2015 Car Frame Jig

It's been a hectic few weeks with first semester coming to a close. We knew we needed to make significant progress on the car before leaving for winter break if we wanted to stay on schedule. After making one last push after finals, we are happy say that the 2015 car frame jig is completed! Our plans moving forward include tack-welding the rest of the frame tubes in place and sending it off to get professionally welded. Once we come back from break, we hope to finish assembling the suspension and start machining the wheel assembly components.

Thanks to Keith Sobb for creating this quick video of our progress! Didn't remember to start video taping until later in the process and then the batteries died but, nonetheless, it captures the just of the work. Happy Holidays!

Parent Weekend and Meeting Jackie Stewart

This has been an eventful week for us so far! Parent's weekend was last weekend and we brought out the car to E-quad to talk with parents about the types of student groups are on campus and how students are taking advantage of this! Below are some of the best pictures we took!

Getting to know freshmen and parents alike!

Future Duke Engineer in the making!

We also had the great pleasure of meeting Sir Jackie Stewart AKA the "Flying Scot". It was an honor to get advice from such a legend and we have definitely taken to heart all the advice he has expounded. We cannot thank him enough!

Everyone listening intently to what Jackie Stewart has to say!

Team Photo with the great Jackie Stewart!

Driving Day

Last Weekend we had our first driving day of the semester. We got a chance to give all people who worked on the car last year to take a drive this time around. We also got some of the new freshmen involved in the car as well. Here are some of the pictures taken!

Mentally Preparing Himself

About to Launch!

Getting the School Year Started !!

It's been a busy month with great progress being made! We've had our annual introductory meeting with the new members in the club. No one can say no to barbecue and we had a great amount of people show up. Everyone got to see the garage and last years car and we started talking about our goals for the upcoming year!

Everyone surrounded on the car learning about the different subsystems that make it up

Stuart is so excited about grilling!

The next week we got the ball rolling quickly and went straight to work on the new car! We started with teaching welding and milling to all the new members and had everyone cutting or drilling something in no time. We've got everyone excited for the upcoming year and we're ready to hit the ground running!

Freshmen learning from Emily the Master Machinist on how to properly mill

Measuring and cutting tubes that will be used for the a-arms and pushrods 

Keith: welding our new weighing set up

EGT Amplifier and Fan Controller PCB 2014 designs

Although we had a great PCB design for our EGT Amplifier that has been reliable, I made some layout changes that would make the final SMT soldering much easier. Instead of the double sided board previously built, the new layout is now all on one side so the whole board can be SMT soldered in one go. The header holes were also made larger so that the wire we use can properly fit through the holes. Last year we had to cut the wire diameter in more than half and that led to a very poorly soldered connection. The header holes on the Fan Controller were made larger as well. I just got the boards from OSH Park and they look great!!

The updated design for the EGT Amplifier board that is one sided and has larger header holes

Click below to see more pictures of the PCBs and stencils...