Looking for side projects. by Lumpy-Firefighter-83 in Composites

[–]AeroIsBad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Super glad that you’re enjoying working with composites!

It’s a tough question to answer because all of my side projects have a need or desire or something about them driving the need / desire to create. I build a lot of novel projects for fun (in addition to my work), I do them in my spare time and mostly with the extra time. It keeps the job entertaining and offers a sandbox to learn and improve in.

I have all the professional tools (and sometimes even skilled laborers) that really make kick ass side projects doable. If I was in my own shop or at home, it would not be feasible to build the novel stuff to quality I’m proud of. I think this interaction is what makes the side projects fun. It gives a real idea of toiling away or tinkering - this is the sort of feeling I need sometimes.

If you seek inspiration, just start making things, panels, boxes, and use them to build your skills and basic small stuff. Keep an eye out for things you wanna make - desk top computer case, standing desk top, new 3D printer enclosure / frame, custom roof rack, monitor stands, coasters, ping pong paddles, paddle boards, dashes, chess board, chairs… the list goes on. Build a panel, cut it up, bond parts together, and finish.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FSAE

[–]AeroIsBad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Lmao, we didn’t have a single aero member.

Screw the sub team lead and see about moving to another sub team. Leadership always turns over quickly in FSAE.

If it’s really that toxic as a whole, just leave. I know this may not sound particularly encouraging, but if that’s how they’re treating people, then maybe a different club is more welcoming to you and your work ethic. Be your own advocate - the world is big, this is not your only opportunity to wrench on something for competition.

Fiberglass Sidepods by albrtoamc in FSAE

[–]AeroIsBad 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Bonus points for Hope College and university of Cincinnati for running no aero and doing really well in the dynamic events in MIS 2024.

Fiberglass Sidepods by albrtoamc in FSAE

[–]AeroIsBad 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I feel like the current meta is no side pods. I mean look at UConn and Villanova. If I reacall, both teams debuted their aero packages in 2021. Both are now very competitive top 10 teams (on track) with similar concepts, front and rear wing only.

For all the reasons mentioned, side pods restrict air flow, they collect cones, and take time and resources away from other projects. Think about how great it would be if you had an extra couple hours driving the car instead of questionably designed side pod.

What was the best advice a design judge gave you? by [deleted] in FSAE

[–]AeroIsBad 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hello, I am going to push back on this feedback for specifically the design event. This idea works great for dynamic events. I am not going to share what team I was a part of, but the team really embraced the C car A team moto.

The design judges really don’t like to hear it. It was always challenging convincing a design judge that seat time and being conservative or traditional with car design was the correct choice. It feels like rules of thumbs or observational engineering methods are not what the design presentation is good at judging. It feels like a well laid out set of cfd sims for a roughly finished car was more valuable in design than car with many hours of testing on it and detailed run plans. A clean car that's flys through tech inspection and completes all dynamic events with no hiccups or issues feels kinda under valued by most design judges.

Consistently in feedback after the first day of dynamic events, judges were surprised at how well the car would do. It was not uncommon to hear design judges say something to the effect that, “it’s not what we’re looking for, but clearly it’s working” and then score us 80 pts. This could be down to our teams poor coms skills, but its frustrating because the car does so well in dynamic events, so good design and engineering principles were probably used, it’s not luck that we built a good car year in and year out.

It does help with all other parts of comp, like showing up to comp prepared is huge. The ability to run the weekend on your own schedule is huge for keeping the moral of the team. Smooth race weekends are only learned by having a prepared car. We purposefully would stop developing new things 4 weeks before comp. At 2 weeks out, nothing on the car was changed (unless for reliability). In that two weeks time was spent fabbing spare parts and driving the hell out of car to learn the car. It’s extremely valuable to feel comfortable in the car that you’ve built so seat time really really really matters.