Ok, so I'm going to do a whole post on the Formula Student competition that took place July 11-15 at Silverstone.
 |
| The sign into Silverstone as you drive in. |
 |
| My registration badge! University of Warwick, Class 1. |
Thursday morning was nice and sunny, as the few of us already at Silverstone (Alison, me, Quirin and Sagar, and Zoe from Class 1 and then most of the Class 2 people) went to stand in line to register at 7:30am. The Class 2 people- Stevie, Gav, Graham, Ian and Anirudh, along with some others, were busy preparing for the presentation on the design work they had done.
To clarify: Class 1 is a design and build competition, while Class 2 is just a design competition. Every university does it different, but at Warwick, Class 1 is also considered an academic project for 4th year Engineering Masters students. Class 2 is purely extracurricular and has only been done over the past few years. However, it has shown to be good preparation for the Class 1 team. Last year's Class 2 team were mostly on this year's Class 1 team and they did really well in the design competition when they competed in 2011.
We spent the rest of Thursday preparing the pits for the car. Class 2 had all their presentations to do. They did a lot of work, but in the end, had forgotten to submit a very important report, which cost them all of their points, so they ended up not scoring very well overall in the Class 2 competition.
 |
| The Scrutineering Building. Every car has to pass a strict evaluation of how it is built and works in order to be able to run in the competitions. |
 |
| Hooray! Camping in my rain gear! I got those wellies for £5. Nevermind that they are for kids..... |
 |
| Back on campus- the guys were working hard to troubleshoot some issues with the clutch with the technicians. Here, Carl is giving some very wise advice. :) From left to right: Gav, Quirin, Anirudh (on the car), Markus, Carl and Murray. |
Meanwhile, back on campus, they had figured out the issue with the clutch. (Apparently a washer had been put on wrong) and were scrambling to get the engine mapped and get the car down to Silverstone. Those of us at Silverstone were getting nervous about our place in the queue for Scrutineering. Even though a team could go to Scrutineering at any point during the competition, they could only compete in the 4 main racing events at certain times- and the car has to pass Scrutineering BEFORE it can participate in any dynamic event. We also had to spend some time on Thursday refining the business presentation for Class 1 on Friday and I was organizing myself for my meeting with Bosch on Friday afternoon to discuss setting up events for next year that will help me with a case study for my EngD research.
 |
| One of the trucks around Silverstone. I think it looked cool. |
 |
| A electric car that was on display. This car had driven across America |
Finally, Thursday evening, the car arrived in the pits. It was too late to take it to Scrutineering, but it was planned to get in the queue early the next morning.
 |
| Sagar and Alison during the Business Presentation |
 |
| The team during the design judging |
On Friday morning, the team had to take the car to various static events for the Design and Cost & Sustainability reports. This was where the team talked with judges about why they made certain decisions with how they designed and manufactured the car. The team did very well in both of these events, coming in 21st in Design and 9th in Cost and Sustainability. Directly after these events, the car went to get Scrutineered and those of us involved with the Business presentation got ready for that afternoon. Sagar, Alison and Quirin went to practice the presentation and I had a coffee with Steve Maggs (one of my academic advisors) to discuss my plan for my meeting with Bosch, which was just after the business presentation. The business presentation went very well. The team, with my help, had decided to use the idea of Open Sourcing Hardware Design in their business model. The judges were fairly skeptical of this, but we argued it well and we got positive feedback for being creative. Overall, we placed 3rd in the Business presentation, out of 150 total teams from across the world. Not too shabby!
 |
| The building where the business presentation was |
 |
| Daz and Carl came on Friday to lend us a hand with their mad technical car skills. :) |
 |
| Ryan and the team discuss the shifter. |
The rest of the team were working on dealing with Scrutineering...which was not going well. By the end of the day on Friday, the car still had not passed- but we had a short list of things that could be easily fixed to get it to pass. The team worked until the pits closed at 11pm to get these things done and were planning on getting the car to Scrutineering early in the morning to get it passed. Included to be done in Scrutineering was also the Brake Test, the Tilt Test and the Noise Test, all which had queues of other teams waiting as well. Two of the dynamic events- the Skid Pad and the Acceleration event, had to be completed by 12pm on Saturday. And we still had to pass those three tests and get a final pass from the Scrutineering judges. Unfortunately, there was simply not enough time. The car passed, but not until afternoon.
 |
| Andy did some driving for the Brake test |
So, that afternoon, they did compete in the sprint event. It finished the event, but placed last in the cars that finished. Saturday night, we relaxed a bit and got ready for the the last event on Sunday, the endurance event.
 |
| There was much debauchery that was going on in the campsite on Saturday- including reconnaissance or various camp site signs and the kidnapping of a gnome. Which resulted in a very angry Irishman coming to our tents. A very diplomatic agreement was made in the end.... |
 |
| Sagar and I went to the closest town, Towester (pronounced Toaster) and we found a door with a wall built in it.... |
 |
| But, we found the other side! |
Sunday morning, we started strong for endurance. Markus was driving the first leg, and Darren would be driving the second. Our car ended up being quite quick at this event, passing several cars and looking good. We were all watching from the grandstand, several of previous FS team members, and Steve, Howard, and Nick Mallinson from Warwick. Also, lots of parents came out to support everyone as well. We saw that they were coming to an end and we were going to place well, so we ran over to see the finish....
Unfortunately, one of the sidepods had come loose two laps from the end (the Endurance run was a 23 lap event), which counts as a DNF for the whole event. The car was running very well and was doing so good, to be out at the end like that, but it is a testament to the amount of effort everyone on the team put in over the year. They have made a very good car for next year's team, as well as established the best knowledge transfer system to date for Warwick's FS team. I am excited to see how much next year's group will improve! Please enjoy some videos of the car I took below:
This is a longer video of Darren driving during the endurance event:
This is a video of us passing the Brake test
This is a video of the Endurance run- the car passed another car!
This is another video of the Endurance run, Markus was driving here
This is a video of one of the electric cars practicing. So quiet!
