Formula SAE Australasia 2009 - News, Pics, etc [Archive]

Brett Neale

12-07-2009, 08:50 AM

So it's less than a week until the start of FSAE-A 2009 and there's been barely a peep in the Competitions forum, so I thought I'd kick things off.

How are teams going with their preparations? If previous history is anything to go by, Adelaide would have arrived in Melbourne by now ready for some extra statics prep before Friday, hopefully their car is well tested and ready to go.

And as always, post up some pics of your completed cars and any pics you take on the weekend, there's plenty of overseas fans that would love to see them (including me!).

Good luck to all teams competing!

Here's the list of competing teams from SAE-A's website:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">
1 University of Western Australia
3 University of Newcastle
4 University of Wollongong
7 Edith Cowan University
8 University of Adelaide
10 RMIT University
11 University of Melbourne
12 Iran University of Science and Technology, Arak Branch
13 Swinburne University of Technology
14 Curtin University of Technology
15 UNSW @ ADFA
18 VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering & Technology
21 Tokyo Denki University
22 University of Sydney
25 University of Waikato
41 University of Queensland
46 Queensland University of Technology
47 University of Auckland
59 University of Technology Sydney
66 Monash University
72 University of South Australia
77 King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
89 PEC University of Technology
63 University of New South Wales </pre>

Brett Neale

12-07-2009, 08:50 AM

MalcolmG

12-07-2009, 03:06 PM

we're gonna be updating our team twitter page pretty regularly. Bare in mind that the guy doing it is a commerce student so accuracy may not always be great...

https://twitter.com/FSAE_Auckland

Pennyman

12-07-2009, 03:25 PM

I'm also looking forward to this. I always get pumped up when a competition rolls around.

Goodluck to all teams, remember that imageshack (http://www.imageshack.us) has free image hosting so you can post a lot of pictures for our enjoyment! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

JR @ CFS

12-07-2009, 06:23 PM

I'll be there as a volunteer but will try to get plenty of pics. Let's hope the rain holds off (yep, it's pouring down right now!)

plohl

12-08-2009, 08:30 PM

UQ wont be there... again...

Good luck to all the teams attending!

MalcolmG

12-10-2009, 05:36 AM

first day today, 3 teams got through tech: Wollongong, Monash and us (Auckland). Only one person doing tech inspection which actually made it run quite smoothly, but meant the number of teams able to get through was limited.

We had a sweet pre-event at Silhouette karts with 8 teams showing up to do some last minute testing yesterday (ourselves, Monash, QUT, UTS, Swinburne, UWA, ECR, Melbourne). Weather is looking pretty miserable

Chapo

12-10-2009, 01:16 PM

Did you guys get any pictures or videos from the pre-event? I can not make the comp until tomorrow (Saturday) and am hanging out big time to see all then new cars.

I'm like an addict, I need more FSAE!

Kirby

12-10-2009, 04:12 PM

Checking in..

Busy day this morning with statics in full swing. I spoke on the phone last night to Mick (old QUT guy) and promised I would do my best to keep the people that couldn't make it.

Expect sporadic posts as I wrap my head around twitter.

www.twitter.com/FSAEA09 (http://www.twitter.com/FSAEA09)

JeffreyH

12-11-2009, 01:23 AM

Second day went well. Auckland, Monash, Wollongong, Swinburne and perhaps Melbourne are now through scrutineering completely (as of ~5 15pm). I'm not sure about the latter - Melbourne had a bit of difficulty on brake test but I think they got it before I left. The tilt test had a large queue, which was to be expected.

The static events went well for us (Auckland) I think, but we'll find out about that shortly.

I'm looking forward to a good day of events tomorrow.

Pictures will be up on our webpage in a couple of minutes (see Malcolm's signature).

oz_olly

12-11-2009, 04:02 AM

ADFA has made it through tech inspection and almost made it through tilt but we had a tiny little fuel leak from the sight tube. The hose had be crimped a bit from the clamp.

Static events went fairly well. It is always so hard to tell with the design judges. Our from and rear beam axle suspension has been generating a great deal of discussion which is good. Some people think it's insane and a complete waste of time and the car will be never be successful, while others can see our reasoning and wish us well. It was also good to know we weren't the only ones having trouble with the cost report format and the failed simple maths.

Cheers

Olly

ACME Racing
UNSW@ADFA

Kirby

12-11-2009, 04:17 AM

dunno if my post went through or is being moderated or what.

For those interested, you can follow me on twitter @FSAEA09.

gots some photos from the cars, will try and keep the info and results coming.

rjwoods77

12-11-2009, 09:50 AM

Oz_olly,

Pictures please. I would love to see the beam axles. I always thought they would package real nicely, if it all dual beam axles worked that is, if you did a satchell link rear and front beam axle that connected to the main roll hoop so that the only other forces induced into the chassis were dampers. Make chassis design easy squeazy.

Is that the Iranians first car in FSAE? Looks like they did there homework.

Fred G

12-11-2009, 09:49 PM

Rob,

I agree if that is the case.

http://img49.yfrog.com/img49/8969/xqvc.jpg

Fred

MalcolmG

12-12-2009, 04:23 AM

Results off the top of my head:
Skidpad:
1 - Monash
2 - UWA
3 - Auckland

Accel
1 - UWA
(don't remember any others apart from our 10th)

Autocross
1 - Monash
2 - Swinburne
3 - UWA
4 - QUT
5 - Auckland

Cost
1 - Monash
2 - UWA? (maybe 3rd actually)

Business
don't remember TBH

Design Finalists
Monash, Auck, UWA, ECR

Monash currently ahead on points, followed by UWA then Swinburne I think. We're 5th or 6th overall

ibanezplayer

12-12-2009, 05:38 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MalcolmG:
UWA currently ahead on points, followed by UWA... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

UWA seems to be doing pretty good, 1st AND 2nd!

Keep us posted tomorrow alright guys(paging kirby...)? Best of luck to everyone for endurance.

Felippe Vieira - Fórmula FEI

12-12-2009, 07:45 AM

pics!!! and about rmit?? how are they??

Gurkaran

12-12-2009, 08:00 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Design Finalists
Monash, Auck, UWA, ECR

UWA currently ahead on points, followed by UWA then Swinburne I think. We're 5th or 6th overall

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the updates Malcolm. Good to see our team is doing well.. also great to see ECR in design finals in only their second year.

Best of luck to all the teams tomorrow.

rjwoods77

12-12-2009, 07:19 PM

Congrats to IUST even though they didn't pass tech. From the couple pics posted it looks like they did a great job getting a car together. Finally some news out of Iran that doesn't involve people being beaten in the streets for voicing opinions and Ahmadinejad bringing the world closer to WW3. I wish you much luck in the future.

Pennyman

12-12-2009, 09:59 PM

Any news on why they didn't pass tech? Their car looks amazing for a first year vehicle...

Was it dumb like templates or something more important?

MalcolmG

12-13-2009, 01:25 AM

sorry, apparently I'm an idiot! I meant to say Monash ahead on points, followed by UWA

Anyway, it's over now, and Monash really dominated! Took out static events and dynamics, think the tally was first in design, cost, skidpad, autocross, endurance, second in accel, and 1st overall! Possibly the first endurance win I've heard of where the team had taken a 2 min penalty for running out of order (they broke their drivetrain in the first endurance). Definitely countered my statement a couple of weeks ago on here about how I thought wings wouldn't win an Aus comp.

2nd was UWA and 3rd was Wollongong (the beginning of a return of the mighty gong?). UWA were running strong in the second endurance but had some problem, not sure what it was.

RMIT had difficulties all weekend, I couldn't tell you specifically what they were but they did get through an endurance and won fuel economy.

Swinburne had a good comp I think, but devastatingly couldn't restart in either endurance

QUT and Wollongong were 2nd and 3rd in endurance I think, can't remember the order. QUT also received the first official coneboy award.

Other highlights - ADFA finished their first enduro in a number of years (didn't get a chance to check the car out, but good on them). South Australia also got through both enduros.

Finally, we unfortunately failed to finish either enduro. In the first one we pulled a clevis apart, bent an a-arm and pushrod. Fixed it for second enduro, then a mysterious cooling system issue killed us in the second. We still proved the performance of the concept we'd developed, by having our most competitive autocross ever despite being underpowered and a bit heavy. Watching our first enduro driver reel in and overtake UWA was incredibly satisfying. I really hope next year's team is able to fulfill the potential of the concept. We also had a lot of interest and compliments about our car and the powertrain package

Might add more comments and/or details later. After party time!

FStotal.com

12-13-2009, 01:31 AM

Cost:
1st Monash 74,87
2nd Woolongong 74,12
3rd UWA 67,26
Design:
1st Monash 150
2nd UWA 145
3rd Auckland 135
Presentation:
1st Woolongong 75
2nd ADFA 66,97
3rd UWA 65,08
Acceleration:
1st UWA 4,16s
2nd Monash
3rd Woolongong
SkidPad:
1st Monash 4,967s -> 1,39g
2nd UWA
3rd Auckland
AutoX:
1st Monash 43,6431s
2nd Swinburne 49,4158s
3rd UWA 49,8787s
Endurance:
1st Monash
2nd QUT
3rd Woolongong
Fuel:
1st RMIT
2nd Melbourne
3rd ECU
Overall:
1st Monash 924,43
2nd UWA
3rd Woolongong

Congratulations to the team from Monash.

Many thanks to the twiter Account of FSAEA09, you did a really great job!

Brootal

12-13-2009, 01:33 AM

Just spoke to a friend of mine on the ECU Racing Team. Finished 5th overall and were Top 10 in all events.

They are rapt, and considering it's only the second year for us at ECU, it was a mighty fine effort.

Mechanical problems in the second enduro, CV joint and lose bolts, got them black flagged.

Only down side is, we'll have to try to do even better next year. Eek!

Well done guys. Wish I was there.

Brett Neale

12-13-2009, 04:18 AM

Congratulations to Monash, you guys have been knocking on the door of an overall win for years. No doubt well-deserved!

Sorry to hear about your Enduro DNF's Auckland, but it's great to hear your concept proved to be beneficial.

Anyone got any updates from Adelaide?

PProb

12-13-2009, 04:19 AM

looking through the photos, the ECR car again looked very presentable...this time in the john player colour scheme. The car from Iran also looks pretty good for a first year car.

benny41

12-13-2009, 04:53 AM

Congrats to the guys from Monash.

Kirby

12-13-2009, 03:33 PM

Checking in.

Awesome weekend. Some really great cars, monash show that cars with wings can win. They all worked really hard and there was alot of tension as they did their enduro with everyone watching to see if the welds in the driveline would hold out.

Malcom: Missed you at the afterparty

Brett: Aprillia proves to be a too-wild beast for us at adelaide to tame. Engine issues cost us in the second enduro. Loose bleeder in the fist. Still only completing one dynamic event (autocross) we came 12th. Solid statics, good result in cost.

To everyone that enjoyed my twitter feed, it was a new experience for me. I'm glad I was able to help. It was alot of fun and pretty soon alot of people started to recognise me as the "twitter guy". Thanks to everyone for being friendly (most of the time) and giving me the inside scoop alot of the time.

Probably the most fun competition I've ever been to.

Finally, for those wondering about RMIT, I managed to peice it together over the weekend: They use a hydraulic shifter setup, they routed the line over their header and burnt through...they were without a spare. They had issues getting a new one and issues with the fittings. They got out to autocross with a hack job using a throttle cable, but it meant they could only shift up...one driver was forced to run autocross in 3rd.

Managed to get a new hyraulic setup working but binned it into a gate in the first enduro and couldn't restart. Finally got out and posted a reasonable time in the second. The guys all worked really hard over the weekend, and it's a credit to them that they managed to get going in the end.

plohl

12-13-2009, 04:45 PM

Congrats to Monash! I thought uwa had it, and really liked auklands new car and was hoping it performed well.

Thanks heaps Kirby for keep everyone upto date!

Mike Cook

12-13-2009, 06:43 PM

But I thought a wing car could never win? Oh oh oh..

Congrats Monash.

dazz

12-13-2009, 10:52 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by FStotal:
AutoX:
1st Monash 43,6431s
2nd Swinburne 49,4158s
3rd UWA 49,8787s </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Has anyone ever won Autocross by this big of a margin before? A 5.77s margin is HUGE, I saw UWA and Swinburne's laps and they were really giving it everything.

Now to play the devils advocate...
Wings done right = massive advantage? Even on the notoriously tight Aust. track? (this year was far more open than last to be fair though)

Fred G

12-14-2009, 12:34 AM

Wings have always had the advantage on an auto-x track due to the extra tractive capacity gained by the wings off the bat, which even out as the un-winged cars tyres warm up - hence in enduro, lap times would be closer...

5.77s is a huge margin, but I'm under the impression this margin was this huge because the other teams incurred 2 sec penalty for hittng cones.

None the less, any margin above 2-3 sec is to be considered HUGE!

Congrats to Monash.

Fred

dazz

12-14-2009, 12:50 AM

ahh yeah, I may have missed that. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Hooper

12-14-2009, 12:58 AM

Monash's Autocross time was 48.64, giving them a winning margin of 0.77 seconds, not 5.77. Must've been a typo by FSTotal

Kirby

12-14-2009, 02:31 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Hooper:
Monash's Autocross time was 48.64, giving them a winning margin of 0.77 seconds, not 5.77. Must've been a typo by FSTotal </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Haha. Just checked then, the 43.64 Monash time was a typo on my feed. Whoops. Correct time is 48.6431.

was inevidible to get a few typos in there I suppose.

benny41

12-14-2009, 03:05 AM

and here i was thinking that they forgot to put cones out on the track.....

FStotal.com

12-14-2009, 03:18 AM

No prob Krirby you did a great job with your tweets.

Who can help us with some interesting pictures from the event for the FStotal.com gallery (http://www.fstotal.com/pics)? Watermark is no problem, please send seperately.

Skype: FS_total
mail: mail@FStotal.com

Chapo

12-14-2009, 04:25 PM

Does anyone know the overall placings? Or have they still not been released?

Moke

12-14-2009, 08:14 PM

What a mixed bag of a weekend. It was great to see a car that shouldn't win win and by a good amount too. I hope that it makes some people think about long held beliefs.

Personally it was sweet to have no responsibility relating to the car and to just enjoy the comp. Although I'm not sure making Team, Team Support Team responsible for setting up the skid pan and marking the cones on the track was the best idea. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

For those that didn't attend the after party awards or could hear the videos, I'll be posting them on you tube in the next few days. but the winners were:

Pimp my pits (best pits): Swineburne
Popped my FSAE cherry (best rookie): The Thai team
Good bugger award: Monash and Auckland
Carbon Wank: RMIT
Hard luck award: Victoria / everyone
and of course
Mr FSAE-A 2009: The Scwog(sp) (small gay wog) from I forget where
Mrs FSAE-A 2009: Steff from ADFA for reasons we can't discuss.

See you all next year.

andrewd

12-15-2009, 01:14 AM

Anyone got pictures????

mattxp65

12-15-2009, 03:20 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Moke:
Pimp my pits (best pits): Swineburne
Popped my FSAE cherry (best rookie): The Thai team
Good bugger award: Monash and Auckland
Carbon Wank: RMIT
Hard luck award: Victoria / everyone
and of course
Mr FSAE-A 2009: The Scwog(sp) (small gay wog) from I forget where
Mrs FSAE-A 2009: Steff from ADFA for reasons we can't discuss.

See you all next year. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi all

well done to monash and The Sgwog was Swinburne's team leader

Matt
Swinburne 07-09

PatClarke

12-15-2009, 04:44 AM

Quote Pennyman "Was it dumb like templates or something more important?"

In sending a little message of discontent, the organisers of FSAE measured template compliance, but did not issue penalties.

They didn't roll a broomstick under the cars either =]

ARAK did not meet the structural requirements and had a myriad of issues that could never be fixed in time.

Instead of having them set off on a fruitless task, I suggested they withdraw the car and I teamed up the individual team members with other teams so they could learn something.

The culture is a little different in Oz.

Pat

PS, The team that won and won well, Monash, had a full Aero car, with the aero download fed directly into the uprights. They also had a spool!
That should start some head scratching!

PC

Bretton Woods

12-15-2009, 06:41 AM

Just a heads up for those interested; the guys from CSU should have the video of the comp cut together by the end of January, but it may be a little longer owing to their own commitments.

MRT_Xii

12-15-2009, 11:58 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">PS, The team that won and won well, Monash, had a full Aero car, with the aero download fed directly into the uprights. They also had a spool!
That should start some head scratching!
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps their rear roll axis is a mile below CG??? You still end up with half the downforce of the wing. Head scratch...

dazz

12-16-2009, 03:31 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MRT_Xii:
Perhaps their rear roll axis is a mile below CG??? You still end up with half the downforce of the wing. Head scratch... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Half of the aero downforce can't just disappear. I think it's a bit of a baited question from Pat (shock! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif) - whenever you have high steering angles, car speed is low, so there will be little downforce generated from the wing. I would think you could almost ignor the wings for low speed cornering, assuming the weight swinging around above the drivers head is not significant.
At high speeds when a lot of aero downforce is generated, steering anlges will be very small and so potential understeer issues from the spool are not that bad.
Their suspension geometry is obviously designed to unweight the inside rear quite a lot, and Monash demonstrated that very clearly in the skidpad event! Perhaps more so than non-aero cars that run a spool?

JR @ CFS

12-16-2009, 06:41 PM

Hi All,

Just wanted to say it was my first experience of FSAE-A, and although not quite on the same size scale as FSAE-West of FSUK, I had a fantastic time. Special note needs to be given to the ability of spectators to get so close to the action unlike the UK (for Fig of 8 and the mamouth walk required to get to the outer stands) and FSAE-West (where you need Bino's).

I worked tilt on Saturday and had a good look at quite a few of the cars. I was thoroughly impressed by UWA's suspension. Special note goes to the Military guys who I had a good chat with and the guys from Auckland, who not only had a chat with me about their engine design, they did it while standing in the queue to the design finals.

I was marshalling later in the Autocross and my car of the day was Auckland who didn't look quick until they came hammering through our section and it was bloody impressive! It was also interesting to be on "the otherside" i.e. having to call in problems I spotted while cars were driving (unfortunate that I have shit hot vision!). Controversial, but everything I called, the teams were sent off to fix.

JRod

12-16-2009, 06:54 PM

Actually, our rear roll axis is probably relatively high. I can't say exactly how high, because we raised it in testing to make the car handle, and have not yet measured where it went. In as much as aero affecting wheel loading, we just add the appropriate amount of downforce to each wheel weight after we do our weight transfer calculation and design our roll stiffness distribution around that.

Since I'm posting now, I'd like to say I had a blast at comp, and it was a pleasure to meet all the teams there, in particularly, Auckland, who are always a fun lot, Cameron from Melbourne; a very switched-on guy, and The USyd team, with their magic uni-joints, The ADFA crew, the Thailand team... I could go on...

lozo

12-16-2009, 08:12 PM

I am currently in the process of sorting through the pictures I have taken for the competition. However, my signature will take you to the album where I have already uploaded some select photos.

Cheerios

Scott Wordley

12-16-2009, 09:58 PM

Wow, what a comp!

There are tons of people I would like to thank... in particular

Auckland - Hard luck again this year, but a great bunch of guys and a pleasure to host each year. If you can get that car reliable its going to be a weapon. Bring back the wings!

Moke TV - Brent and crew, I couldnt imagine comp without you guys. Please keep coming back and doing your very special thing, we all need to be reminded not to take ourselves too seriously some times, and you guys do a great job of that. Managed to snag a pink t-shirt too, score.

UWA - Pushed hard all weekend and did not give up an inch. Pete was very unlucky not to take us down in Autocross (hitting the last cone) and also set incredible times in the second enduro. I had our pace board out in 2nd enduro, just to make sure he could keep his fastest lap ;p hahaha Glad we caught you on a bad weekend! Thanks also for the opportunity to car swap on Monday, I think we will both take away a lot from the experience. Would be good to get as many teams as possible there next year, us Aussie teams need to stick together and learn from each other if we are going to take it to the germans.

Swinburne - A great bunch of guys and an amazing new car, it just looked right everywhere. Unlucky this year but expecting you to come back strong next year. Hope you get to keep your new advisor he seems good for the team.

ADFA - Amazingly innovative car, we have always had a thing for de dions, great to see someone do it right. Smart, generous bunch of guys too, special thanks to sergio who helped us sunday morning by drilling lockwire holes in 20 or more bolts for us so we could get out for that second enduro.

UNSW - Ross and Kegsie, you crazy men. Cant believe what you guys did to get that car here, and almost to the end of an enduro. Madness.

A big thanks to the organisers, scruitineers and marshalls, no kidding, even with small number of volunteers this was the best organised FSAE-A event ever... and not just cos we won.

Scruitineering was pretty quick and efficient and safe. While I missed chatting with Michael and Suzanne I did not miss arguing for half an hour about whether a seat belt was 1 degree outside the allowed angle or not.

For the first time ever Acceleration event was staged PROPERLY, every single time. None of this staging then rolling backwards, or the old wipe the tyres and roll it backwards tricks. Trust us we tried! Every car was in the same position, every time. Such a relief to concentrate on the car and the driving rather than trying to get an advantage in staging.

The Autocross and Endurance tracks were sensible, varied and within the specifications laid out in the rules. Driver's hands didnt fall off from an endless line of 6m slaloms, and because of that Im pretty sure much less cones were hit overall, making for better racing, better viewing and safer marshalling. Why cant it be like this every year?

So a special thanks to Marissa, Flip, Mark, Adrian, Rob, Rod, Stephan, Steve, Chris and Chris for making that all happen. If anyone has contact details for Erin Heasman I would love to thank her for the many years of putting up with my complaints! She'll never believe we won though.

And lastly, a special thank you to both Pat and Claude. While we haven't always agreed with what you guys have had to say, you have both pushed us and much of the competition to do better, think more, and work harder, which is always a good thing.

I think thats it...

Cheers,

Scott Wordley

Monash University
2000-2009
"oh... and the wings don't work."

Moke

12-16-2009, 11:30 PM

You sound like you are not going to be around anymore Scott and we all know that's never going to happen. There is a spot on Team, Team Support Team for you next year so start looking for a jacket.

And it's Safety Salmon.

Fred G

12-17-2009, 12:32 AM

Results are out...

http://www.saea.com.au/formula-sae-a

andrewd

12-17-2009, 01:35 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Scott Wordley:

Pete was very unlucky not to take us down in Autocross (hitting the last cone) and also set incredible times in the second enduro.
Cheers,

Scott Wordley

Monash University
2000-2009
"oh... and the wings don't work." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Geez i thought there was a limit to the number of competitions one could attend let alone drive! Precious must be overdue haha

oz_olly

12-17-2009, 02:59 AM

Wow... What a competition.

I think the spirit and atmosphere at the comp this year was the best I have experienced since 2004. Team's were helping each other out left right and center. We had a horrible time passing noise but managed to get through after stuffing the exhaust with steel wool, welding restrictions in (couldn't reach test rpm at one stage). Eventually we added a section of tube after the silencer which pointed our exhuast up and over the rear wheel. Unfortunately we missed skid pad and acceleration.

We scored our best ever result in design at 9th place. The majority of our feedback related to not having any supporting evidence. The judges seemed to be ok with my justification for using beam axles and we had a really good spread of knowledge across the team. We will be doing more work to quantify our decision over the next year.

We had some people tell us we were fools for using dependant suspension and others say we were inspired. It is a concept we are really keen to explore and expand upon. I will be taking the advice of Ron Tauranac and looking for opportunities to simplify (Ron thinks beams are silly by the way). I was telling Claude about our suspension and he said "why would you have beam axle when you can have independent suspension... it is a race car... it's like having the fat ugly girl when you can have a beauty". At least I can touch my roll centre http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif.

The front beam is a peg and slot design inspired by Z and the model T Ford. I spent about 4 hours on the phone to Erik (Z) about this time last year. The rear was developed in conjunction with my supervisor at ADFA who has been nudging me to try it for several years. I have to say the torsion beam part of the rear design was his idea. The rear is de Dion Twist Axle with Watt’s linkage. It was fun to swap notes with Paul Clausen from Adelaide about beam axle designs and he was quite complimentary so it’s good to know we have some fans, no matter how biased they may be.

I will be posting some pics up on a photo bucket account very soon. Search for oz_olly.

Finishing endurance for the first time in four years was the highlight of my FSAE year for sure, thanks to all the guys for the support and especially to Rob Chadwick and the others who showed great application of common sense and let us continue the endure after our car was spotted dumping water out of the cooling over flow.

I am keen to start a beam axle thread or continue an old one so if your are keen Rob, we can move start a more beam specific conversation there so that I don't hijack this thread.

Cheers

Olly

ACME Racing
UNSW@ADFA

Jon Oneill

12-17-2009, 03:47 AM

Thank Heavens its over for another year!

It was our first year back on the scene and we'd like to think it was pretty successful even if the points for us dont reflect it.

Considering we were essentially a team of 4 people, we're stoked to have competed in every event this year. For the 5 years I've been on the team at UTS, this was the first we've passed scruiteneering so its a pretty big achievement from our end.

Unfortunately 4 people cant produce a car that is 100% but i think we got as close as we could under the circumstances. And we're really happy with our 61 sec auto X time. Considering we have no Anti roll, hardly any damping, we had an electrical issue, engine misfiring and we made 3 mistakes on our lap, we were pretty happy.

Unfortunately, our steering system just wasn't up to scratch to last the whole enduro. It was actually getting heavier with every lap so our driver decided to park the car. An unfortunate event but easily fixable for next year. We're sorry for anyone we held up and sorry to the marshals who constantly had to replenish the cones. We were despirately trying to complete every event this year but I guess enduro will just have to wait.

A big thanks to the guys from Swinburne for trying to help us out over the weekend as well. We've still got no idea whats causing the engine issue but we plan to rip out the loom and start from scratch to make sure it never happens again. You should also take the credit for keeping a few of our team members motivated for the coming year after a quite disapointing event from our end. Consolations on the electrical issue for enduro btw.

And we still dont see the VW in our cars rear end? but thanks for all the nice coments regarding the shifter and the bodywork. Considerable time went into them both so its nice to know they were apreciated.

Thanks for the great event guys and we'll see you next year. We'll have event photos up soon but the website is all done so check it out.

Jon

oz_olly

12-17-2009, 04:33 AM

I have posted some quick CAD renders at http://s928.photobucket.com/home/oz_olly

I will add some photos once I get them. I didn't manage to take a single photo of my own over the weekend. Hopefully my team mates have some.

We also have more pics at www.fsae.unsw.adfa.edu.au (http://www.fsae.unsw.adfa.edu.au) (our new web address)

Cheers

Olly

Michael Royce

12-17-2009, 11:24 AM

Scott et al,
Yes, Suzanne and I did miss being down under this year. Like a lot of people, the travel money just was not in our budget.

Scott, I know we are tough on the safety items, but I never realized we hassled you to that degree over seat belt angles!! The belts are probably the second most important safety item on the car (after the helmet), and we have seen some dubious installations over the years. Hopefully, the changes on belts in the 2010 Rules will improve things.

Congratulations to all on a safe, and from all accounts, enjoyable event.

Mike Cook

12-17-2009, 01:56 PM

Do they plan on posting the FULL results with actual times?

Mike

Scott Wordley

12-17-2009, 02:53 PM

Hi Michael,

I hope you realise that I was having a bit of a joke! As one of the few teams to have a serious off-track excursion at speed (2002) we do know the importance of belts and helmets, and appreciate why you guys are tough on that stuff. I was just a bit disappointed that we put 4 different seat belt mounting holes into our chassis and didnt get a chance to let you choose your favorite! As you say, the 2010 changes should improve things in that respect.

Hope to see you guys down here again next year, or possibly at Formula Student UK,

Scott

bmw.williams1

12-17-2009, 03:55 PM

Hey guys, here's a Wollongong perspective on the competition...

For our team, we had an excellent competition. We finally returned to the podium after 3 years which was a fantastic feeling after such a horrible year. At mid way through the year our team dwindled from about 8 to 4, meaning our timeline was shot to hell from there. It was a fantastic effort to even arrive at the competition, let alone do so well in all events, except design and skidpad, but that is another story all together which next years guys are chasing up. Our stupidly heavy steering caused by god knows what hurt us in the corners, however our very well tuned turbo made us crazy fast from a rolling start on the straights which definately got us over the line. All in all an extremely good effort for all those involved, and I hope next years guys can turn that 3 into a 1.

The competition itself was also great. Despite the lack of volunteers the event seemed to run smoothly. We were never turned down when asked for help by any team which really created a good competition environment. Congratulations to all teams for achieving their personal goals and overall results.

We have around 40GB of video and photos so I'm hoping someone will put that up on our team website soon.

Cheers guys,

Ben Williams,
2009 UOW FSAE Team Leader