Call for help fom University of California schools

[ucdremy]

Hey everyone,
Recently here at UC Davis some inconvenient things happened all at once. First we got a new safety nazi for the department, then 2 days later a major accident envolving a university electritian happened directly in our small work area. As a result of these two things we now suffer huge safety and access restrictions which we are not used to.

We formerly had 24/7 access to our lab, now they expect us to work a 9-5 schedule. Now on top of that, each new memeber is required to take a 3 hour safety class that is offered once a quarter. We were told that these are UC wide policies to basically cover their asses.

Our Dean of undergrad has suggested that i contact the other UC schools in an attempt to figure out if they endure a similar situation so we can set precedence as we think our safety nazi is full of it. Finding contacts for all of these schools is proving more difficult then i thought so I'm trying here. Input is not limited to just UC schools, the dean just thought that would be most effective.

Obviously we aren't trying to bring this down on your heads so any input will not be linked to a specific school, and it can come from any student project. So PLEASE HELP, we're dying here as we can't get all our work done, and we can't even get new people interested.

Thanks

[VFR750R]

Cornell labs 24hr usage, but machine shop is limited to 8-4 or something along those lines. Students required safety class, but can work in the lab before taking class if with a team member that has taken the class.

We've always had strict policies regarding MSDS sheets, proper labeling on chemical continers and a flammables cabinet. Osha and/or EPA make visits to the school and sometimes our lab every year. I've heard of other departments getting huge 5 digit fines but we've managed to escape disaster. Luckily, between students and professors involved with the program, we know ahead of time when they're coming (although sometimes, less the an hour notice) which allows a quick cleanup of any potential issues and quick getaway before we get asked where the MSDS sheets are for X chemical in the lab.

[js10coastr]

9-5 usage isn't bad, neither is a 3-hour safety class.

Safety is pretty damn important, these are dangerous projects built by students nonetheless. If someone gets hurt it's probably game over.

Cal Poly SLO has a machine shop that is open 5 days a week, but the teams can use it during extended hours within reason. Also, everyone has to take a tour and test before they can use the shop (probably an hour or two).

[Biggy72]

Is that 9-5 and the class is a senior design class? Either way I wouldn't like it much. All of our work gets done Friday night through Sunday for the most part unless we're in crunch time. I know personally I have class from 9-4 three days a week and a relatively full day of classes the other two, so as engine team leader I wouldn't get anything done if I didn't have more access.

With that said we have to take an hour to an hour and a half long safety orientation in the machine shop. Really the only things we have over there are a manual mill, manual lathe, and a band saw, but we do use all of them quite a bit. Once we have that out of the way we have full access to the machine shop and our shop. We are not supposed to have over 10 gallons of flammables in the shop at all times. They won't let us get a flammables cabinet because the area is not a containment area and there are no sprinklers in our building. We are supposed to take out all of the garbage and keep any dirty rags contained somewhere if not taken out in case they catch on fire. Generally we follow most of that stuff, but we did just have to clean quite a few things out because of a safety inspection coming up in the next week or two.

[Orion ZyGarian]

Sounds like something california would do. California ftw!!

[Matt P.]

That sucks:

We don't really have limitations on when we can be in our lab. We are, however, limited to machining no later than 8PM. That can hold things up a little in manufacturing.

You should appeal to your department chair or dean. Say that this is a really demanding project that will not be successful if you can't be in the lab to do the work.

[ucdremy]

Thanks for the support guys. Yeah we historically have only had 8-5, 5 days a week machine shop access which we dealt with, but we could get into our lab 24/7. Now we can only access our lab when the machine shop is open, and nothing on the weekends when we typically did all our composite work. Weekends are also a great time for new people to come in and work and get their feet wet since there is no class. Its truly killing our team, and the Deans don't seem too inclined to help us.

[Brett Neale]

Wow you guys have it sweet! At our Uni we have 8am to 6pm access to our shed and no access at all to ANY sort of plug-in powertool - anything cordless or hand-powered is fine. No 24/7 swipe-card access, no mills or welders for student use... And we usually have a 1 hour safety lecture at the start of each semester for lab work.

If you guys can be pushing for 24/7 access alone you'll be laughing.

[Biggy72]

Brett-

So do you just have someone else make everything for you? Or do you just build the majority of the car at someone's house?

With those sorts of restrictions you much do some creative things. Would you mind to share some of these techniques?

[vreihen]

Would you mind to share some of these techniques?

FWIW, the school that I work for provided a garage with a roof so leaky that it might have been worse than third-world housing as workspace for the Sunrayce team that I was advising. No electricity, no access control, no plumbing, and no security for leaving tools behind at the end of the day. All of the on-campus work was done using my own personal tools to boot!

In terms of fabrication resources, the bulk of the build was "subbed out" to the local high school's auto and metal shop programs. Given the choice between making another set of wrought iron candle holders or building a race car chassis from scratch using provided drawings for a shop project, there was more than enough free labor from the high school students thanks to the support of their shop teacher for our project. It was a win-win for both sides, and they never even charged us for the materials used!

Coming from somebody who assembled a utility trailer kit in his 1 bedroom apartment and carried it in/out every weekend, I'll just point out that when there's a will, there's a way.

Oh, and I'll pass along the greatest piece of motorsports wisdom that I've ever heard. It was published in an old issue of Grassroots Motorsports, in an article about their $200X challenge event. In making recommendations to future competitors, one competitor that year said to always book a hotel room with a hot tub. You never know when you'll need a parts washer at 3:00 AM..... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Biggy72]

I know if there's a will there's a way, but I'm just wondering if the school doing that sort of thing to a team really wants to get the full potential out of a team. If I'm building a car in the living room of my apartment I'll be pretty hard pressed to paint the car the school colors or show up for any sort of recruiting event for the school. Maybe if the school donates lots of money to the club I might do something, but it would still take quite a bit.

When my uncles went to school here they had 4 guys living in a single wide trailer and they were always building engines in their kitchen area. I can't personally do that sort of thing because my girlfriend would kill me, but if she wasn't so picky I'd have something torn apart in here right now... I can not wait until I have a garage again.

[Drew Price]

Ok, I'll chime in.

We have been going through all sorts of hoops with our Risk Management office, since we are building a 'Race Car,' it automatically sounds very dangerous, and where we have had all of our issues has been with on-campus testing, and insurance for transporting the car (in the Baja team's trailer).

It sounds like our access to the shop is one of the best around though, I feel partly because our ME shop guys know and trust all the team leads. 5 members of our team have been teaching freshman machine training the past three weeks a few hours each day on a connect-the-dots mill and lathe project. We bought a batch of electronic access keys that we can distribute to team members to get in the building and the shop after hours (8am-4:30pm). I just got keys to the two CNC mills, the 5 year old Hardinge Super-Precision, and the 5 foot high cabinet of machining goodies last Friday, and there are 4 of us on Formula with master keys to get into the machining cage after hours. We have to sign in time in and out, and anyone we bring in with us after hours. All undergrads in project classes are issued an access key into the assembly area for 24 hour access and can get to hand tools, sanders, the band saws, drill presses, spot welder and sheet metal tools. Each student must go through the 6 hour safety and training course once, then is on file to use the shop. Students log in and out whenever they come into the shop for planning and budgeting purposes. More one-on-one specific training sessions are available sort of at the availability of the shop workers, and go on throughout the quarter, and the 3 guys who work in the shop are primarily responsible for any research or course projects that come into the shop (there are 2 other machine shops on campus specifically for that though, plus department shops), and for assisting undergrads with anything they need in the shop, which ranges from how to attach metal to plastic, to running the dremmel, to CAM help.

The shop is overseen by our Design Institute, and to an extent ME, and for the amount of work going in is pretty underfunded, which I feel is part of why we can get overlooked by having 24hr access to the machines and welding equipment. We were in welding the frame together at 2-3am many nights last year, and already have been this year.

Best,
Drew

[Brett Neale]

Originally posted by Biggy72:
Brett-

So do you just have someone else make everything for you? Or do you just build the majority of the car at someone's house?

With those sorts of restrictions you much do some creative things. Would you mind to share some of these techniques?

We can submit drawings for parts to our Mechanical Engineering Workshop, which has 4 or 5 techs who do work for all final-year projects. This year's project count doubled from last year... but the workshop guys like what we do and how we go about it, and tend to help us out quite a bit. Make sure you treat your workshop techs VERY well, after all they're making bits for you and providing valuable help if you get some tolerancing wrong, or if there's better ways to go about things. We've been holding a workshop drive day after comp for a couple years now to say thanks...

As for the spaceframe, we have a VERY generous guy who used to manage the above workshop (now retired) who fabricates and welds our chassis each year. He's also a wealth of information as a previous drag racing scrutineer, he knows our rules inside out!

But everything else is paid for from sponsorship, which we work EXTREMELY hard each year to obtain new sponsors and retain sponsors from previous years. Our Managing Director spent the whole year (and is still going) working to get new sponsors on board. And we won't hesitate to promote those sponsors in the best way we can, because at the end of the day they're supporting the majority of our project. Sponsors can put in as little as $200 of food for the vehicle launch (which we hold each year to show our sponsors what we've done), or a trade-price account at a auto parts store - every little bit counts.

And, as always, we try to make stuff ourselves to save both the workshop tech's time and our money! Stuff like chassis brackets can be easily fabricated with a hacksaw, cordless drill and file.

Oh, and as for access to the shed, we basically work as much as we can from 8am to 6pm during the week, in between lectures and tutes, staying as late as possible (we know Security pretty well now hehe), and doing what we can at home too. Our body moulds were done completely off-site using a jigsaw, some foam, heaps of bog and a massive amount of sanding (thanks Luke, Dan and Tom!)

[IttyBitty]

Similarly, UC Berkeley has only regular work hour (8-5ish) access to the student machine shop at which you can only machine after going through multiple phase training sessions, which typically takes about 6 hours if you do it all in one day.
But the fsae shop is in a university owned facility off campus. Members have 24 hour access (yes holidays too) and the team purchased a mill, lathe, drill press, - the basics of a machine shop so that there is never a 3 day hold up because they can't make a part over the weekend.
There is no supervision at the shop. The school pretty much leaves the vehicle teams alone.

It really sucks not to have access to your own shop after hours because when are you supposed to attach the things you machined during regular hours if you can't do it in the evening? - the next business day?

anyway, good luck to your team!

Nika
05-07 Engine Chick
GO BEARS!