F1 in Schools Help - basizeland's project

[Mystery Steve]

Definitely post some pictures once it's machined, or even while it's being machined if you are able to see it being made. Out of curiosity, what kind of machining capabilities do you have access to as a high school student? When I was doing a very similar project in high school(minus the CFD and 3D CAD.. we had a mechanical drafting class and an AutoCAD class), our machining consisted of cutting out the general shape with a band saw and then chiseling and sanding to what looked like the final shape in our drawing. It wasn't quite as high-tech, but was still fun.

[Ciro Pabón]

They use a robotic lathe, if I understood correctly the pictures at the F1 in Schools site.

[F1_Guru]

Hi sorry I havent had time to read the whole six pages but just thought i could give you some advice, i know you cant change anything know but you might get through to the nationals and this information might help you.
I am James Presling, manufacturing engeneer for AC Raceing. I designed and built the F1 car you were looking at before the one with the clip on wing.
First i would like to congatulate you for the progress that you have made i have been doing this for 3 years and i know how much time and efort goes into this competition.
The car that i made to go to the internationals this year had a asporator, the idea was to have a clip on rear wing that had a vuntury that could suck in more mass flow to increse thrust by creating a choke point you increse velocity ind decrese presure this creates a vacume and sucks in more air, more mass airflow = more thust.
I used solidworks to do all of our analisis, this program is very good it alows to create co2 gas flow from the cylender, diferent options with the analisis and more acurite analisis on diferent 'goals' such as drag or downforce.
A expert arodynamics expert told me that there is a direct relashionship between drag and surface area, this means more surface area = more drag. so try and keep surface area as small as posible.
If there is any questions i would be glad to anwser.
Good luck.

[tok-tokkie]

I have only just found this thread (was away on a trip). Fascinating.

No suggestion was made to angle the jet upwards slightly to prevent flipping. I appreciate you lose thrust by the Sine of the angle. Have not read the rules so it may not be permitted or possible with the manufacturing limitations.

Self taught CATIA is a great vindication for the originators of this competition.

[basizeland]

Hi James congrates on the 3rd place at worlds. We were looking at doing something with the asporator idea altough we ran out of time to do enough testing with it so we have put it on hold and try it if we make nationals. I am trying to do everything possible to make it to nationals again this year after making it there for the first time last year as Impulse Racing. I have one question though do you know how to fix CATIA leaving parts of the car not machined properly because it normally happens on the CO2 housing. I have found that if I do the top or bottom machining and add a pad through the whole car to get it to machine up to the pad to cut all of the material out but I cant figure it out for the side of the canister housing.

Hi Tok-tokkie we have been thinking of angling the jet to see what difference it makes but we have got the time to try it before the state final because it is only just over a week away.

[flynfrog]

no reason to angle the jet its on a string

[basizeland]

yeah it most likely wouldnt do anything although it might help hold the front of the car down because the string isnt really tight and it still allows the car to lift off the track and even hit the side of the track.

[basizeland]

Here are some pics of the car just before paint











Here is a render of what the car will hopefully look like when complete

[flynfrog]

very cool

[Callum]

This sounds really, really pernicity but do you need to add the sponsors to the wheel.. increasing the wheel's mass?

[basizeland]

The two sides of the wheel dont turn so having the stickers on there wont affect the cars performance

[F1_Guru]

The reson that it will leave balsa wood around the cylender housing is because catia thinks that the cutter is geting to close to the spigot.
To fix this you have to chage one of the settings to less than the wall thickness of the cylender housing. I am a bit rusty so im not sure exactly wich setting to change. If you still have trouble i will look into it for you.

[basizeland]

I figured it out it was the offset on check setting because I had it set to 3.5mm as the tutorial said to. Thanks for helping me with that

[basizeland]

Hi everyone we had the state final today so i thought that i would give you anupdate on what happened. There was only 1 car to run under 1.1 seconds before we ran and they got 1.073 seconds. We had our races and the best time that we got was 1.046 seconds so we had the fastest car at the state final. I would like to thanks everyone that contributed to this thread and helped me produce a winning design.

[flynfrog]

=D> Great work