Queen's Formula Racing is a strong and vibrant group of 3rd and 4th year students operating within the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen's University Belfast. Their aim is to design, manufacture and build a single seater formula style racing car within the academic year. With this car they then will compete in the annual Formula Student competition which will be held in July 2010.
A good start
to Day 4 after QFR picked up the National
Instruments' prize last night for the best
use of data acquisition on a car. This is
the second year in a row that QFR have won
the award..
QFR was one
of the last cars out today after qualifying
towards the end of the elite group of cars.
James was immediately on the pace with laps
consistently around 62 seconds. With the leading
cars only two seconds quicker QFR was looking
good for a top-ten finish in Endurance and
overall. After completing his stint, James
brought the car in to hand over to Glenn.
The driver change went well, but despite much
cranking the car would not start for the second
leg. QFX was out of the event.
Further investigation
back at the pits highlighted a problem with
the fuel supply. Nothing serious, but enough
the stop the car. The car has been packed
up for the journey home and will receive some
a closer inspection back at Queen's.
17/07/10
Day 3- Dynamics Events
The team had
an early start to day 3 with first place in
the queue for the accelleration run. There
was a lot of debate over whether this was
a good place to be as the track was still
damp after yesterday's rain. With the track
drying and keen to get a time on the board
Chris decided to take one of his two runs.
A solid time of 4.22 was the result, although
there seemed to be more in reserve with a
cleaner run. We waited about an hour before
finishing the remaining runs and ended up
with a slight improvement on 4.11 from Shane.
With the fasted time so far at 3.86 that should
give us about 60 points from 75 - a good start
to the dynamic events.
The car went
straight from acceleration to the skid pan.
Again, no problems, with a reasonable performance
in all four runs..There are 50 points available
for the skid pan event so we shouldn't take
a big hit in the overall classifiaction from
this event.
QFR was first
out in the Sprint event this afternoon. It
looked like rain was on the way so we completed
all four runs early in the session. All runs
were clean and smooth, with the car performing
well - looks promising for tomorrow. Results
so far have been posted (below) and probably
put QFR in the top 20. But with 400 points
available tomorrow places could change dramatically.
The good preparation
continued to pay off on day two with the car
passing the remaining scrutineering stations
- tilt, noise and brakes - by mid-morning.
The first static event was the cost event.
the team was led by Ben and all seemed to
go well with the judging. The car went straight
from the costto the design event in the adjacent
pit garage. Difficult to tell how this went,
although the questions seemed didn't always
provide an opportunity to discuss the better
areas of the design. The business presentation
completed the day's activity. Shane and Andrew
returned very positive about the experience,
so lets hope for a good result. Before heading
home for the night, the guys completed a few
outstanding jobs on the car and it should
be ready for an early run tomorrow, when the
accelleration run opens.
15/07/10
Day 1- Scrutineering
QFX had a
mid-field position in the scrutineering queue
this year and entered the Technical and Safety
scrutineering early afternoon. No major problems
to report and the moved onto the next stage
on the tilt table. The tilt table has been
a problem in the past with leaking fuel at
elevated angles and this year was no different.
Fortunately the problem was easily solved
with the replacement of a sealing washer on
the drain plug. Unfortunately, time had run
out for day one and the car would need to
return to the tilt test on Day 2.
