Cardiff racing newsletter march

We were asked to support Techniquest as they celebrated the NSEW weekend and to help young people see the creative and exciting work STEM subjects open up. The weekend aim was fun and hence the best setting for a science museum. Record numbers of people attended all of which saw us in the main foyer and had to opportunity drive our simulator., play with the 3D printed parts and see how an internal combustion engine works. The reception we got was huge with adults and children alike queuing to have a drive in the car. It was a great event which we thoroughly enjoyed – solving the puzzles and trying exhibitions out.

March Newsletter

National Science & Engineering Week

Pop up talent in Cardiff Our team has always felt privileged in being part of formula student and experience things very few people could ever do. This extends to engineering where we believe ignorance is the main reason people aren’t engaged with engineering. Pop Up talent aims at showing people exciting routes for careers which people may not realise is a possible option. This is why we felt compelled to work with them and support them. We did this by making as much noise as we could in the centre of Cardiff. With all the speakers blaring the sound of rubber burning, we quickly pulled in the interests of the general public with the simulator. This was also the first outing for the 3D printer to show the general public what is possible. Both received a huge amount of attention and many conversations, continuing our plight to become the most active team we can be in the community.

A Crushing Victory!

Last month we told you about how the team is always looking to develop parts for the car in order to improve performance. This month the team successfully tested the newly designed Impact Attenuator which protects the driver in the event of a crash. Work is ongoing but the first iteration has achieved a weight saving of 250g (which is a reduction of 30% on the old design) whilst exceeding the performance of the previous design.

Screw heads that is! Good progress on the torsion rig has been made this month. It has been assembled largely by a group of first year volunteers. The remaining work is to design some mounts for the rig that can accommodate different suspension mounting points or the hubs dependent on whether we want to test purely chassis stiffness or both chassis and suspension. Both will provide us with very useful data that will allow us to improve future cars. The mounts are being designed by the same team of first years. For many of these volunteers this will have been the first project they will have gotten involved in. As such it has been a great learning experience which will be built upon in the future. There is also news that Team Bath Racing will be sending us one of their full space frame chassis to be tested. We love being collaborative and through it will always learn something new. It is this spirit that has helped us progress into what we are and in the future will help us prosper even more.

Torsion Rig has us turning some heads!

The team would like to thank Jacquelyn Quirk of Altair for visiting the team and giving us a full day of training on the Hyperworks suite. During the training session the team learnt to use the optimisation package called INSPIRE. As well as the CFD package Virtual Wind Tunnel. The team hopes to be able to use both of these packages to develop parts for future cars. Most notably the introduction of wings. The training has moved us leaps and bounds ahead in this respect and will bring more success in the future.

Wings. Wings. Wings!

Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. WHAT?!

Excuse the limp bizkit analogy but we are excited to announce that we are the first UK team to be rolling! This year we have worked tirelessly in every respect and now have good confirmation that it is paying off. Work is still needed to be done – as ever – but we are now a month and a half ahead of where we were last year when we came 7th in the UK. In Easter the car will be vinyled and start to look like a real race car. After that testing will take place and preparation for all the static events will be finalised and practiced. We’d like to take this moment to thank all of our sponsors for their continued support as we aim to be faster and better in every aspect that a racing team can be.