FSG 2011 - Official Photos

The official event photos can be found here:

http://media.formulastudent.de/FSG11/Hockenheim2011

There are thousands of ultra-hires photos!

FSG 2011 - Another Top Ten Finish for MRacing!

MRacing came in 8th place, our 6th consecutive top ten finish!

After a few disappointments early on, we managed a strong comeback with a 4th place endurance finish and 9th place in design, keeping us up in the top ten.

Results are available at:

http://www.formulastudent.de/events/event-2011/results/

(overall results, acceleration results, and endurance results not yet available at the time of this posting).

A big thanks to our sponsors for making all of this possible, and to UAS RheinMain, Opel, and the town of Russelheim, for graciously hosting us prior to competition! Thank you!

The team is about to depart for Frankfurt Intl airport for our flight home where we will resume design work on next season's car.

FSG 2011 - Day 12 Update 1

Autocross scores are out. We finished 12th with 66.33 points out of the possible 100.

http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2011_FSC_Competition_Results_Autocross_without_TOP_5.pdf

This means we are the 12th-to-last team to run in Endurance. The endurance event has already begun and will be running until late this afternoon. A live stream with commentary is available at

http://formulastudent.tv/livestream

The complete endurance running order can be found here:

http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2011_FSC_Competition_Results_Running_Order.pdf

We are still waiting to hear the final scores for acceleration.

FSG 2011 - Day 11 Update 2

Cost scores are up. We placed 36th receiving 67.05 points out of a possible 100.

http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2011_FSC_Competition_Results_Cost_without_TOP_5.pdf

Endurance tomorrow; we will likely go in the afternoon as we believe we are in the faster group (based on autocross times) and it's supposed to rain in the morning.

More updates tomorrow.

FSG 2011 - Day 11 Update 1

We've completed acceleration and are heading out to autocross. Our best acceleration time was a 4.02, and we know that at least 5 or 6 other teams have set faster times.

In other news, we made design finals!

Scores have been been posted for business as well as skidpad, you can find the results here:

http://www.formulastudent.de/events/event-2011/results/

In business we scored 53.52 out of a possible 75, finishing 32nd.

In skidpad we scored 40.64 out of a possible 75, finising 37th.

FSG 2011 - Day 10 Update 2

This morning we competed in skidpad and gave our business presentation. Skidpad did not go as well as we had hoped it would. We set a fast time of 6.31, while many other competitive teams were in the upper 5's. We will post the official results when they are posted tomorrow.

After skidpad we cleaned the car up for design which everyone felt went pretty well. The officials tried something new by pitting us against 9 judges instead of the usual 5 or 6. This worked very well for us as it gave us a much greater opportunity to demonstrate our knowledge and we hope to see this happen at FSAE Michigan as well.

Cost took place immediately following design, after which we took a team photo in the marquee and headed back to the pits. A full bolt check was performed along with a suspension setup in preparation for the weekend's events.

Tomorrow we will be competing in acceleration and autocross. Final scores and results will be posted as they are revealed.

FSG 2011 - Day 10 Update 1

Today we compete in all of the static events (Business Presentation, Cost Analysis, and Engineering Design) as well as our first dynamic event, skidpad. We will keep you posted on our progress.

Also, a big thanks to Mick Sachse for bringing us some of his "Brain Octane" home-made honey!

FSG 2011 - Day 9 Update 2

Quick update: Heading out to scrub in tires. Afterwards a suspension setup and design preparation.

Also, the official event photos can be found here:

http://media.formulastudent.de/FSG11/Hockenheim2011

FSG 2011 - Day 9 Update 1

We've completed tilt, noise, and brake! The car is ready for dynamic competition. The rest of today will be spent preparing the team for design and the car for competition.

Locked up all four wheels on the first go

FSG 2011 - Day 8 Update 3

We passed Tech! They stayed open late to accommodate some of the teams in line, including us. That leaves us with noise, brake, and tilt to complete tomorrow before scrubbing in tires and performing setup.

Pic of the car being worked on after our first scrutineering/tech attempt:

FSG 2011 - Day 8 Update 2

We went through tech early on in the day, but didn't pass due to a few minor issues (fire extinguisher mount on the pushbar, brake light not big enough). These problems were quickly remedied, however due to the long line which has formed around tech, we will likely not be able to make it back through before they close down at 7pm. A few team members are out getting food for the team while the rest are going to put the car away once tech shuts down. There is a welcome ceremony at 8pm which we will try to attend.

Tomorrow we have to arrive early to get through tech as well as the brake, noise, and tilt tests. Afterwards we will likely do a suspension setup and prepare ourselves for the design event on Friday.

FSG 2011 - Photos! Days 2-7

Here's a selection of photos from the past few days of our trip.

Day 2

Loading the car into the trailer for testing at Opel

Have to make sure the oil pan doesn't scrape on the ramp.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 6

UAS/HS RheinMain and MRacing with the Russelheim Mayor

Day 7

The car in the pits, ready for tech

FSG 2011 - Day 8 Update 1

This morning the team performed some final preparation for scrutineering/tech inspection before heading over to the scrutineering site. Unfortunately as they were preparing to inspect our car, we were sent off to the panoramic photo (a panoramic photo taken of every team and car). We'll be going back over to scrutineering immediately after the photo is taken.

FSG 2011 - Days 6 & 7

On Monday the team started off by packing up our equipment for transport to Hockenheim. At noon we transported our car, along with HS RheinMain's, to the city center, where we met with the Mayor of Russelheim for a photo shoot with our teams.

We then spent most of the afternoon with Opel, who took us on a tour of their museum and gave us a presentation on their vehicle dynamics simulation work.

We'd like to give a huge thanks to the city of Russelheim, the HS/UAS RheinMain team, and Opel, for being such generous hosts and providing invaluable testing time. Thank you!

Today, Tuesday, we spent a majority of the day at the track registering and unpacking the car/setting up our pit. Some of the team went for lunch in Heidelberg whilst others stayed at the track to watch motorcycles lap the 'ring on an open track day.

From this point on the frequency of blog posts will be increasing as we keep you up to date with the progress of the team throughout competition. Assuming we have adequate internet access at the track, we hope to update at least 3 or 4 times a day. We will also start uploading photos to Picasa and post the link when they are available.

FSG 2011 - Day 5

Today we finished up testing with mock endurance and autocross runs followed by some last minute launch control tuning and acceleration practice. The car is running well and is ready for competition.

The team will be taking Monday off to relax before competition starts on Tuesday. The event schedule for FSG can be found here:

http://www.formulastudent.de/events/event-2011/schedule/

There will be a live feed of the endurance race available online; we'll post a link when we have more information.

FSG 2011 - Days 3 & 4

On Friday testing continued at the airfield with no issues. Drivers practiced on autocross, endurance and skidpad.

Today, Saturday, we tested at Opel's main proving grounds. Our autocross/endurance drivers performed a mock endurance which ended in a small failure. Several teeth were ripped off of the sprocket, possibly due to the sprocket having been bent during shipping. After a few hours of work a new sprocket and chain were on, with time to spare for some skidpad practice. This year the skidpad event at FSG will take place on a watered down surface, guaranteeing wet conditions. Luckily, the testing area provided by Opel had a built in irrigation system and could be flooded on demand, which we took full advantage of to better prepare our skidpad drivers.

The team is headed out for dinner, after which the car will be set up for tomorrow, our final day of testing.

FSG 2011 - End of Day 2

The rest of the day's testing went well and the car suffered no failures. The team went out for dinner in Frankfurt to unwind and are getting ready for another day of testing tomorrow.

FSG 2011 - Day 2 Morning

This morning we transported the car to one of RheinMain's testing spaces: a retired airfield which now functions as a testing ground for Opel. Opel has been kind enough to allow us to use a small section of the runway to shake down our car. We've been running fairly successfully all morning and will post another update later in the day.

(Unfortunately we are not allowed to take any photos on the test track as there are prototype vehicles performing tests.)

FSG 2011 - End of Day 1

After the engine team finished their checklists the motor was fired up successfully. Suspension setup remains the last task to be completed before the team heads back to the hotel. Attached are a couple photos of the unpacking of the car.

MRacing Arrives in Germany for FSG 2011!

The team arrived in Germany today to begin preparation for the Formula Student Germany event next week.

After a long redeye from Detroit to Frankfurt, the team picked up rental vans and dropped of our gear at our first hotel in nearby Russelsheim. HS RheinMain, a local university, has been very gracious by sharing their testing and workshop space with us for the next few days as we prepare for competition. With our luggage dropped off at the hotel, we walked down the street to unpack our crates in the HS RheinMain shop. Unfortunately one of our three crates was lightly damaged during shipping and it appears we've lost some hand tools as a result.

Otherwise everything has gone smoothly so far. The team ate lunch at a nearby hotel-restaurant and is currently performing "bolt checks" to make sure the car is ready to run for testing tomorrow. If time/noise-restrictions permit, we plan to run the motor tonight to make sure all engine systems are functioning properly.

This blog will be continually updated (at least once a day, if not more) from now till the end of FSG 2011, so check back for updates on the team's activity! Photos coming soon.

MIS 2011 - Results

The [unofficial] results are in!

We finished 6th overall, with the top 10 teams being:

1st place Oregon State University

2nd place Technical University of Munich

3rd place Universitat Stuttgart

4th place Graz University of Technology

5th place University of Wisconsin Madison

6th place University of Michigan Ann Arbor

7th place UAS Zwickau

8th place University of Akron

9th place University of Kansas

10th place University of Applied Sciences Graz

As for the individual events, we placed as follows:

Design: 7th

Acceleration: 3rd

Skidpad: 13th

Autocross 15th

Endurance: 4th

Cost: 13th

Presentation: 27th

Thanks to extensive engine simulation work we were also awarded an FEV Spirit of Innovation Award.

We would like to thank the alumni association for the delicious dinner provided on Friday night as well as all of the alumni and sponsors who showed up to support us.

And a big thank you to all of our sponsors who made this season possible. It is only with your continued support that we are able to carry on a winning tradition as a top 10 Formula SAE team.

For the next couple months the team will be preparing the 2011 car for competition at Formula Student Germany in August, while beginning design on the 2012 MRacing Wolverine.

We apologize for the lack of updates; the blogging service we use has been down for the past day.

After design we fueled the car up and performed the required tilt test (to ensure that fluids don't leak during cornering) and noise test (to ensure that we don't deafen anybody). Although we passed both, we sprung a small leak in the cooling system during the noise test.

Once this was repaired we headed over to the cost event. Immediately after cost we performed the brake test, completing the full tech-in process and qualifying the car for dynamic competition.

At about 6:30pm we found out that we were one of 14 teams (listed below) to make design semi-finals which ran from 7-10pm. After design semi-finals, and with the sun set, we packed the car into the trailer and headed home for the night.

Semi-Finalists:
Global Formula Racing (Oregon State)
University of Michigan
Rochester Institute of Technology
TU Munich
University of Stuttgart
Cornell University
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
UAS Amberg Weiden
TU Graz
TU Zwichau
UAS Graz
University of Wisconsin
Universidad Simon Bolivar
Virginia Tech

Today, Thursday, we arrived at 8am to prep the car for the first two dynamic events: acceleration and skidpad. After a brief lunch break, and refueling of the car, we got in line for the autocross event.

While no scores have been officially released, we placed an unofficial third in acceleration with a time of 4.000 seconds.

Further updates will be provided in the morning. We apologize again for the lack of updates.

MIS 2011 - Preparing for day 2

We weighed-in this morning with a 417 lb weigh-in. The team is checking every system on the car in preparation for the days's events. Many of the team members are reviewing the final details for each of their systems to make sure we can do as well as possible. We will be heading to design at 10:30 in the morning. Today is also jam packed with the business presentation, tilt, noise and the brake test to round out the day.

MIS 2011 - Finished first part of tech inpection

After a long day at the speedway, we finished the first part of tech in one try. Thankfully, the weather was great and fingers crossed everything goes as smoothly tomorrow for the second part of testing.

Arrived at MIS

We have arrived at MIS registered and ready to go. We are currently waiting for tech inpection but that may not happen this afternoon. After walking around, we've talked to some great people and see some great cars so it should be a good competition this year

Competition Starts Tomorrow!!

We're getting the finial tasks done for the car and we'll be packing up and heading to MIS bright and early tomorrow. Tech and registration will be tomorrow with hopefully great weather.