Author Archives: admin

  2. IMechE Award

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    UH racing are pleased to announce that they were awarded £2,500 from the IMechE as additional funding.

    The award ceremony was held on Wednesday 13th May. It was a very nice event and a fantastic opportunity for members of the team to interact with the IMechE and vice-a-versa.

  3. Crunch Time

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    Crunch Time Part 1

    March has meant one thing for a majority of the team… Dissertation time!

    This piece of work is marked as a double module so it is vital that we get the work right. I can tell you from the team and personal experiences that this piece of work has made us do the following things:

    • Question why we do this degree
    • Lose sleep over what work we need to complete next
    • Be in university at ungodly hours to complete simulations
    • Shout at the computer many times about said simulations
    • Let it engulf our thoughts on a day-to-day basis
    • Neglect family/friends/partners for need to complete this work
    • Bond over the fact that we are all in this together
    • Share the victories (and the failures) that our projects hold
    • Learn more about other parts of the car

    Most of all, it has made us realise how close we are to the end of this degree. That’s a scary thought: within two months, we will be students that are ready to graduate and take the skills that we have learnt to the world.

    With that note, I’ll go and hand in my own dissertation now! The pedal box of UH17 has been a major part of my life for the last seven months, but now it has to be made for real and no longer be just something designed on paper.

    See you next month! I hear it’s going to get hectic from here on!

    Stephanie Alexander

    P.S. Check the website, Facebook and Twitter. There is always something going on that we like to share…

  4. Yet another blog post!

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    Enough fun to last a lifetime!

    February has been a very busy month for the team. Competition is drawing closer and so are our dissertation deadlines so all that we can do is crack on with it!

    We, as a team, would like to say a massive thank you to one of our sponsors PCubed, for taking the time to come in and talk to us about the work that they do and how they would be able to help us throughout the competitions coming up. They have added themselves to the long list of sponsors that have been able to come in and talk to us about how exactly their partnership with us works. This is always valuable because we get to learn about different products that we use and have a better understanding of our car overall.

    Ross, one of the other blog writers, had to present a talk recently at Cranfield University as part of an IMechE event to win money to go towards our car. He came joint first with an engineer from Cranfield University who was also representing Lotus Engineering, which is amazing! It’s great to see that our students are recognised for their hard work.

    Some of the team were able to go for a track day at Snetterton, where they able to take part and/or watch different cars being tested. This is always fun because you get to compare notes and see what other people are doing with their cars. And there can be some crazy things I can assure you!

    Speaking of crazy things, I mentioned in my last blog that the team were able to meet members of McLaren Racing when they were participating in a team building exercise playing netball with Hertfordshire Mavericks. Well, I am actually a member of the university’s netball team and was able to organise a university version of the event, where UH Racing played UH Netball!! Unfortunately, I couldn’t personally participate due to injury, but I served as umpire and coach so still had a lot of involvement with the day. We went through warm ups and some basic netball skills, along with awareness of the rules and positions on the court before I unleashed the netball team on them. It was one of the most hilarious things I will ever see during my university time here. Everyone from UH Racing really put the effort in to play well and I am very proud of them. I am also still laughing from all the team coming back to me in the days that followed saying how much they ached! Netball is a game of stamina, agility, speed and skill and it was nice for them to see it first hand. It was also nice to see my two favourite things combined to make one event. Pictures should hopefully be appearing soon on the website and/or Facebook so look out for them.

    February did seem to be a very busy month for birthdays. Many members of the team had small parties and lots of birthday cake! It’s nice to take some time away from our respective projects, just to relax and be able to refocus so that we can be prepared and ready to get back to work!

    That’s all from me this month. Thanks for reading and keep checking the website, Facebook and Twitter pages for updates on and off the track!

    Stephanie Alexander.

  5. Stephanie Continues the Blog

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    Cars anyone?

    January has been a very busy month all round for the team. A lot of us had exams, which meant spending some time away from our projects, but we’re back now, getting on with the manufacture!

    As you would have seen in Ross’ recent blog post, some of us went to the Autosport Show. It was my first time going and I really enjoyed it! Some members of the team got to meet John Surtees (F1 Champion 1964 and multiple champion on two wheels) and take a look some classic cars from different race formulae as well as new cars making their way into the industry. Ross and Jamie did a really good job with the Live Action show and there is some video footage somewhere of some of the action from the weekend!

    Recently, I actually was able to meet with Formula Student team members from other universities and it was really nice to be able to compare experiences that we have had so far. Some worked in suspension, some worked in aerodynamics and one worked with electrics. It was a mix of Masters and Bachelors students, so some had the extra task of managing the team too. It was mentioned that our team were seen as ‘really professional and well managed’, which is a massive credit not only to us, but to the Masters students that put in the hard work to make sure everything goes as smoothly as it can.

    But, the absolute highlight of the month goes to meeting the McLaren race team during their winter season team bonding sessions!! They were training with the Hertfordshire Mavericks Netball squad, who are a Superleague netball team (which is shown on Sky Sports) and we were invited to watch. It was really fun seeing them try something that was out of their comfort zone and they seemed to really enjoy the evening. We got a chance to meet some of them individually, including and Jono Brookes, who is a Chief Engineer and Kevin Magnussen, their new driver for the 2014 season. It was really good to be able to speak to people who are working in the sector that we wanted to go into and get some tips on what to do for future employment.

    Our dissertation hand in dates are drawing closer and closer, so we are spending longer and longer in the Formula Student lab we have here at the university. I’ve lost count how many times I have stayed past 10pm to finish fine tuning FEA (Finite Element Analysis) and CATIA (design software programme) work! A lot of us have started the report as well, which has a limit of 50 pages so you can imagine how many words that will take!

    Finally, thanks to one of our team members, there will be some individual photos of all the team going up on the website soon, so you will finally be able to put faces to the names!

    That’s all for this month, but look out on Facebook and Twitter (as well as the website) as there are a lot of activities that will (hopefully) be taking place soon!!

    Stephanie Alexander.

  6. Ross Craig Joins the UH Racing Blog Team

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    Manufacture of the best FS car to roll out of the UH workshop has begun!

    After months of designing, deliberating and deciding, manufacturing of the chassis for UH17 has begun. From my own personal point of view this is a fantastic achievement as it has taking a lot of hard work to get to this stage. The chassis being manufactured is also stirring up excitement in the team that the car is now starting to come together and that the UH17 model that has been rotated, manipulated and viewed so many times on CAD is going to start becoming a reality! Many team members have got stuck in with cutting, applying and profiling the tubes, which in itself has kept morale high in the team that this year is going to be our year. With continued effort from the team that has been shown, the UH17 formula student car will be rolling out for testing in no time at all!

    A visit to the Autosport Show for many of the team yielded great conversations with companies and a chance to have a look at last year’s cars from other Universities also, unfortunately we were not exhibiting this year with ours. The Autosport Show also was a very exciting few days for two members of the team. Jamie Armstrong and I took part in the live action arena on the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday of the show in racing Smart cars! If anyone reading this saw the live action arena, I am sure you will agree these looked fantastic cars to drive and they really were.

    Looking forwards for the team, the next month will see the completion of the chassis, along with the mock fit of everything inside before it is sent off to be powder coated. As soon as this is completed it will be all hands on deck to assemble UH17 into the competitive and competition winning car that it will be!

    Thank you for reading and I will be sure to keep the Facebook and Twitter pages up to date with the chassis progression for everyone to follow.

    Ross Craig

  7. Stephanie’s Blog Part 3

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    New Year… New car!

    I hope all the readers of this blog had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with their family and friends. The New Year usually brings resolutions, with people vowing to change their habits and make a list of what they want to achieve. Me? My objectives never changed, because what I have wanted to achieve has been a four year process and will come to an end in May. Hopefully in November, I will be walking towards the Chancellor of the University in front of my family and close friends with a massive smile on my face and receiving a certificate to show the result of many years of hard work. But before that, UH Racing have a mission to win FSUK and FSG and I hope to be a part of that too!

    The team has been working very hard over the Christmas break, with the guys in the Chassis department starting to manufacture the mainframe structure of the chassis. This is the biggest task the team will face: if we don’t have a chassis, we have nowhere to mount any of our parts to and therefore run a competitive car. Parts and material orders are starting to make their way back to us, keeping us on target for the completion of manufacture for UH17. Not only that, but we have all been managing our workloads from our respective courses as well, which at some times felt near impossible.

    As a bit of fun, the girls of the team went to Rock ‘N’ Roll Bingo at the university pub before Christmas. This is basically where instead of numbers being shouted out by a caller, small snippets of a song are played and you can achieve either a line or a full house (depending on the number of people playing). As there are only two of us in the team, we felt some more bonding was needed! Unfortunately, we didn’t come away with any wins, but we did participate in a lot of laughter (and singing/dancing)!

    Today was the FSG Registration and Quiz which we took part in, although we had already qualified due to finishing in the top 10 at last year’s competition. You really have to know everything about the competition for the quiz because they put out some really obscure questions that could catch you out if you didn’t know your rules from front to back. Our car number will be 10 for this year so look out for it in the future… It could be the one that wins!

    Well, this is all for now. Thanks for reading and look out for pictures of UH17 during manufacture (on Facebook and Twitter)!!

    Stephanie Alexander.

  8. Another UH Racing Blog Post

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    Two months in and it’s game on!

    Today, the last race of the Formula 1 season took place in Brazil. It was full of fantastic overtaking moves and drama as positions were still to be decided in both the Constructors and Drivers Championships. Now the season is officially over, the teams and their staff will be able to get some rest before they start work again in readiness for the first race in March 2014.

    The reason why I have mentioned this is because I am now coming to realise just how closely linked Formula Student is to motorsports such as Formula 1. The dedication that we give to our work is unbelievable, but because it is something that we love, it doesn’t concern us very much. Not everyone in the team may be interested in Formula 1 in particular, but we are all interested a common goal: making a vehicle drive as fast as we can with the tools we have! This is why motorsport teams are always looking at the engineers that take part in Formula Student: we all potentially have the ability to be the future of racing design/aerodynamics/powertrain etc.

    UH Racing took part in a Formula Student event about two weeks ago at Bedford Modern School with Oxford Brookes University and University of Bath where we were able to show our cars to the general public and give secondary school pupils an insight into what engineering is all about and why we do it. There was also a Business Presentation in front of important staff from the top racing teams (McLaren, Williams, Caterham, Lotus, Red Bull) as well as automotive companies, such as Aston Martin, Nissan about the work we had done the year previously and how that was going to link into some of the work in the coming year. I am pleased to say UH Racing won the Business Presentation competition, but there were some strong performances from both of the other universities. It was my first taste of Formula Student competition and I loved it! It was a chance for the team to get to know each other outside of a university setting and also to see what the competition are doing and how they came up with ideas.

    We have able to meet with some our sponsors recently to prepare for the manufacture of our vehicle. We had a visit from Loctite a few weeks ago and I didn’t realise just how many adhesive products they make for the automotive industry! Their presentation to us was superb and the guys that work there are very knowledgeable:  you could describe to them exactly what you wanted and they could tell you the adhesive number straight away without missing a beat. Some of the team have also been to visit ATL Racing Fuel Cells and find out more information about the work they do there as well as the advanced technologies that they use and integrate into their Fuel Cells.

    At the same time, the team has been able to recognise that we are university students and need time to socialise too. We have been on a trip to see the film Rush (which is an absolute must-see for not only the story of the 1976 Championship fight between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, but Chris Hemsworth…) and have other activities in the pipeline, which has been able to ease the pressure of being a final year student somewhat. With all the deadlines that I have to meet for our other modules (this is not the only thing I study this year) and also my part time job, it’s nice to have something to look forward to and be able to take your mind off the work, even if it is only for a few hours.

    Finally, I will quickly mention this: it’s been a hot topic in the engineering world recently that Vince Cable (the Business, Innovation & Skills Secretary who came to visit us last month and sat in our Formula Student car) has announced that Britain has the lowest percentage of female engineers in Europe and wants to address this issue in the near future. I have been asked a few questions about this by people so here is my response: there’s an imbalance simply because of how engineering is viewed in society. I went to an event a couple of months ago where I was talking to secondary students about engineering and they asked why I didn’t become a hairdresser. The view that engineering is a men’s profession has been ingrained from such a young age that some girls and women view it in a negative light. I do engineering because it is my passion and it is what I love. If you aren’t able to do what you love then what are you really doing?

    I’ll leave you all to think about that last statement.

    Thanks for reading and I shall see you soon! Don’t forget to keep up to date on our UH Racing Facebook and Twitter pages..

     

    Stephanie Alexander