2012 FSAE Australasia Competition Day 8

Day 8 which is technically day four of competition is the day that determines who will win the competition, with the big point scoring event endurance / fuel economy being held today. Traditionally it has always rained during endurance with CMT taking advantaged of this last year. While enduro / fuel economy are two separate events the scores are combined.

Currently CMT has 175pts out of a possible 275pts for the events of cost, presentation, acceleration and skidpad which is very good. Autocross I would expect to produce some very good points at least 50, and design I would expect at least 100pts. So CMT current position is very good.

Endurance we expect to produce some very good points here as our car is fast and last year we were in the top 5 cars for endurance. Fuel economy on the other hand we are not expecting to get that many pts. So I would expect pts of around 200 for enduro/fuel economy.

During the night the endurance run order which is also the autocross placing order, and we are 7th. For endurance they have four cars on the track at the same time, so we will be in the second set of cars to go out on the track. Endurance is the only dynamic event that has a run order and if you miss your spot you will incur a two minute penalty.

Apologies for the lack of photos today, I was helping out with recording the times for drivers.

6:30am Wake Up

The plan had been to get everyone to comp bright and early around 7:30 to get enough time finish off the suspension set up started yesterday before we were evacuated. Today should be a lot cooler than yesterday with temperatures around 20degrees as oppose to 37 degrees yesterday.

We left Kimgara Park and headed for competition.

9:15am Endurance / Fuel Economy - First Session

To allow enough time for the electric cars to recharge there batteries, the electric cars were out on the track first in the first session and last in the second session. Therefore this would give us at least an hour until we would be out on the track.

During some final checks over the car it was discovered that there were some loose items on the car, so before we headed out to the practice track we had to fix those items.

Above: Car undergoing its final inspection, before going out on the track

Above: Wes checking the steering system is securely fastened

This took slightly longer than anticipated, as well as Monash was having electrical problems and had missed there spot and unfortunately Auckland had to retire which was bumping us up the run order list. So to ensure that we don't miss our spot we headed straight to fueling and then to the endurance line. ECU was on the track and was producing some very fast lap times around 48second laps so the track is looking very fast.

The endurance track this year was a lot more open this year allowing for faster lap times, however a number of the drivers were having difficulties navigating the courses with a number of them going off course.

Our drivers were Wes and Stockton the plan for this session was to target fuel economy. Wes was our first driver and after warming up the car, the car was producing some fast lap times around 52seconds with clean runs, after a quick drivers swap Stockton hopped in the car and was also producing some quick lap times however was not as clean with some laps collecting numbers of cones.

Above: In line waiting for enduro, Wes in driver seat

Above: In line for enduro, Stockton checking over the cars performance



Above: Wes flying around the endurance track



After endurance finished next stop fuel station to refuel, this year we used 3kg of fuel, slightly less than last year.

Above: Refueling after endurance to determine how much fuel we used.

Above: The car getting refuelled after endurance

Completing this endurance and fuel economy session marks the third time in a row CMT has successfully completed all dynamic and static events. This is a huge effort.

After the car was taken back to the pit bay, the guys inspected the car for any damage as well as looked through the logs to see if the engine and cooling systems were functioning correctly.

Autocross results were published with CMT coming 7th with 72.84 pts which is a very good score.

Above: Autocross times and scores

1:15pm Endurance / Fuel Economy - 2nd Session

Shay and Penna were our drivers for the second session with there aim to push the car to the limit and see how fast the car could go.

Above: Fueling up before the second heat of enduro, Shay observing

Shay started out well, however encountered some difficulties with shifting and unfortunately at the drivers swap we were forced to retire due to the clutch handle coming off.

Above: Shay flying around the track during enduro

5:00pm Presentation

This year Claude Rouelle, from Optimum G was a design event judge at competition, unfortunately or rather luckily for Penna he did not judge our car, provided some commentary on the competition and were he thought we as a competition could improve.

For the second year in a row and also for the same event we were awarded 2nd place for the acceleration event.

7:00 Results Released (Unofficial)

This year the results were released straight after the somewhat long presentation ceremony, with CMT coming 7th overall with 617pts both of which are the best placing and the most amount of pts. scored - well done guys. Also CMT scored 125pts. in design event which is also a record for us so well done guys.

ECU came second overall and took out endurance - well done guys I am sure you guys will win it next year.

2012 FSAE Australasia has come to a close, with the team attending a car swap day tomorrow.

This years competition has been one of the most competitive and interesting competitions with the final placings being determined only on Sunday afternoon. A huge thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters without your help we would be here, to the team an awesome effort this year guys keep up the good and we look forward to heading towards a top 5 finish for next years competition.

Above: CMT-12 Team - missing our awesome technicians Derek, Dave and Graeme

Regards,

Candice Woodhams

Ex CMT Member

2012 FSAE Australasia Competition Day 7

Day 7 which is technically day 3 of competition, consists of dynamic events, acceleration, skidpad and autocross.

6:45am Wake Up

After the team had a night of well-deserved rest the team slowly rose. Ben, Stockton, James, and Wes headed off to competition to perform a suspension set up and finish off the jobs they were unable to do yesterday.

Throughout the next hour the rest of the team the rose, and left for competition. Today according to the weather bureau we were in for 37 degree temperatures, with the temperature at 8:00am being 30degrees so it was going to be a very hot day.

9:00am

Presentation and cost event results had been released, with the marketing presentation we came 14th with a respectable 32.4pts and cost event we came 11th with 61.4pts with a detailed breakdown below.

Above: Presentation Results

Above: Cost Event Results

 Our acceleration drivers are Penna and Norbert and our skidpad drivers are Penna and Norbert, with Wes and Shay being our autocross drivers. Skidpad and acceleration are being run in the morning and autocross is being run in the afternoon. The plan for the morning would be to get one driver through skidpad and see what the times are and from there see if we go over to acceleration or just have the second driver in skidpad go.

9:30am Skidpad Event

Penna was our first driver for skidpad, keen to redeem himself from last year efforts, before he headed out to the track he spent some time in the practice track scrubbing the new tyres in. Penna successfully completed all of his runs with his top time of 5.3 seconds.

Above: Penna practicing skidpad on the practice track

Above: Penna completing the Skidpad

Norbert then jumped in the car and after a quick spin on the practice track, Norbert felt comfortable that he could beat Penna’s fastest time.

Norbert’s runs in the skidpad were clean and his fastest time was 5.2 second. This is a big improvement upon last year and the time scored was quite respectable times.

Above: Norbert flying around the skidpad track

 11:00am Acceleration

Next Stockton jumped in the car to get some practice launching the car in the practice track. After that we headed off straight to the acceleration track, which had a very strong head wind. Stockton put in some very respectable times, with his fastest being 4.42 seconds.

Above: Stockton lining up for acceleration event

Norbert was next to jump into the driver seat for acceleration and again produced our fastest lap time of 4.37 seconds which was 0.01 seconds slower than fastest car ECU Racing.

Above: Norbert lining up for acceleration event

No other car produced an acceleration time faster than ours, leading to a WA 1 2 finish in acceleration again with ECU winning and CMT coming second. This is also the second time we have come second in acceleration with a smaller gap last year we came second to UWA by 0.02 seconds, winning our second trophy.

After acceleration event, we headed back to our pits, were UWA kindly changed our suspension set up to a set up that they have used for autocross.

Above: Suspension set up via UWA thanks guys!

Above: Suspension set up via UWA thanks guys!

A huge thank you to UWA for helping us out and allowing us to use their set up scales.

1:15pm Autocross – First session

The autocross once again is being run in 2 sessions to allow teams more flexibility, the autocross placing is very important as it also determines the run order for endurance.

Once UWA kindly set up the car, we headed off to autocross, when Shay was on the starting line the car had no power. So we quickly moved the car off the starting line to work on the car. First we checked to see if the brake over travel had been tripped it hadn’t, next we checked to see if there was power going to the car, there wasn’t. Next was thing checked was the battery, unfortunately the battery was fault, a quick swap over and we were ready to race again.

Shay went first and was producing some respectable times however was collecting a few cones as well, getting times for autocross was quite difficult. Wes was our next driver out and was also producing some respectable times.

Above: About to go out on track for autocross

Above: A close up of Shay about to go out on the track

Skidpad and acceleration results had been released, for skidpad we came in 8th with 39.08 pts out of 75pts very respectable with Monash once again taking the autocross crown. For acceleration we had come in 2nd with 49.58 pts out of 100. With detailed results below.

Above: Skidpad Events Results

Above: Acceleration Event Results

3:30pm Autocross – Second Session

We were first in line for the second sessions, and Wes went first and produced some very good lap times with a fastest time of 52 seconds – however we are not sure if he had hit a cone which is a 2 second penalty. Shay after a quick driver change and producing some good times.

Above: Wes flying around the track

Above: Wes flying around the track

After we completed autocross, we headed back to our tent.

UWA offered to help us change the set-up of our car to be for an endurance event to try to tune out some of the problems the drivers had encountered during autocross.

5:00pm

Today it had been very hot all day long and then all of a sudden the wind changed from being very hot to very cool and had picked up a lot. After around 15minutes we were advised that due to the high winds the grounds were being evacuated for safety reasons.

The team packed up out pit bay and headed back to Kimgara Park, were we all had an early night.

10:00pm

Endurance run order which is the autocross placing have been uploaded to facebook, and CMT had come 7th, with ECU coming in 2nd well done guys.

Above: Endurance run order

2012 FSAE-Australasia Competition Day 6

Day 6 which is technically day 2 of the competition consists of both the static and technical inspection. Static events consists of cost event, marketing presentation and the dreaded design event.

Technical inspection is a 3 part exercise to determine if the car is safe to run consisting of scrutineering, tilt test to determine if the car will leak fluids as well as its stability, and noise and brake test.

Overall today is one of the most important days of the competition as if you cant pass technical inspection you can not run the car.

6:00am Wake up

After only a couple of hours of sleep, we slowly rose out of bed or for some from the dead and got ready for the second day of competition. Luckily we had pack the trailer up last night



Above: CMT-12 on the trailer roller stands



Above: CMT-12 in the trailer

8:00am Technical Inspection - Scrutineering

We had the first spot in scrutineering this morning, which we just made it to this morning. To make the process of scrutineering easier, they have split up certain components and had them in different stands. The main scrutineering such as checking the car over for rules compliance is conducted in the original technical inspection bays however the checking of race gear and driver egress checks are now conducted in a separate area. This should allow for a slightly quicker technical inspection time.

Scrutineering took just an hour and unfortunately we had 6 small things to fix up, mainly surrounding securing the battery, securing the firewall with Tar Tape, drilling a holes in the shoulder harness bar. Before we fixed up those things we stopped off at the race gear check and driver egress check are. Chris headed off, with Ryan to get the Tar Tape as requested by the scrutineers.

Above: CMT-12 in scrutineering (Technical Inspection)

Race ear was all compliant next thing checked was driver egress, driver egress checks to see if a driver can get out of the car when fully suited up and strapped into the car in under 5 seconds. Wes being our tallest driver suited up and had a shot at getting out of the car in under 5 seconds, unfortunately he took over 5 seconds to get out of the car, which upon further investigation was put down to the wrist restraints being put on incorrectly, his next attempt took him 3 seconds.

Above: Wes in the driver seat getting ready for driver egress

As per the competition rules they can check as many drivers as they feel like for driver egress and they chose Norbert. Unfortunately Norbert was struggling with getting out of the car and he took a couple of attempts to get out however he did make it just with a 5 second egress.

The car was then taken back to the pit bay.

10:00am Cost Event

Cost event consists of discussing the cost report with the judges to clarify any questions that they may have about the cost report, as well as a cost event, there is a cost task where the SAE will provide an area on the car were we need to find cost savings and it is up to us to determine how much we can save and to prove it.

This year, our fearless leader Geisler is once again taking the reigns for cost event with Norbert doing the cost task. Geisler went very well as combating all the questions thrown at him from the judges. Norbert was next up and conducted the cost task very professionally. With a very good performance from both.

Above: Cost Event, with Geisler explaining how we costed the car

Next stop back to the pit bay to fix the car up for rescrutineering!

10:30am Rescrutineering

Once the car got back to the pit bay, the team got straight back to work fixing up the car. As one of the things to fix up on the car had been to effectively glue in the firewall before it was glued in we got the position check by the technical inspection chief, Chris, it took quite some time to track down Chris however we eventually found him and he was happy with the position of the firewall. Then we headed off to the re inspection tent and we passed scrutineering - being the fourth team through to pass scrutineering.

Above: CMT-12 with our first sticker, only two more to collect

Next stop fueling and tilt test, however we first had to wake up Wes who had taken a quick nap.

11:00 Tilt Test

For tilt test the car needs to be full of fluids, the purpose of tilt test is to determine if the car will leak fluids by tilting the car 45degrees, as well as checking the stability of the car by tilting the car to 60 degrees which is to represent cornering at 1.6g's.

Tilt test went smoothly with no leaks and no wheels lifting off the table. Unfortunately due to air bubbles in fuel tank, the fuel level had dropped and the inspectors were slightly concerned that the fuel tank had leaked. So to satisfy the scrutineers that the fuel tank hadn't leaked we dropped the floor, there was no leak and they were happy and passed us for tilt test.

Above: CMT-12 with 2 stickers on it one more to collect and we have the complete set

We were the third car through tilt test.

11:50am Presentation Event

The marketing presentation event consists of presenting a business case to a panel of prospective car company's who would you would like to invest in your idea. Geisler for the second year in a row was delegated the task of performing this static event, with Penna also being involved for technical support. The event went very well.

12:00pm Noise and Brake Test

The noise test and brake test is the final component of technical inspection, with the noise test making sure that the noise produced from the exhaust is within an acceptable level, and the brake test ensures that the brake system wont fail in an emergency.

After the car completed tilt test, we raced off to noise and brake test, with ECU just beating us there to become the first car to complete all components of technical inspection.

After we warmed up the car we took the car up to the 11,500 rpm and the noise from the exhaust measured 103dB. Well done Penna for designing and manufacturing the exhaust to be noise compliant.

Above: Noise Test with Wes in the car

Wes then conducted the brake test which involved getting the car up to speed and slamming on the brakes with the objective to lock up all four wheels, which we successfully completed.

CMT was through all technical inspection components by 1:00pm on Friday a new record for us. Also we are the second car to complete all components of technical inspection

Above: CMT-12 the third and last sticker - the technical inspection set is complete

Next off the dreaded design event.

1:00pm Design Event

Straight from noise and brake test we had to go to the design event, with the car being weighed. This year the car had lost some weight upon last years are to weigh 244kg without the 70kg driver, and 316kg with the 70kg driver.



Above: The car being weighed

Above: Design Event

Design event went well, and afterwards the car rolled back towards the pits and had a well deserved break.

The team focused on getting the car ready for dynamic events. Throughout the afternoon the team returned back to Kimgara Park for some well deserved sleep.



2012 FSAE Australasia Competition Day 5

Day 5 of competition, which is technically the first day of competition involves the administration component of competition being sorted out including registering the team and team members at competition, as well as an event and driver briefing.

Today's post is rather short due to myself being out of the workshop for a large portion of the day

8am Wake Up

Unfortunately I slept in a little this morning. However I have a feeling that I will need that sleep in.

Norbert had kindly gone out to the airport this morning to get Wes from the airport.

10am

From discussions with Wes and Norbert who were up, a number of the guys had stayed up til 4am fixing the car. So they were most likely going to be sleeping for a bit longer.

Above: Our brand new tyre rack with 3 brand new sets of tyres - two sets of drys / slicks and one set of wet tyres

Above: Our new rims

11:30am - Technicians arrive

Dave, Derrick and Graeme, our awesome technicians who arrived in Melbourne late yesterday afternoon bringing with them the goodies that we had gotten, including our uni joint.


Above: Working on the car



2:30pm - Team Registration, Team Briefing and driver briefing

The team headed off to Victoria University for team registration and driver briefing.

After the team and its members had been register, the non drivers went for a walk off the endurance track. Some pictures of the track below, the track is looking a lot more open this year.

Above: FSAE-A 2012 Endurance track



Once the team briefing was completed, the team headed back to Kimgara Park via the Werribee Plaza to pick up some supplies and have dinner.

6pm

The jobs list has reduced down dramatically with the car now preparing for suspension set up and the stickers are being laid up on the car.

Above: Preparing for suspension set up, with Wes in the driver seat

10am Trailer pack up time!

Due to the scrutineering, the first component of technical inspection, being at 8:00am tomorow morning we had to pack the trailer tonight. Due to Payman and Stockton converting the trailer into a composites area the first step was to clean out the trailer.


Above: The trailer.

11:30pm Late Night Shop Run!

Unfortunately the scales that were bought earlier in the week to do the corner weights unfortunately were not functioning correctly so it was off to the 24hr Kmart down the road from us to pick us up some new scales.

2:30am Bed time

I headed off to bed to get some well deserved rest after a big day

2012 FSAE Australasia Competition Day Four

6:30am Wake Up

Today the trailer and car should be arriving, Geilser made a phone call to the transport company and our trailer was ready to pick up. Chris Rowles arrived just after 7:30am and himself, Geisler, Shay and Norbert jumped into the hilux (ute) and went down to the transport depot to pick up the trailer.



Above: Our empty workshop waiting for our car to arrive

In the meantime the rest of the team woke up and patiently waited for the trailer to arrived, unfortunately during the travels across the nullabour the rear door on the trailer had slightly failed but it was quickly fixed. As well the trailer light connector also did not match which meant a trip down to BCF to pick up an adaptor.

10am Trailer has finally arrived

The trailer and more importantly the car finally arrived, the team quickly set about unpacking the trailer with the first goals, unpacking the aluminium tables and getting the car out of the trailer. This took very little time, once the car was out of the trailer the next step was to set up the workshop. 

Above: The Trailer has finally arrived

Payman cut the wood for the second table, while Shay, and James set about inspecting the car for in travel damage. Luckily there wasn't any this time. The transformation of the empty workshop to fully functional workshop took less than an hour.

Above: Our workshop starting to fill up, with the car being rolled out of the trailer

Above: Payman cutting the wood for the second aluminium table

Above: CMT-12 with out the bodywork on

Once the trailer was unpacked, Penna set about assembling the new rims with the help of Norbert, Geisler and Chris took a trip into town to get all the parts that we had discovered we had forgotten while unpacking the trailer. In the meantime Ryan very kindly set about making lunch for everyone.

Above: Penna constructing the rims, on our brand new aluminium tables! 

Above: Rims constructed - awaiting to have the tyres fitted!

After a quick break for lunch the team continued to work on applying the finishing touches on the car.

Above: 2012 Car with out its sexy bodywork ready to be completed in time for competition

As the afternoon rolled on the team shifted into second gear racing through the urgent jobs list. Also late in the afternoon we received some excellent news Wes our technical director who was unable to catch his flight due to illness on Sunday, is feeling a lot better and will be catching the red eye over tonight to join us tomorrow morning.

3pm

We received a text message that UWA trailer and car had arrived. UWA had very kindly carried a box of parts and a Jerry can we had forgotten to Melbourne for us. As well our impact wrench we had ordered from Sydney Tools on Monday was at the Tarneit post office waiting to be collected. So Geisler, Ben and Candice jumped in the car and drove down pick them up as well as doing some food shopping as we had been running low on food supplies.

7pm

The team stopped for a quick dinner - satay chicken and rice kindly prepared by Ryan. After dinner the team got back to work on getting the car into comp spec, while Ben started to prepare his famous spit roast.

Above: Stumpy aka Sydney the owner of Kimgara Park dog comes to give the team a hand

Above: Spit Roast, kindly bought to us by Ben Gills

The bodywork was unfortunately not as structurally sound as we would have liked, so to ensure that it would not break Payman got the fun job of strengthening it through applying a few more layers of carbon fibre onto the bodywork around the section where it intersects with the front roll hoop. So the trailer was converted into a composites room.

Above: Our composites room aka our trailer + heat lamp, curing the additional layers added to the bodywork.

10:30pm - Spit Roast Time

The spit roast was ready, Ben started to carve it up, while the team took a well deserved break, and had a late night snack.

12:00pm - Bed Time

The work continued on until 4am with the team focused on completely the car, while I went to bed.

Regards,

Candice Woodhams
Ex Curtin Motorsport Team