Formula Student
Discussion
I was marshalling the Formula Student Europe competition. Very interesting. Carol Smith (prepare to win!fame) said he was disapointed by the standard of of the UK entries.
Highlight of the day was Niel Anderson doing donuts in the Tuscan S to appauding students.
Just like at a cruise!
James
Highlight of the day was Niel Anderson doing donuts in the Tuscan S to appauding students.
Just like at a cruise!
James
Leeds did very well; their car was keeping in their Lotus theme and looked great in the "Gold Leaf" livery. Leeds won the cost award.
Geogia Tech won the event overall
The best European entry and best rookie was the Helsinki Politechnic
The best overall British entry was Brunel University.
Hertfordshire won a few awards
There were quite a few heartbreak stories:
Chalmers University, Sweeden - who failed the break test 16 times.
Swansea Institute who rebuilt their engine 3 times and it still would not start. Their team never stopped working.
Bell University, Glasgow - had to have their whole car re-welded. You had to feel sorry for these guys because they had no support from their Uni.
Best overall driver went to Queen's University Belfast.
In the sum up of the event by MIRA's John Wood, "everyone who bought a car was a winner"
Some interesting other activities included a small prototype sports car whizzing round in disguise and a BMW attempt at a world record. Wait for it!
Land speed record for towing a caravan with a diesel powered car! It reached about 95mph.
James
Geogia Tech won the event overall
The best European entry and best rookie was the Helsinki Politechnic
The best overall British entry was Brunel University.
Hertfordshire won a few awards
There were quite a few heartbreak stories:
Chalmers University, Sweeden - who failed the break test 16 times.
Swansea Institute who rebuilt their engine 3 times and it still would not start. Their team never stopped working.
Bell University, Glasgow - had to have their whole car re-welded. You had to feel sorry for these guys because they had no support from their Uni.
Best overall driver went to Queen's University Belfast.
In the sum up of the event by MIRA's John Wood, "everyone who bought a car was a winner"
Some interesting other activities included a small prototype sports car whizzing round in disguise and a BMW attempt at a world record. Wait for it!
Land speed record for towing a caravan with a diesel powered car! It reached about 95mph.
James
I was part of the Uni of Brum team for a year (see profile).
I'm afraid you can't stick a fireblade engine into a Formula SAE car. Last time I looked at the regs, it was 600cc engines only, and they had to be restricted, downstream of the throttle by a 20mm restrictor petrol and 18mm for M85 IIRC.
Good fun though. They can easily pull above 1g lateral on skid pans, which is pretty good.
I'm afraid you can't stick a fireblade engine into a Formula SAE car. Last time I looked at the regs, it was 600cc engines only, and they had to be restricted, downstream of the throttle by a 20mm restrictor petrol and 18mm for M85 IIRC.
Good fun though. They can easily pull above 1g lateral on skid pans, which is pretty good.
Just seem to remember the Hertforshire guys using an engine from a dropped 'blade. Could have been a CBR600 though. It was the day after my eighteenth birthday so I was still very drunk. Also heard that a team from Birmingham had supercharged a CBR900 but they couldn't get the power down so they took it off.
I was there too, used to do it a brum uni, but now involved in the sponsorship side through my work. Birmingham didnt drop a cbr 900 in, unluckily, but one of the us teams did into an old car, not supercharged, still unrestricted it has 145bhp, so still over 700bhp/ton, aparently it was quite fast, but had a few traction issues
BTW last year they fitted there own 600cc V8 in, took 2 years to design and build, have a look at www.formulasae.com/ if it will work !
Just so you know Leeds are the ferrari of formula student. Huge team and resources, expected to win, everyone happier when they dont, not popular with the yanks either IMO. They also have a bit of a reputation for aging well, since one of there driver this year was on his 11th event, after 6 years, and had stoped being a student, and was an event organiser/judge as well i think, which is a bit interesting for a student event? Still it was a bloody nice car this year, just a shame it looked a lot like last years, and the year befores, and.... well you get the idea!
Birmingham did well too got fastest sprint time, 4.38s over 100yards, and fastest lap of the day in the endurance event. unluckily they died later on in race due to getting wet electics during the torrential downpoor and blowing the main fuse. unlucky as the other runners were stopped on the same lap as it was too wet, but thats racing for you.
I am sure i will be involved again next year, if only to see if that helsinki team turns up again, definately won driver of the day for me, some amazing powerslides in the wet. Its a lot of hard work but its worth every minute, and i learnt more in 9 months doing that than i did in 3 years of lectures!
Missed those donuts, must have been before lunch, but I tried to follow the TVR home, but he wouldnt play, and he turned north up the M1, i went south, makes a nice noise though :-)
thats my bit over with, hope no one from leeds is on here, if they are i am just bitter cause i lost :-)
>> Edited by civic esi on Thursday 4th July 16:43
BTW last year they fitted there own 600cc V8 in, took 2 years to design and build, have a look at www.formulasae.com/ if it will work ! Just so you know Leeds are the ferrari of formula student. Huge team and resources, expected to win, everyone happier when they dont, not popular with the yanks either IMO. They also have a bit of a reputation for aging well, since one of there driver this year was on his 11th event, after 6 years, and had stoped being a student, and was an event organiser/judge as well i think, which is a bit interesting for a student event? Still it was a bloody nice car this year, just a shame it looked a lot like last years, and the year befores, and.... well you get the idea!
Birmingham did well too got fastest sprint time, 4.38s over 100yards, and fastest lap of the day in the endurance event. unluckily they died later on in race due to getting wet electics during the torrential downpoor and blowing the main fuse. unlucky as the other runners were stopped on the same lap as it was too wet, but thats racing for you.
I am sure i will be involved again next year, if only to see if that helsinki team turns up again, definately won driver of the day for me, some amazing powerslides in the wet. Its a lot of hard work but its worth every minute, and i learnt more in 9 months doing that than i did in 3 years of lectures!
Missed those donuts, must have been before lunch, but I tried to follow the TVR home, but he wouldnt play, and he turned north up the M1, i went south, makes a nice noise though :-)
thats my bit over with, hope no one from leeds is on here, if they are i am just bitter cause i lost :-)
>> Edited by civic esi on Thursday 4th July 16:43
I thought the the best British car was the Brunel car and the best overall car was the Rochester car. A good majority of the UK cars looked like Shelsly specials and I have seem better on the Autograss circuits. Carol Smith was right to show up the UK cars and he was not the only judge to have this view. Leeds were mentioned as the only UK team who had the right approach; I disageed with this but this seemed to be the view of the majority.
James
James
Hi All
I managed the Sheffield University Formula Student team last year so I know a bit about the event. Basically it's the same old story, few UK teams have the support of the University (i.e. money, resources, etc.) so they get cr@pped on by the Americans. Look at Sheffield, regularly rated as either the best or second best Mech Eng University in the country by The Times. Students at Sheffield are at least as able as those at Leeds and amongst the best in the world (of the seven team leaders, four got Class 1 degrees and the rest very high 2:1 classifications) but we had nothing like the facilities of 99% of the American teams and Leeds. They had their own workshops, etc. all dedicated to FS and a budget well over £20k in many case. We had a corner of a lab, no time for actually building the car (even if you did a thesis on the car you were marked purely on the theory, no marks were given for actually making anything so you ended up doing pure theory as at the end of the day you wanted a good degree!) and no money. Despite this we built a good car last year that was nearly ready to run. Unfortunately, it looks like no progress has been made since then - I had been hoping that Sheffield would compete this year. Maybe the FS programme at Sheffield has been shut down now?
Regardless, it's a fantastic idea, it's just a shame the British Universities don't get behind it. Same old story I suppose, it's no wonder the UK engineering sector is in decline.
OK, had my say, now going to finish the job of getting very
(Sorry for any typos and/or cr@p I may have written, had a few already )
roadsweeper.
I managed the Sheffield University Formula Student team last year so I know a bit about the event. Basically it's the same old story, few UK teams have the support of the University (i.e. money, resources, etc.) so they get cr@pped on by the Americans. Look at Sheffield, regularly rated as either the best or second best Mech Eng University in the country by The Times. Students at Sheffield are at least as able as those at Leeds and amongst the best in the world (of the seven team leaders, four got Class 1 degrees and the rest very high 2:1 classifications) but we had nothing like the facilities of 99% of the American teams and Leeds. They had their own workshops, etc. all dedicated to FS and a budget well over £20k in many case. We had a corner of a lab, no time for actually building the car (even if you did a thesis on the car you were marked purely on the theory, no marks were given for actually making anything so you ended up doing pure theory as at the end of the day you wanted a good degree!) and no money. Despite this we built a good car last year that was nearly ready to run. Unfortunately, it looks like no progress has been made since then - I had been hoping that Sheffield would compete this year. Maybe the FS programme at Sheffield has been shut down now?
Regardless, it's a fantastic idea, it's just a shame the British Universities don't get behind it. Same old story I suppose, it's no wonder the UK engineering sector is in decline.
OK, had my say, now going to finish the job of getting very
(Sorry for any typos and/or cr@p I may have written, had a few already ) roadsweeper.
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