Hi all, I have started Uni this year and have become heavily involved in my Uni's Formula SAE motorsports team. For those that are unaware of what formula SAE is, it is a worldwide university (or tertiary education centre, but mainly Uni's) motorsports competition. The program is run as a co-curricular activity outside of normal classes and is generally open to anyone at a tertiary education institution to participate in. The competition involves designing and building your own car within a team. The regulations are open to both combustion engines and electric engines, and the competition allows for cars with and without aero, custom or factory engines. The competition has many elements to it, one half dynamic events, the other half static events. Under the static events side, points are awarded based on total cost of the car, how the car is presented (for example is there a social media page for the car/team, how does the team present at dynamic events etc) and the biggest event of this side is a "Simulation" of the British TV show "Dragons Den" or the Australian version "shark Tank". In this event, industry experts from various engineering firms and Motorsport teams will come out to the institution and the team must present the car much like someone on "Dragons Den" will present their product. At the end of the presentation, much like in "Dragons Den" the idea is to get the experts to "invest" in your team and car. The dynamic events however, are vastly different and if I'm honest, far more fun. The events are usually run in Australia at the end of the year completion held at Calder Park in Melbourne. The event is run over a few days where the cars are required to run in acceleration events, auto roses events, sprint races and endurance races. Currently my Uni (Eidth Cowan University in Perth) is 2nd in Australia after a strong performance during last year, in which the team was leading most of the year until a small oil leak in the final endurance race put us out of the race and cost us the title by a few points to Monash University (grrrrr, we'll get them this year). In July 2014, we took ou 2014 car Emma to the UK for the international competition where we came 12th in the world out of roughly 150 teams. A great achievement for us, and it seemed to really stamp our name on the world stage. In June of this year, we will be going back to the UK with our 2015/16 car "Habbibi". I will keep this thread updated with news, pictures, video and anything else related to my team or Formula SAE in general. Anyone else with experience in this thread, I'd love to hear about it. I know for one, that @SamCham1095 Is also currently studying at uni and his team (Griffith) also take part in the competition
A few links highlighting the success of the Formula SAE competition and the Facebook link to my Uni's team https://www.facebook.com/ECU.Motorsport/?fref=ts https://www.facebook.com/SAEAustralasia/
A few photos of the cars that we have in the workshop and a brief description of them: 1st, Scarlet: Scarlet was the 2010 competitor for ECU. It competed well in Australia finishing inside the top 5 in Australia for that year. Scarlet as can be seen in the picture is currently undergoing a bit of maintenance and upgrading. Scarlet is mine (and other 1st years) project. By end of semester the goal is to have Scarlet up and running, fitted with some aero (it never ran with aero in the first place) and to take it up Jacks Hill (local hill climb track in WA). It runs, like all the cars a Honda CBR600RR motorcycle engine and a six speed gearbox. It produces roughly 80BHP and weighs roughly 400kg. Restricted under the FSAE rules, it would top out at roughly 120km/h, now the car will run unrestricted and with aero we are expecting it to hit roughly 180km/h. Although the car looks bare white at the moment, when it ran in 2010, it ran the Martini Livery that is so popular and we now associate with the Williams Formula 1 team On a side note, never use cable ties to attach your radiator: 2nd: The Nail; The Nail was the car we ran in 2011. The nail was the first car we ran with aero. Much like Scarlet, The Nail ran a Honda CBR600RR motorcycle engine with a six speed gearbox. At 80km/h the aero on the nail produces roughly 150kg of downforce. Again, under FSAE rules, The Nail is a restricted engine and therefore produces about 80BHP, and maxes out at about 130km/h. The Nail finished 2nd in australian competition in 2011 3rd; Watson: Watson is the 2012 car, and a car the produced very strong results finishing 2nd at Aus comp in 2012. although missing a front wing at the moment, this car ran full aero and used the same format Honda CBR600RR motor and gearbox, producing roughly the same specs as The Nail. 4th: Emma; Emma is the 2013/14 car that we ran, it performed very well at aus comp in 2013 and 2014 when we secured 2nd place for both years (again losing out to Monash University). Emma was a slightly different design to the previous iterations we have built. Emma still uses the same Honda CBR600RR motor, but we used a custom block for it. The custom block allowed for us to manufacture a block that is lightweight, but also very strong. The custom block also allows for us to incorporate the gear box into the block and also allowed for us to drop the number of gears from 6 to 2, thus saving us weight and preventing us from having to use very short gear ratios, and frequent gear changes which to us amateur drivers becomes rather tedious after a while. The other interesting fact about Emma is that the engine instead of being chain driven like the 3 other cars is now connected almost to the rear axle which is obviously where the power goes to. Emma in 2014 competed in FSAE Internationally at Silverstone and came home in 12th place. A result to us the felt like we had beaten the entire world. And lastly we come to our current car, Habibi (which i dont have a very good photo of at the moment as it is in a few pieces as we hurriedly prepare to get it ready firstly for testing, secondly for packing before we go back to the UK in July this year to again compete at Silverstone in the International Formula SAE competition where we are looking for a top 10, and even better a top 5. Habbibi runs the same specs as Emma in terms of engine and driveline, but does have aero tweaks. Due to new regulations which came into effect for the 2015 season, the rear wing had to be shortened to fit inside the width of the rear wheels. what this did open up was the opportunity to have side aero where sidepods might normally sit. the increased aero with the side aero meant that our car retained if not gained more downforce than its predecessors. As a final note, anyone in Perth, we are likely going to be taking Habibi testing on the infield at Barbagallo on Friday. Anyone who is interested is more than welcome to come down and see what it all looks like and how it drives (testing subject to change depending on the time taken to fix the engine knock we currently have).
Thanks for that history lesson @Nathancarhead I'm a part of the group that will be working on our 2017 FSAE car. With a pretty small budget like the one we have hopefully we can carry that underdog tag into the national comp and do well.
Just as an update, I did mention earlier that anyone in Perth is welcome to come and watch us do some testing. Unfortunately we will not be testing tomorrow as planned (pesky engine knock wont leave us alone). However, the sooner we get the car up and running, the sooner we can get the car out on the track and get testing for the UK. Also, within the next week or so, we might be setting up a kick starter or something along those lines to help us with funding and to help us with cost of getting to and from the UK, and also to help fund next years car. If this is something that interests you and you would like to contribute something towards it, it would be much appreciated. Also, if any of you have business's and so on that would like to sponsor the team, please do send me a message so we can discuss it further in depth. At this stage, any bit of funding/sponsorship will help us greatly to keep the program running and keep performing at the high standards we keep delivering.
Perth ROOZERS, this weekend is the V8 Supercars at Barbagallo Raceway, and my Uni will be displaying our latest Formula SAE car, Habibi. On all 3 days of the event, our car will be on display either in the carports near the race office or on the other side of the circuit behind turn 2 and 3. On the Saturday and Sunday of the event, we will be running a raffle with all proceeds going towards funding the teams trip to Silverstone in July to compete in the Formula Student international competition. I will be helping with the display of the car on Friday (all day) and Saturday afternoon if any fellows Roozer's feel like coming to say hello and get an in depth look at our car. Also be on the lookout on the Saturday and Sunday mornings for those assisting with parking as they are also fellow Motorsports students from my uni, and they like the rest of us displaying the car are giving up some of our own time to promote our car and assist with parking. Hope too see some of you there!
For anyone interested, one of our main international rival the University of Stuttgart uploaded an animation of there car in the lead up to the UK Formula Student comp only a month away now
Our 2015/16 car Habibi left the workshop earlier this week and is making its way to the UK for Formula Student UK comp in a couple of weeks time.
Hi all, This is an invitation to any ROOZers in Perth on Friday the 2nd of December 2016, and a chance to see a presentation from F1 aerodynamics expert Willem Toet. All information is in the picture bellow: My uni's Motorsports team will also be selling refreshments on the night as a fundraiser for the team. Hope to see some of you there! (P.S. Ignore the RSVP date on the invitation, just either PM me on here or RSVP to the email ASAP)
