Carleton University FSAE Ravens Racing

Over the past few weekends, Ravens Racing showcased our engineering talent by displaying the Formula SAE race car at both Carleton University Day, and Go Eng Girl. Members of the team were present talking about the race car, and answering questions about what it is like to be an engineer at Carleton University.

Thanks to all who helped out.

Links and more information on both of the activities can be found below.

C.U. Day : http://www2.carleton.ca/admissions/newsandevents/cuday_attractions.php

Go Eng Girl : http://www.eng.uwo.ca/comms/goenggirl.htm

http://www2.carleton.ca/engineering-design/about-faculty/outreach-initiatives/go-eng-girl.php

Students at Go Eng Girl got a taste of what it would be like to be an engineer
Photo by Andrew Lahodynskyj
Article in the Charlatan by Emily Dickinson

These two events exposed high school students to the many available 4th Year Engineering Design Projects available at CU.  Other 4th year Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering projects can be found here: http://www.mae.carleton.ca/maehtmls/projects.html

More information on CSES can be found here : http://cses.carleton.ca/

On September 28th 2008, the 2008-2009 Ravens Race team put the previous year’s race car through a Factory Acceptance Test. The testing involved a technical inspection, brake test, skid pad test, and acceleration test. The team collected data on the tires, suspension, and acceleration through the use of various gauges, GPS, and a data acquisition unit. The data collected will be used for future analytical analysis.

Thank you to everyone who came out and helped over the weekend.

More pictures can be found on picasa

On Saturday, September 20, 2008, Carleton University’s Ravens Race Team participated in the Richmond Fair Parade. The Ravens Race team wanted to expose the community to just one of the local University’s many leading edge design projects. At the parade the students displayed Carleton University’s creative engineering design work by showing off their race car which competes in the International Formula SAE competition. Below is an exert from the Stittsville News.

John Curry wrote: “… There were 80 entries in this year’s parade which was held in sunny, warm conditions, with crowds lining both Perth Street and McBean Street to watch the parade. The parade left from South Carleton High School at 11 a.m., with the last entry passing in front of the Richmond arena on Perth Street at 12:01 p.m. … “

Photo above taken by John Brummel (Stittsville News)

More pictures can be found on Picasa.

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Event: Factory Acceptance Test

Date: September 28^th 2008

Location:

Carleton University Lot 6

1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1S 5B6

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The Factory Acceptance Test will be performed in Parking Lot 6 at Carleton University.

Timeline for the Day:

9:00 - 10:00 Technical Inspection

10:00 – 11:00 Acceleration Test

11:00 – 12:00 Skid Pad

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch / Tune Car

13:30 – 14:30 Autocross

14:30 – 16:00 Endurance

Feel free to come out and watch. For more details on future events please stay up to date with our website: www.carletonfsae.com

This past weekend on Sunday September 14th 2008, Carleton’s new team participated in the MCO Autocross held at the Scotiabank place in Kanata, and the results are in!

The team’s top driver, Shawn Bernier, posted a best lap time of 68.152 seconds (officially under Kevin Harper’s number). Good enough for 10th place out of the 20 teams in Class ‘A’, and only 4.5 seconds off the fastest lap. Next best was Marko Pilic 72.045 s for 17th place and finally Shawn Bernier with a time of 75.055 s to round out the pack.

This truly shows that our car can be competitive in the market it was designed for, the weekend AutoX Racer. Especially considering that all the drivers participating had 1 day to try the car out before hitting the track.

A big Thank You goes out the MCO for letting us participate. Racing in the AutoX gave our new drivers valuable experience that will go a long way, and also helped us gain a better understanding of the preperations needed to be a top level competitor at our annual Formula SAE Competition at the Michigan Internation Speedway coming in May of 2009.

Hope to be on the track again soon!

More photos of the event can be found at this website, and picasa.

The team was on track to finish the best it ever has. However a component failure with 1.5 laps to go in the endurance race changed that. The actual finish was 45th, which is pretty good considering that we were unable to finish the race worth the most points.
 
Official results will be availalbe here soon:

 http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/results/ 

Today we completed our FAT Simulation, and although successful, it did not go exactly as planned. Working through the night to get the car ready for it’s first dynamic test, we encountered a few problems: leaky gas tank, shifting problems, and our clutch wasn’t working. We finally had all those problems fixed by the next day at 11:00a.m. only to have part of our aluminum drive-axle shear off of the spindle (a true testament to our engine’s awesome torque). Racing around the city to find the parts we needed to install our backup steel pieces, we finally completed out first dynamic test!

You can see more pictures from the event on our Pictures page.

Today we preformed a hub-to-hub torsional stiffness test to our frame. This test consists of restraining the rear end of the car by the uprights, while applying a moment to the front uprights. With the shocks replaced with spacers, frame twist was measured along the frame with varying moment loads.

[UPDATE]

Thanks to everyone who attended the Unveiling event on April 3rd, for making it a huge success. You can see more pictures from the event in our Pictures page.

Please join us for The Ravens Racing 2008 Car Unveiling

Thursday April 3rd

Refreshments, 7pm

The Galleria, 4th Floor Unicenter

The auto show was a huge success! The show generated lots of interest. Thanks to everyone who helped out, and a big Thank You to The Ottawa-Gatineau International Auto Show who graciously donated a spot at the show for us.