F1 in schools challenge

[calumc]

Me and a few of my friends have entered a team into the F1 in schools (http://f1inschools.ie/public/index.html) challenge.
So I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience in anything possibly related to this (aerodynamics, etc.) or if theres any small bit of advice anyone could give that might be related in any way?

[jdbnsn]

I think Omega has done stuff like this, you should hit him up for tips.

[Omega]

I've done robotics and I'm a huge car geek (although I will admit that I'm not the smartest car geek) but if you want I can hit my books and give you some tips.

[calumc]

well these things are about a foot long and are powered by a CO2 bottle and are on a guide wire so it's really all about the aerodynamics. Got any help there?

[Quakken]

The least weight possible, get the nose down to a razor point, sand and seal to reduce air friction, then sand more to get off excess weight.

really, the smaller it is as well as the lighter it is the better. These are just the basics though, i'm sure you can get more in depth advice from someone else.

[Greco101]

co2 cars. I made one of those in middle school, it was fun... I wish we woulda been able to do all the other fun stuff like have actual time slips and a real race track etc etc.

We were pretty much given a pre-drilled piece of wood and had to make a car.

Mine won by a long shot because my main focus was making the axles as solid as possible... many of the cars from the class had wobbly axles which made one HELL of a difference. My dad had tons of bags of bearings in his shop.. I'm not sure what the hell they are used for but tiny tiny bearings made the car really... and make sure the axles are perfectly straight.

It's best to drill the holes with a drill press while it's still just a block of wood because it will help keep both axels the same.

Drill the hole bigger than the axels... ( zero friction is key) Then enlarge the edges of the holes for the bearings to sit in. Make sure the inside of the bearings fit tight on the axel.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b5/BlackS3ven/Untitled-1-1.jpg

Here's a verrry quick idea I just threw together. No matter what there is going to be the most drag on the front of the car so try to take advantage of that by aligning the rear with the path of less drag that the front creates. Obviously my picture isn't accurate but it should get the point across. Remember, you're designing a car to go straight and fast so avoid using the whole "F1" theme and lean more towards an arrow with wheels.

[calumc]

@Quakken: we have a given set of min. and max. dimensions but yes it does make sense to have it as light as possible
@Greco: I think this will be a little bit different from yours, we are designing it all with Solidworks and will be sending the design away to be machined out of the balsa wood blank. The blank along with the wheels and axles are all provided by the organisers BTW.


Thanks for the input guys, keep it coming. I will post up some pics once we get things started properly

[Bopher]

Ha, reminds me of Pine wood Derby Cars in Scout when I was younger. We also did the CO2 cars in middle school. But we couldn't add anything to it. We had a straw to keep the axle away from the wood, 2 axles, 4 wheels and the block. We got to design and race them on a guide wire track. A lot people shaved it down to nothing then the car would try to fly and end up on its roof instead of rolling down the track. My 2 cents; keep the car balanced. keep a little heavy in the front will keep it from flipping when CO2 is punched.

[Mysteriphys]

haha co2 woodracers, I have mine the F1 treatment front wings for downward force, shaved it down the center and band-sawed a wing into the rear end for more downforce, worked too didn't lift or anything :-D and it was .05 lbs lighter than every other car :) I won! woot for prizeless victories!

[calumc]

Screenshot of design to come over the weekend

[calumc]

http://xs121.xs.to/xs121/07476/tgs3.jpg

[Crazy Buddhist]

Calum,

Me and three mates won a national schools tech-design/construction competition when I was about 15.

The challenge was to build a vehicle to carry a standard house brick the furthest when launching the vehicle from the top of a short ramp. The maximum dimensions of the vehicle and the ramp were set in advance. The vehicle could use no other form of power such as an engine or elastic bands, clockwork etc.

In the final the entries ranged from the bizarre to fantastically studied concept designs - to one team who had the brick at the top of a tower on a string that dropped pulling the string and turning the wheels when the car slowed down. A semi-cheat I thought - not that I feared them. Because then there was our entry. Ours was fearsome at it's task. A 30cm diameter (the maximum length of the vehicle) wheel 15cm wide with a letterbox slot in the middle a brick fitted nicely into, our vehicle was lathed out of one solid lump of plastic. It was a wheel.

I can't remember the exact details of other people's achievements but on the first run the furthest - apart from "the wheel" - in a one hundred foot long school sports hall, was about 30 feet. As the weakest had gone something like 12 - 15 feet, this was pretty good going. The ramp was short. 45cm's I seem to think.

The other teams and judges and teachers were all laughing when they first saw our "vehicle". So had everyone in the heats. Then they saw her fly. She hit wall the other end of the school hall and still had ten or twenty feet in her when she hit too. No one bothered with the other two runs for the "best out of three".

So my friend, my advice to you is "keep it simple" - and don't redesign the wheel. I know from personal experience they happen to work pretty good.

:)

[XcOM]

nice story CB, i would never have thought of that.

But yes, i had a sim compitition at school to build a car that could go as far as possable on kenitic energy (Pull back motor)

And suppurise supprise, me and my friend won,

Simple design, it was the motor attached to a simple gear box, when it started moving, people were laughing becuase it was going sooooo slow, but it got faster, once it got upto speed the motor ran out, but becuase we had built up soooo much speed, it went about 40ish feet, ended up on the grass!

I think i have a pic somewhere, will hit up my friend see if he still has it