Racecar Engineering Formula Student Article

[ubrben]

Ok, just got my September edition of Racecar (bit late I know, needed to be redirected). And I wanted to add a bit of background to the FStudent article, which I thought was poor.

Firstly, I built two FStudent cars in my final two years at Uni. I did the suspension on both and was in charge of overall vehicle concept on the second. I now work in motorsport and was an FS design judge this year and judged Lulea amongst others. As such I feel my opinion on this is well informed.

I hate to use individual cases, but Lulea got a stack load on undeserved credit in that article. The MR dampers did not have any learning capacity and did not in any way shape or form use vehicle acceleration inputs to adjust vehicle balance. Non of the telemetry had actually been used and they could show us no data acquisition plots. Data acquisition is meant to be used to make the car go faster right?

All the trick stuff's great, but when I asked them about the difference between strength:weight and stiffness:weight in relation to upright design they just looked confused. Stiffness:Weight or Bluetooth gear shifting, which is more important for a racecar engineer/designer to know about?

I thought the comment about 'dumbing down' in relation to chassis construction techniques was awful. Besides 'dumbing down' being a cliche of modern journalism whether it be in relation to schools or BBC television comissioning, the idea that a spaceframe is inappropriately low tech is silly, a discussion about point loading and the complexity of manufacturing a CF tub being clearly beyond the author.

Finally, yes Ewan Baldry from Juno works at UCLAN, but this doesn't mean their ridiculous approach of building a massively overweight and poor car because "we can take it sprinting" should be given more credit than many of the other better engineered cars.

Sorry to be so negative, but if this is most people's only view of what FS is about then they will miss the point and get a very inaccurate view of what it's like to compete and judge at the competition. On that level Racecar's journalism needs to improve.

Ben

[THR]

im gunna have to start a subscribtion to that mag again, i miss it.

its for proper engineers!!!! and i miss it.

non of the other mags go into tech details.. they are all about people.

you sound right to me and i wouldnd argue with you.. and i agree.. but i will read the mag!! lol

[ss_collins]

I wrote it.

And you are not the first to criticise, however I do stand by the article, Lulea went very trick on the electronics for sure - but there is no doubt the students had learnt from it - how much did the TU Graz squad learn?

Formula Student is about learning - and I feel that element is slipping away somewhat, the FSAE (same as FSUK) rules do not really promote learning or innovation at the moment.

On the data aquisition front - it does not make the car go faster - rather it tells the engineers whats going on and hopefully where the car is losing time - how much use it is in a one off event like FS is open for debate - but then should Formula Student cars be able to compete in more events in the UK than one a year - many would say yes - including the UCLAN students. That car wasn't very nice but the students perhaps had a bigger challenge - build an MSA legal (and thus safer) car for the event. Perhaps they learnt more.

I'm not giving extra credit to them - every car at the event is worth at least a three page article but how do you choose them? - which cars would you have wanted to read about?

In your opinion what is FS all about? - learning or who can build the best racecar, those two things are very different. I think the best racecar was either the Oxford Brookes car (which I have driven - and is by far the best racecar I have driven) or the ETS machine. Niether won Formula Student.

I was not suggesting that a spaceframe is "low tech" rather that is is an 'easy way out'. But also pointed out (I hope) that the rules favour spaceframes rather than some trick or innovative solution.

If FS is to become a 'lets build a good racecar' competition then perhaps it should adopt Formula Vee rules, which are acceptable in the UK, Germany, USA, Ireland, Austrialia, New Zealand and South Africa.

But is FS FVee? I think not.

The sentiments in the article were backed up by Allan Stanniforth who was also a judge at the event. That said Paul Van Valkneburgh disagrees with us both. Bad journalism? - I'm not the one to answer that.

However PM me I would like to print your thoughts on the letters page.

[*J*]

Originally Posted by ss_collins

On the data aquisition front - it does not make the car go faster - rather it tells the engineers whats going on and hopefully where the car is losing time - how much use it is in a one off event like FS is open for debate -

if the car is finished with time spare for testing, or indeed testing last years car for future developments then data aquisition could be invaluable, the rules dicatate the nature of the car in the open dynamic events, not to mention the acceleration and skidpan events in which the teams know EXACTLY what has to be done. So in that respect FS should not really be treated as a one off event.

[ubrben]

Hi Sam,

>>Lulea went very trick on the electronics for sure - but there is no doubt the students had learnt from it.

I disagree, the system didn't do half of the stuff they said it did and therefore they couldn't have learnt from it.

>>Formula Student is about learning - and I feel that element is slipping away somewhat.

I agree to some extent, and this was PVV's comment in his column. I also agree with his solution that development and testing is more important than "innovation"

>>On the data aquisition front - it does not make the car go faster - rather it tells the engineers whats going on and hopefully where the car is losing time

I meant data acquistion used appropriately in conjunction with engineering judgement makes the car go faster. I was just using some shorthand.

>>how much use it is in a one off event like FS is open for debate

A team with that much data acq should have shown us how they used it in testing. They didn't.

>>the UCLAN students. That car wasn't very nice but the students perhaps had a bigger challenge - build an MSA legal (and thus safer) car for the event. Perhaps they learnt more.

No one asked them to make it more challenging. Building a competitive car to the regs is hard enough. Making your life harder is stupid and they should get no credit. If they wish to go sprint hillclimbing, they should go sprint hillclimbing.

>>In your opinion what is FS all about? - learning or who can build the best racecar, those two things are very different.

It's about building the fastest racecar. If you do that you will have learnt a hell of a lot. The people who learnt the most this year are almost certainly UWA and their entire approach is about building a quick racecar.

>>rather that is is an 'easy way out'. But also pointed out (I hope) that the rules favour spaceframes rather than some trick or innovative solution.

You're still wrong then. Why this obsession with "trick" or "innovative". A spaceframe is appropriate technology for the level of the comp and any rules that favoured CF monocoques would penalise the majority who can't afford to make them.

>>If FS is to become a 'lets build a good racecar' competition then perhaps it should adopt Formula Vee rules

That is just ridiculous. Formula Vees are rubbish racecars with fundamentally inappropriate suspension technology. I will say again, if you build a good racecar you will also learn. That's the whole point.

>>The sentiments in the article were backed up by Allan Stanniforth who was also a judge at the event. That said Paul Van Valkneburgh disagrees with us both. Bad journalism? - I'm not the one to answer that.

I don't think it was bad journalism as such, I just feel you have a slightly odd view of the competition that prevented you from reflecting the reality for most teams.

Ben

[ss_collins]

My view of the competition is different to some but the same as others - a a judge you may get slightly blinkered as people are always wary - as one of very few grey badges people are always going out of thier way to tell you 'how it is'. You get a lot of conflicting opinions, so the job is to balance it out.

>>I will say again, if you build a good racecar you will also learn. That's the whole point.

On that point you agree with Charles (the editor) however you see some universities churning out very similar 'good racecars' year after year and you wonder if the students are learning less each year.

>>That is just ridiculous. Formula Vees are rubbish racecars with fundamentally inappropriate suspension technology.

Have you driven one or seen them race, they fufill the job perfectly (dirt cheap, competitive and entertaining single seater) - bad racecar? maybe from a pure engineering perspective (off topic I know but note my avatar)

On the side of building good racecars then perhaps it could be said that UCLANS two cars were the best of the bunch - seeing as they are the only ones that can race in the UK - there are many who say FS cars are fundamentally inappropriate for Europe.

>>Why this obsession with "trick" or "innovative". A spaceframe is appropriate technology for the level of the comp and any rules that favoured CF monocoques would penalise the majority who can't afford to make them

and theres the rub, one side of me agrees with you the other disagrees, the disagreement stems from the fact that I feel that the competition is stagnating, and one way to move it on is to somehow reward innovation.

My personal feeling is that the cars for '07 should all be MSA/real world legal at all the FSAE events around the globe - it'll muck up the establishment and perhaps let some new talent show through.

I say again - UBRBEN - send me and e-mail or PM I'd like you to put your thoughts in the magazine

[shiny side up!]

I competed in FSAE for 4 years whilst in Uni. I must say, both of you are making valid points that illustrate the crossroads these FSAE competitions are at...

These teams all face very real-world constraints: Fund raising, rule interpretation, limitations on shop eqiupment / space, part supplier issues, engineering capabilities both human and simulation, etc. And everyone involved comes into it with a different perspective on what a "Good Car" is - judges, journos, race engineering 'experts', uni faculties, and even the students themselves.

Ultimately, there is a set of rules in place that are not interpretted uniformly for all teams let alone all cometition locations (compare design scores for the same car that entered FSAE, FSAE-Australia, and FStudent). The real issue is that the competition leaves so much room for "judging". In the early days of FSAE when the number of teams was measured in tens, perhaps this wasn't such a big issue. The teams that were judged to be good designs built on solid business cases were more often than not the best cars on the track as well. But as the number of teams and amount of prestige awarded the winners built up, the competitive nature of the event took off exponentially as well. Nowadays (direct experience tells me this - I was a competitor only a couple of years ago) teams look for ways to maximize their engineering score that don't do a darn thing to improve performance, safety, or any other calculable dynamic function. A pointed inspection of the pits and engineering displays will turn up FEA images produced in Photoshop, ultra-lightweight designs that fail during the endurance race, safety-wire that has absolutely no use save cosmetics, full carbon monocoques that weight more (and lose to) well designed spaceframes, a custom-built fully stressed V8 with integrated differential housing that was pretty much a $50k+ paperweight, fully active suspension, etc.

My own humble opinion is that the engineering design judging and business presentation portions of the event should be all but eliminated, perhaps only used as tiebreaks. Any students that show up with some sort of rolling contraption will have learned 10 times what their classmates who only do book and lab work have learned, which is, afterall, the reason/spirit of the competition bar none. Even if the car doesn't function the students will have learned many business, engineering, and basic 'real-world' lessons that will prove invaluable to their future careers. To say that a team that has some trick component or other learned more because implementing that design was 'harder' seems daft since it is pretty much impossible to prove that logic completely sound.

In the end, the car that performs best is the car that was most effectively designed, built, engineered, and driven. If only 10% of the cars have data acquisition (which we used with great success... nothing like being able to use your data trace from actual competition to set up courses for testing and training all year and then find that the course is exactly the same when you show up for the next competition!!!) or some other 'advanced' innovation and it makes them faster on the track, then it was engineering muscle and fundraising muscle and hard work well spent, regardless of what some expert judge or journo says...

[ubrben]

Sam, I've PMd/emailed you.

I was at Silverstone the other week for the 750MC summer festival because me and some former FS colleagues are building a Bikesports car and saw all the racing including Vees

For me FVees are awful cars, but like you say that is a bit OT.

Ben

[ss_collins]

You'll have heard me then I was commentating on the Stock Hatches and Vees! Ben you must admit that Vee's are very entertaining? (by the way I race Vees!) OT again...


Tell me about the Bikesports car - as you have probably noticed (being a racecar reader) I'm fascinated by these cars

[GolddustMini]

heyho folks, just in defence of uclan here, im not going to mention anything about the class 1 car as it wasnt my concern however i was part of the class1-200 team that won th design event in class 1-200 with the other UCLAN car (car 222). in the race it had a few niggling problems but we learnt from that and the team have gone away with a stack of learning, our car proved that dispite being slightly heavy it was a still a very quick car (in the sprint and enduro before the suspension failure we were turning in some very quick laps dispite being stuck in a second gear)

quite simple as SS_collins put it, we wanted to build a car that "could" be used outside the formula student competition, therefore in the uk filling the role of us creating a "real" racing car that could be taken to a sprint or hillclimb and used successfully. thus we followed the blue book to the letter and came away with not only an appealing racing car, but an MSA logbook to prove it.


the other reason that as a group of students we decided that the formula student rules were in our eyes dangerous, its been a rule in the majority of motorsports catagories for around 20 years that the drivers feet should be behind the front axle centreline - greatly improving a drivers chances of walking away from a head on colision. as students we decided we would gain much more from building the car to both the MSA and formula student rules. sticking to the MSA rules in one area ment we carried a weigh penalty of having a much larger diameter roll hoop and bracing. We also did all of this, (our class 1-200 entry was so extensively redesigned we could have entered it into class1) with a team of 7 people, when other teams have 30+ people working on one car, it was also evident that alot of cars (lulia i think had there tub made elsewhere, as well as a host of other things) relied extensively on farming out work to outside sources - our car save for the painting and powdercoating and any laser cutting (for rockers, hubs etc) everything was built in house by 7 people. that for us is what its about, as well as learning about the design, we learnt exactly what manufacture of small racing cars was about.

it all goes towards our learning and i came away with so much learning from the competition, given another go id completely redesign the rear end of the vehicle. the other guys would probably completely redesign what they did as well. thats what FS for us was about - going away have a bloody good weekend and learning a huge amount that will be invaluable in real life.


the class 1 car had a very different design brief, they wanted to produces something that was different and above all cheap. they suffered from the fact that they finished the car at 4am the day before the comp and had some niggling faults (and some simple oversights in the design) as far as im aware that car will be the basis of next years class1-200 car, which will be a good learning experience for the guys in charge of next year (everyone bar the staff in the team has now graduated and the team will be entirely new for next year).




regards
jamie

[GolddustMini]

really need to have a read of this article, i havent seen it yet as according to the "find a stockist" on the RCE site my nearest supplier is in bangor northern ireland. ill go to the library at some point and have a read.

[richard_sykes]

Originally Posted by THR

im gunna have to start a subscribtion to that mag again, i miss it.

its for proper engineers!!!! and i miss it.

non of the other mags go into tech details.. they are all about people.

you sound right to me and i wouldnd argue with you.. and i agree.. but i will read the mag!! lol

I am subcribed, I have not found a better magazine yet for motorsport engineering certainly with that much detail.

Also quite cheap. I admit some of it goes straight over my head, but I learn a hell of a lot from reading it.

[ss_collins]

Golddust old boy - you can buy it online - somewhere on the site there is a link to Zinio...

Richard - some of it goes right over my head too but I think everyone learns from it - for me Aerodynamics are the work of the devil himself, and aerodynamicists practice witchery - however our witch catcher general Simon McBeath makes it relativley easy to get your head around in aerobytes.

See if you can get you head around Aston Universities 2002 class 3 entry it took me a while...

[richard_sykes]

A bit off topic but can somebody aerodynamically inclinded (not literally) give an opinion on Delfts shock absorber mounting. Looks like a bit of an after thought (dam, I knew we forgot something ) does it really not effect areo that much?

[ubrben]

With regard to Delft's suspension: Quite simply we don't go fast enough for drag to be a significant factor in overall lap time. We can corner and brake at 1.5G with no downforce so any marginal reduction in forward acceleration due to drag has less influence because you're traction limited to around 0.95-1.1G for a lot of the course anyway and top speeds are limited to 70-90kmh.

A carbon tub will be easier to make and structurally more efficient if it isn’t full of holes, so if the drag penalty’s minimal then Delft’s approach is perfectly logical

UCLAN again - "we decided we didn’t like the rules…” Well don’t build a car then. FSAE is based on Solo II autocross in the states. The only thing you will hit head on is a cone, hence the rules are perfectly appropriate. If I turned up to Le Mans with a Chieften tank because I thought the LMP1 roll hoop regs were inadequate should I be entitled to race? No I’d be told I’d built a silly car and then told politely to leave.

BTW on feet behind the axle line rules – why does it matter. A little thought experiment for you; imagine you’ve ripped the wheels off your car in an accident and are now heading for the armco head on. The “axle line” no longer exists. Surely the only thing that matters is how much car there is between your feet and the wall? If we have identical cars but mine has the wheels further back how is yours safer?

Ben

[GolddustMini]

as far as im concerned we manufactured a product that was marketable in the united kingdom, no other formula student vehicles managed that as in the UK a formula student vehicle is not usable outside formula student, in the US maybe there is a motorsports category that you could run FS/FSAE cars in, but not in the UK.

If I turned up to Le Mans with a Chieften tank because I thought the LMP1 roll hoop regs were inadequate should I be entitled to race? No I’d be told I’d built a silly car and then told politely to leave.

so hang on what your saying is that our car should not have been allowed into the competition because it was a "silly car", dispite it meeting formula student regulations perfectly, and meeting MSA sprint+hills regs. thats just daft. a cheiftan tank wouldnt meet LMP rules (id hazard a guess mainly on the engine capacity and because its tyres would not meet the requirements of thr LMP formula....)
we entered the competition because there is no other engineering design and manufacture competition like it, the learning gained from the formula student design and build is tremendous and worthwhile for us to partake in it, our car was still a formula student car at the end of the day, with added benefits of greater rollover, arm and front end collision portection than the formula student rules ask for (i.e more than 4 fosters cans mounted inside the nose of the car ). our laptimes proved that our car was faster than alot of lighterweight formula student cars around the track, if being mid pack means "silly car" i apologise

BTW on feet behind the axle line rules – why does it matter. A little thought experiment for you; imagine you’ve ripped the wheels off your car in an accident and are now heading for the armco head on. The “axle line” no longer exists. Surely the only thing that matters is how much car there is between your feet and the wall? If we have identical cars but mine has the wheels further back how is yours safer?

by design a "feet behind the axle" car would be likely to have more car between your feet and the front of the vehicle/wall.

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by GolddustMini

as far as im concerned we manufactured a product that was marketable in the united kingdom, no other formula student vehicles managed that as in the UK a formula student vehicle is not usable outside formula student, in the US maybe there is a motorsports category that you could run FS/FSAE cars in, but not in the UK.

so hang on what your saying is that our car should not have been allowed into the competition because it was a "silly car", dispite it meeting formula student regulations perfectly, and meeting MSA sprint+hills regs. thats just daft. a cheiftan tank wouldnt meet LMP rules (id hazard a guess mainly on the engine capacity and because its tyres would not meet the requirements of thr LMP formula....)

I was perhaps being overly facetious with the Chieftain tank comment, but I was trying to emphasise the point that no one asked you to build a car different from the regs. FSAE has worked great for 20+ years and I think Solo II is a great form of low cost motorsport. If anything we should try and introduce it to the UK. From a cost:benefit point of view it’s much better than sprint hillclimbing.

As for marketable in the UK. The competition is roll play your not meant to actually sell the car you build! In the context of a roll play it makes no difference if you market it at a US Solo II competitor or not. My Presentation event presentation in FS 2004 (sixth overall BTW) was based on a survey of the Solo II scene in America where FSAE cars now have their own class as a division of A-modified.

by design a "feet behind the axle" car would be likely to have more car between your feet and the front of the vehicle/wall.

I disagree, all mechanical elements must be behind the front bulkhead and this means that most cars have similar chassis lengths in front of the driver’s feet. BTW bear cans in compression are very good crash structures. Ok they don’t look as sophisticated as honeycomb but the principle is the same.

BTW – how many sprint/hillclimbs have you raced UCLAN cars in?

Ben

[chezza]

I'm going to put my couple of pence worth in here. Please note that I am neither an engineering student or anything else similar, my only involvement in motorsport is as a marshal.

I find that with the amount of money that FS teams must spend (I don't know if there is a budget to stick to) that it would be more worthwhile to build a car that can be used outside of the competition.

If there is going to be a bit of the car that is going to be ripped of it is likely to be the front wheels and everything in front of that...if that includes your legs then your going to lose your legs...look at Alex Zanardi. Having seen someone that has driven a formula student car and the marks on their legs after only having driven it...losing your legs halfway between your ankle and knee isn't my idea of fun.

I commend UCLAN for making thier cars to MSA regs...I think you were the sensible ones.

[ss_collins]

The UCLAN and Bell college cars have both run in speed events in the past two years - I have to say I would love to buy an FS car but won't even though I was offered one because I have no application for it.

I have heard of one of the welsh cars competing in a high profile UK hillclimb last year but that was a 'feet in front' car so I can't be sure - however it did have scrute stickers on the roll hoop

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by chezza

I'm going to put my couple of pence worth in here. Please note that I am neither an engineering student or anything else similar, my only involvement in motorsport is as a marshal.

I find that with the amount of money that FS teams must spend (I don't know if there is a budget to stick to) that it would be more worthwhile to build a car that can be used outside of the competition.

If there is going to be a bit of the car that is going to be ripped of it is likely to be the front wheels and everything in front of that...if that includes your legs then your going to lose your legs...look at Alex Zanardi. Having seen someone that has driven a formula student car and the marks on their legs after only having driven it...losing your legs halfway between your ankle and knee isn't my idea of fun.

I commend UCLAN for making thier cars to MSA regs...I think you were the sensible ones.

I will repeat again, if you use a formula SAE car at a formula SAE sanctioned event you will not be in a posiion to have a head on impact that could cause anything like the sort of injuries you're talking about. Mentioning Zanardi is completely irrelevant.

It is an academic engineering competition and the event itself is defined as a demonstration event for insurance purposes. It is not motor racing! These cars are not meant to be raced in full motorsport events so saying they are unsafe for full motorsport events is frankly stating the bleeding obvious.

I wouldn't race my FSAE car at a hillclimb because it wouldn't be fit for purpose but by the same token I wouldn't race a UCLAN car at FSAE because it isn't fit for purpose either.

As for getting use out of the car, that was why I asked the question about how many times UCLAN have actually raced ther cars. I would bet my car on the assertion that we did more running at Bruntingthorpe in testing than UCLAN have ever done. We can pay £20 an hour for the Bruntingthorpe track and run for 6-8 hours in a day. We typically did a test every six weeks. If we call that 64 hours testing plus the three FSAE comps we did last year (UK, US, and Aus) I bet we did 10 times the actual on track running you guys did in conditions entirely appropriate to the regulations the vehicle was designed for.

As engineers you will learn more by raising the money to do an overseas comp in terms of logistical managemet, team working,and the other engineers and company reps you will meet. That is the point of the competition and it is very narrow-minded to just look at "going racing" in the UK club racing scene.

Birmingham's FSAE programme has put engineers in the following companies without ever taking our cars to MSA events:

Dunlop Motorsport (yours truely)
CTG
McLaren F1
Red Bull
Penske
Mitsubishi WRC
Cosworth Racing
Ilmor (two this year)
Xtrac

Ben

[ss_collins]

I have to say though that whilst all that testing is fantastic there is no learning ground as good as competition I have seen engineers who are fantastic in testing fall apart when it comes to the real thing. Racecraft is not only used by drivers. I would be in favour of seeing some other outlet for the cars - I personally favour 'real' competition but it seems clear that the US will not change so the UK has to follow (hmm sound familiar). Is there scope for a national level series of FSAE dynamic events?

[GolddustMini]

£15k is alot of investment for the university to provide, therefore the ability to sell the car post competition (after all its a class 1-200 entry, it can take no further part in FS competition) is a brilliant way for the uni to recoup some of the costs incurred in the project. our cars were both built between october2004 and june 2005, making it a very very short build, especially considering the team size, add that to a full degree program/exams/project and we had a very very busy year, we regret wholeheartedly that we couldnt go testing as we had wished!

our running outside FS has been limited to a sprint in an interim specification, in a purely invitation context, we would like to do further running with the car but we're found it impossible to raise the money to compete (bearing in mind the entire team has dispanded now and the majority found employment).

you still claim that our car is wholely inapropriate for the FS competition? why so? it meets all the rules and in judging all the criteria, disregarding the MSA specification which was mentioned on the judging debrief, as a note at the side and was not directly judged upon in such a way that gave it presidence over a normal FS entry, we wouldnt have wanted that as much as you wouldnt want us to gain advantage from being a MSA/FS car.

we didnt look at it solely as "going racing", no one said we did, as a team we mearly wanted something that we could compete with outside the comp if we so wished, it cost us no more (infact we saved cost and weight over last years entry) and provided us with the same amount of learning as any other team in the competition.

i really cant see what the problem is, its a FS car as much as it is an MSA sprint car, its eligable in the competition as much as any other, acording to the design judges it met all there judging criteria very well. And in the defence of both cars, trying something a bit different (if this is such a bad thing i want out of the industry now!)


btw, my comment about beer cans was tongue in cheak..

[chezza]

I am sorry but there is things to hit at Bruntingthorpe. Having been to the event a couple of years ago. There is the endurance part of the event when the cars run together. They can hit each other and cause damage...that happens in any type of car event and I would rather have the extra protection thank you very much.

As was said by somebody else, the safety part of the scheme is often over looked. Look what happened to one of the formula student teams/cars when they were running on the runway at silverstone. Also with a possible switch of venue to Rockingham where there is things to hit I think UCLAN are certainly heading in the right direction.

As Sam has said there is only so much you can learn from testing and you can only learn how your car will react in a race when you actually race it or enter it into competition.

Also if you are going to put so much time and effort into the designing and building of a car there is nothing better than to see it run, and I find it sad that you can only run these cars once in this country. However I would not suggest running a series for these cars...theres to much risk to the drivers.

[Rutherford]

I was the Technical Director/Team Leader of the Class 1 UCLAN entry for 2005.

We built our car with some very specific specifications in mind, in order to meet these we came up with a very unorthodox car.
This car was designed and built in under 9months, by a team of final year engineers.

As Jamie (goldust) has mentioned, it was done largely in house, with only a hand full of processess being outsourced.

I belive that we had one of the best learning expereinces of any team at any FS/FSAE etc, event. Team members changed so much within that nine months you would'nt recognise them.

So to be frank, the actual competition took second place to what went before it. If you think it was a "silly car", fine, i'm sure if you ask any of my team they won't agree, and if you ask many of the people at the competition they won't either.

We did something different, it worked well, we got further than the university had got before. Lessons will be transfered to next years batch of students who will choose to take heed or not.

We did it our way, we learnt alot.

[Rutherford]

I'd also like to thank the chap (sam is it?) who wrote the article, it was a big boost for our team to see the car in there. Ta!