Testing the Car!

Week 5

     Having finished building the practice car over spring break, the team moved on to testing the car for any flaws out in the open. On Tuesday, the team conducted two test runs and repaired the car after each one. Unfortunately, I cannot post any footage of the practice car or the building of the new car, as the team will properly unveil the car in mid-April. However, I did observe during the second test run that every small detail of the car matters. In that case, one small piece of the car that was loose-fitting instead of tight-fitting caused the front left tire to lose alignment. In order for the car to perform well in the races, every small flaw has to be ironed out before April 14, which calls for extensive endurance testing.

     I also worked with the machines in the C & C lab for the first time this week. The machines in the lab can be programmed to take a raw material and fashion a part out of it. For example, the automatic lathe machine...

...can be used to create parts out of cylindrical rods to create parts of a cylindrical nature, like these high misalignment spacers that we were making...

...out of this rod of raw material.

Although the machines are always run with a closed door and coolant splashing after almost every step, Josh ran it at a lower speed so I could capture the work of the machine on the rod. Here's a video of some of its steps:


The raw material used for these spacers is made of a material that is technically stronger than last year's material, but weighs less. Each spacer now weighs 1.67 grams, as compared to last year's 3.33 grams. Although the change in material doesn't decrease the weight of each spacer by much, the combined result of all 32 spacers on the car help the team reach it's goal to reduce the weight of the car, as a reduction in weight will allow for a better performance in the acceleration test.