motorsports - dream job

Left Front
Right Rear, right wheels removed
Haldex Limited Slip Coupling (for AWD system)

Not on par with Washinton's but I did do all the modelling myself, except for the haldex unit and a few odd bits.

Ben Beacock
Co-Manager
2004 Gryphon Racing - University of Guelph

[This message was edited by Ben Beacock on March 02, 2004 at 10:56 AM.]

Ben,
I like your pictures, for AWD that's a pretty well-packaged car.

Thanks for all the compliments! And thanks Pat for all the tips on the forum and in you FSAE-A newsletter articles.

Our CAD model has 2000 parts in it this year, I couldn't do it all by myself if I wanted to

The images came out of SolidWorks directly, with layering in Photoshop. We didn't even use PhotoWorks for rendering this year. Just set up the lighting you want in the assembly, get the shading properties right on your parts, and you can get good-looking images.

To get the final images, I set up a drawing file for each view. Then I saved a lineart version (file-saveas-TIF; options: print capture, "C" paper, 300dpi). After that, I changed to shaded mode, removed the wheels, frame, etc. for each view, and saved another TIF. By the way, these were 6600x5100 pixel images, so it took a while but the detail is very good. For layering, I opened up photoshop, pasted the lineart and shaded versions of each view into a PSD, with the lineart on top. Then change the lineart layer blending to "multiply", so you can see the shaded image through the lines. Crop, save as a JPEG, downsize to 50% so the file isn't huge, and off you go.

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

Thanks Denny,

I'm really impressed with how your outlines define the components. I tried the same thing, but get too many lines and it looks cluttered. (I use IDEAS v9)

2000 components is quite a feat! For reference mine is only about 350.

Ben

Ben Beacock
Co-Manager
2004 Gryphon Racing - University of Guelph

Hey denny, on the management side of the drawings ... how do you spread out the worktask for the drawings? do you have like a CAD group in itself or you have those who are designing their parts, do the drawings?

RiNaZ

Hey Denny,

After looking closer at your drawings I was very impressed by that shifter handle. Definitly a cool looking design. Also, I was wondering what the little cage around that gas pedal is for?? Don't plan on letting the driver take his foot off ever, or is it just so that he/she can pull the throttle back at whatever rate they choose?

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae

The shifter knob is from Joe's Racing, a local company that's sponsoring us. We couldn't make one much lighter, and it looks awesome, so we went for the "bling bling" this time.

The funny stuff on the pedals is to prevent stuck throttle incidents. You've all seen the pics from VT, and we had a couple of very close calls due to stuck throttles this summer, and another similar event where the driver's braking foot slid over and held his throttle foot down in the braking zone, unbeknownst to him So, with this system, you can pull back on the throttle, and your left foot is prevented from sliding over and holding down the gas. We came WAY too close to some light poles and the end of the parking lot, which were both far off the intended path of the car Haven't had an incident since (knock on wood).

Edit: Forgot to answer Rinaz's question.

Rinaz,
Each person on the team is responsible for modeling their parts. The tech leaders and a few other people work on the subassemblies, and then I work on the full vehicle assembly. We've finally figured out a system that works using our FTP server; each technigal group (suspension, engine, drivetrain, driver interface, chassis) makes their own subassembly in their own folder, and the full vehicle assembly just looks for their subassembly. So they can make updates, and the next time anyone opens the FVA, they show up automagically. There's still some risk of overwriting files, but that's only at the tech group level, and they should be communicating with each other already. Also, the subassemblies are mated to the FVA by the vehicle coordinate system, with a minimal number of mates between different subassemblies, which tend to blow up if major changes are made.

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

[This message was edited by Denny Trimble on March 02, 2004 at 02:29 PM.]

Quote Frank "A question for Pat..
These "drawings" .. I remember people saying DONT use 3D renderings, DO use drafts. Should this be modified to read ONLY use 3D renders if they are good.. otherwise use drafts?"

Hi Frank, normally I prefer drafts because renderings, or screen captures of renderings in low res .jpg format look dreadful and are very difficult for a judge to study, but the object of the exercise is to convey information to the judges as succinctly as possible, and when renderings of the quality of Denny's are used, then I have no problems at all. So, I guess the answer to your question is "Yes".
PDR

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Absolutely inspiring. Wish I'd thought of doing that...something for the website I guess. I did give my team captain some hi-res images though, 130 megapixel each.

I was struggling with our Solidworks assembly of only 450 parts. Maybe I have some setting wrong but it'd take like 10 minutes to update drawings or flip from one sheet to another. I can't imagine 2000.

Wow. What sort of rig do you need to handle 2000 components? The P4's at school struggle with 200 parts in CATIA.

Marc
École Nationale d'Aérotechnique

To have all the parts resolved, you need 1GB of RAM. We work by suppressing all the subassemblies when we save, so the next person to come along just unsuppresses the areas of interest (i.e. front suspension and frame) and they can work rather quickly. It really slows down when everything's unsuppressed.

Our computer is an Athlon 1800+, and it took about 5 minutes to save each print capture. Just enough to do a couple laps in Gran Turismo on the nearby PS1

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

Congratulatios Denny, well done.

It's a pity for us,
we thought we must show only drawings,
so we avoided to use rendered models, that are not so different from the Washinghton ones.

Not so bad, we learned the first lesson

V2

Firenze Race Team V2
http://www.firenzerace.too.it
DUCATI POWER at the Università di Firenze

some old stuff (2003 car)
(pre- gas shifter)
(old rear uprights)

about 2/3 way through design (1/2 way through construction) at this stage

http://www.uq.edu.au/fsae/rear_iso_1.jpg
http://www.uq.edu.au/fsae/rear_iso_2.jpg

and some new stuff (2004)
the suspension CAD is my "dumb suspension", that moves around via a spreadsheet

not much final yet, just chassis and suspension geometry

http://www.uq.edu.au/fsae/2004_concept.jpg

[This message was edited by Frank on March 03, 2004 at 04:36 AM.]

Hi V2,
There is no need for pity
The reason for the drawings is to show the judges the 'togetherness' of your design. Sure, Danny's pix are great, but that alone will not get WWU a win in Design. What those pictures will di is set the judges in a very positive frame of mind about the design.
PDR

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy