F1 in Schools - mrjustsid's project

[mrjustsid]

Hey all,
Thanks for all your input.
As requested, here are some pictures of our design from different angles.

Top View:



Side View:



Back View:



This is another design that we came up with today based on the suggestion to follow the land speed record cars' design. This is the best we could do while staying within the rules.



We also wanted to lose mass so we tried hollowing out the bottom.



There is still room to hollow out some more. Will that affect the car in any way?
Please leave your suggestions, and ask us for more pictures if you guys want.
Thanks!

[flynfrog]

the front wing is nothing more than a snowplow its only slowing you down. You want to to have zero angle of attack.

Also the needle sharp point on the co2 holder is not helping you need a nice airfoil cross section.

needles are used on super sonic vehicles where flow starts to become compressible.

the cutouts on the underside are not good for aero as you have them drawn. remember you want to move the air as little as possible.

Check out some of these cars

http://www.science-of-speed.com/showroomlist.asp

they play be differnt rules but the concepts are the same.

[mrjustsid]

So what you're saying is that we should blunt the needle shape on the canister holder? What exactly do you mean by a nice airfoil cross section?
The main aim in designing the 'plow' design on the front wing was to deflect air over the front wheels. Is there a better way to do this?
Also, the cutouts on the underside are only serving the purpose of reducing mass. Is there a more effective way to do this?
Thank you for the link. We will definitely try to incorporate some of those designs into our work.

[autogyro]

So what you're saying is that we should blunt the needle shape on the canister holder? What exactly do you mean by a nice airfoil cross section?
The main aim in designing the 'plow' design on the front wing was to deflect air over the front wheels. Is there a better way to do this?
Also, the cutouts on the underside are only serving the purpose of reducing mass. Is there a more effective way to do this?
Thank you for the link. We will definitely try to incorporate some of those designs into our work.

I think you should put in a little more effort and post your own ideas for updates to your car. There are many on here who can design a very efficient version but just copying their ideas will not progress your thinking by much.
Try thinking outside the box.

[basizeland]

I wouldn't worry about trying to cut out part of the car to save weight because the minimum weight allowed is 55g and from my experience your car is only small so you should have no problem keeping your car at the minimum 55g. If you are still worried though if you can choose which balsa block you machine your car out of, pick the lightest one possible because they vary a lot from block to block.

[flameracing]

how bout having a smooth transition of air on your front wing rather than having a steep snow plow effect. The snow plow is for plowing through snow not to be something thats aerodynamic.