Written by Rachel George & Nathan Chapman
FSAE-A Comp Day Two
The UOW Motorsport team arrived at Calder Park bright and early again, greeted by the morning sun. The agenda of the day was to finish the rest of the scrutineering events and finish the rest of our presentation events.
We started the day with the EV Functional scrutineering early at 09:00, this is where the car’s safety system gets checked. This process included checking the shutdown system, driver input plausibility, energy meter, etc. After a few issues that were able to be fixed, we passed EV Functional.
Next came our business presentation, which is where a select few of our team are provided a concept and have to present a proposal to a bunch of judges. In order to get our proposal approved, the team have to convince the judges of our ability to deliver the product and address the combination of business, logistics, design and development and production.
The team then went on to do the Rain test on the car, which is where we put the car in a jig that inspectors turn on to spray rain-like water on the car for 120 secs. To pass this test, the car’s insulation monitoring device must not react and shut down the tractive system after another 120 seconds. We passed without any issues!
After the rain test, we can participate in the brake test. This is where the car is dynamically tested and must demonstrate the capability of locking all four wheels when turning off the car and stopping in a straight line at the end of an acceleration run.
We finished the day with the Design Event, which is where the SAE-A judges analysed our design and raised questions for our managers. This is a great opportunity for our managers and designers to introduce how the conceptual goals of the car was brought into the real vehicle. The analysis, systems done throughout the year into vehicle performance, tractive systems, structures, driver interfaces, electronics, and concept integration & management.
By the end of the day, the team are very happy with our achievements and the hard work the team has done today. We are very keen to put our drivers to the test for the next couple of days in the dynamic events.
