We leave you with a selection of comments and photos from the students themselves.

“My experience at Cambridge University certainly extended my academic knowledge about the CUER’s solar car. It was in fact an excellent journey and I really enjoyed taking part in it. I learned a lot about CUER and how they built the magnificent solar car…

…to sum up, the visit to Cambridge University was remarkably exciting and I really enjoyed visiting the CUER’s solar powered car.”

Sabrina, Year 7

 

“On the 21st January 2012, I was invited together with 13 other students from the school to travel to Cambridge University to visit the famous CUER solar car, which will one day race in the mighty Australian outback. When we arrived there, we were warmly welcomed by the CUER team, which was then followed by a useful speech on the key aspects (time, money, manpower, space and experience) to building a successful solar powered car. From this speech and the tour they gave us, I learnt a great deal especially about the structure of the car, how they get money for the project and the difficulties they will face when they eventually take it to Australia….

…Overall, I really enjoyed going to Cambridge University as it was an incredible experience I will never forget.”

John, Year 10

For a small group of students to get the full attention of senior members of the Cambridge University Solar Car team, was of immeasurable use and help in our ambitious project. Many thanks to the whole team.

Oscar, Year 11

The Cambridge solar car project has inspired me and the team to build this project, I was amazed how so many of the Cambridge team gave up their Saturdays to talk to us, I am so excited over what the future holds for us. Thanks Cambridge and will hopefully see you again soon.

Patrick, Year 11

 

“It was a mind blasting experience! We were enthralled by the techs and green power put into Endeavour. Hopefully, with all the enthusiasm from The Ardingly Love Physics Team, we will be sitting in our own solar car soon!”

Sabrina, Year 12

Just to say thank you so much to you and your team for a brilliant day. I was truly amazed that so many of your team gave up their Saturday. The students were totally inspired, prep are giving a presentation to their school, the seniors are already sourcing their design computer. Absolutely brilliant I could not have hoped for more.

Head of Physics, Ardingly College

Testing has been an essential part of CUER’s work this year. One project in particular has been key to getting us outside of our labs, offices and college rooms and up to Bourn airfield where there is a few hundred metres of old runway we can use to test.

Firstly, a bit about Bourn. It is an active runway so you see these very close to you and often they’re on their landing line-up right over your heads!

Secondly it is open and windy and usually very very very cold. Typically most CUER team members, when testing in winter (Jan/Feb), will wear more clothes to Bourn than you would skiing. Like this:

When you first start testing you start to experience the reality of engineering, especially with prototypes like Endeavour. It will take you far, far longer to do anything than you expect because things will break, seize up or people will suddenly lose all feeling in their hands, preventing them from doing anything hands on.

A lot of the time if you turned up to watch you would typically see a large group of students huddled inside the department Land Cruiser, desperately trying to stay warm, and devouring the vast supply of biscuits and other snacks that inevitably are required. Meanwhile, one or two brave souls would be venturing out into the harsh sub-zero temperatures of the east of England during February, trying to fix a blown tyre or get the electrical system to play ball.

Probably the most frustrating and tedious part has been the data-logging system used to measure the position, speed and generally everything about the car. The RT3000 kit uses a mix of GPS and accelerometers to very accurately measure what the car is doing hundreds of times a second. But it has its own set of individual quirks, requiring all sorts of dark arts* and mysticism** to keep it functioning.

Some of the data were less than reliable

Nevertheless, a lot of useful data has been collected. We know that using Dunlop SolarMax tyres, we barely have enough runway to carry out a coast-down test since the rolling resistance is so low. It’s a shame then that we can’t use those tyres in the WSC this year.

It has been a great benefit to have a working (mostly) car this year so we can run it before we get to Australia and, despite the cold temperatures, we had some fun times (mocking anyone who does something silly or breaks things***).

Lucy shows us how she wants her action figure to look.

The most important piece of testing equipment is an ethernet cable long enough to allow us to stay in the Land Cruiser.

*a hammer

**duct tape

***Tom

They also saw pictures of the build and race of Endeavour in 2009, and got to have a hands-on session with some components and materials used in the car.

Talking about the skilled, precise, not-at-all-sticky composite work

It's a SPACESHIP!

One interested student examines our composite materials while another considers becoming a sponsor.

CUER's Sponsorship Team Leader of the future meets CUER's Electrical Team Leader of the future

Time spent playing with tyres and wind tunnel components: 2 minutes. Time spent playing with rubber gloves: several hours.

The demonstration model undergoes some unplanned loading conditions.

The staff enjoyed the day and teacher Miss Battersby commented that never before had she seen her class willing to sit still for so long. She sends her thanks to us:

Just to say - a huge huge thanks for coming into Park Street to talk to the children, it was a fantastic presentation and they are all really enthused about engineering!

So, heads up, CUED – expect an influx of locals in about 12-13 years’ time, all of whom “want to be an engineer just like you when I grow up.”

Outstanding.

During their visit to the Engineering Department last week, Intel Studios learned this the hard way. Hoping to record interviews and scenes of work on the car, they were instead confronted with several people whose nocturnal habits left them blinking in the studio lights and asking why there were two suns.

Dan is disappointed to discover that the forklift truck is for background scenery only.

Each interviewee made their own special contribution to the day. Alisdair was first on the spot, and was soon overshadowed by the Structures Lab technicians, who relished their roles as ‘extras’ in the background. Lucy demonstrated an uncanny knack of judging exactly the depth of field of the camera, and then shuffling backwards just enough to make things blurry. Dan and Oli recited some eloquent soundbites that unfortunately went from ears to mouth without going via memory (possibly candidates for the first ever human-Intel-SSD transplants). The following exchange became commonplace:

“That was great – repeat what you just said.”

“I don’t know what I just said.”

Tom, meanwhile, got an opportunity to show off his endurance for the Australian climate underneath two 650W lamps. Fortunately the crew had a bowl to catch the drips (and enough foundation to build a skyscraper on).

"We can always photoshop him out later..."

Everybody relaxed once the sound engineer had gone home, and we were left to film silent scenes of ‘engineeringy-looking-stuff”. Even Mark from Intel got hands-on, helping move the car from the trailer into the Structures Lab. In the end, Lucy had to climb inside and pretend to drive Endeavour, although since the battery was not installed, we were forced to use a slightly more basic source of renewable energy known as ‘pushing’.

It took a while for most of the team to realize that the plan was not to just work on the car, but that the filming required us to do most tasks over and over again. This made a change from the usual CUER format, in which lazy design and accidental breakage requires us to do most tasks over and over again. An extra star was born in Barney, who machined our steering wheel for us, much to the delight of the film crew (“an actual machine! Accurate manufacture! No duct tape to be seen!). His mum is looking forward to the premiere.

"So, here's the thing: we've decided that you have more of a face for radio."

Much of the rest of the day was swallowed up with B-footage (background footage), which will no doubt be spliced together skillfully to make us look like a well-oiled team, rather than a team on which a lot of brake fluid has been accidentally spilled, necessitating the replacement of several parts. Not all of the shots were successful, in particular the Canute Shot, in which the crew tried to film the second year engineers congregating in the courtyard following an exam (as opposed to what they were actually doing, which was getting out of there as quickly as possible and not talking to anyone).

Suffice to say, everyone enjoyed themselves and the film crew were all friendly and fun. We all look forward to seeing the finished movie. And the blooper reel.

"We want a bit of variety in the film. So we're going to interview you while you're dancing. Like this."

Age: 22

College: Selwyn

Engineering Specialisation: Electrical

Fourth year project title: Distributed Maximum Power Point Tracking on a Solar Vehicle

What you are actually doing for your fourth year project: Building some rudimentary MPPTs that won’t ever see the light of day (or Australia) after I’m done with them. Meticulously removing hundreds of lines of surplus code.

Height: 6’3”  (1.103 Tom Grimbles)

Describe your typical daily routine:

I generally have about 2 lectures on a morning, and split my afternoons between CAPE where my project’s based, and the Engineering Department. Work at CAPE mostly consists of solving problems caused by other people, like one guy who repeatedly steals my IP address, whom I can’t track down. My experiments generally consist of shining lights at solar panels and watching my tracking algorithm flail around wildly and miss the obvious.

I sometimes spend an hour in the gym pretending to be Ronnie Coleman but alas, I’m not. On an evening I’ll do some more project work, ignore my examples papers, and go to the bar.

If you could be any element on the periodic table, what would you be and why?

Caesium: it’s badass

What three things would you choose to take with you to a desert island (such as Australia…)?

A laptop with satellite modem and Spotify installed (that’s only one item). (…And some headphones).

Probably some water.

A crossbow to hunt kangaroos.

What does your ideal Saturday night involve?

Live music. Beer.  Bungee jumping. Electric vehicles. Cricket.

How many hairdryers would it take to power you?

12

If your subteam had to compete in an Olympic (or Winter Olympic or Paralympic) event, which would it be and why?

Bobsled. We’re kind of like the Jamaican team in Cool Runnings who generally have no idea what’s going on and are hurtling towards our own deaths in a rusty shell. (just kidding: it’s beautiful).

What is your favourite joke?

I’m writing this from Casualty. Turns out that the new Dyson Ball Cleaner isn’t what I thought it was.

If you were a Pokemon, which would you be?

Dugtrio because there’s three of him.

What was the first thing you ever wanted to be when you grew up?

A dinosaur.

What do you want to be now?

Still a dinosaur.

If you had to organize a Cambridge bop, what would the theme be, and what costume would you wear?

Arnold Schwarzenegger characters: I’d be the Terminator

If your subteam were on the Titanic and there wasn’t enough room in the lifeboats for all of you, who would go down with the ship?

Ed. He short-circuits expensive batteries so who knows what he’s capable of in a real life-or-death situation?

If you were CUER’s Title Sponsor, what name would you give to the car and the team for the 2011 WSC?

THE ASHES

What is your favourite xkcd cartoon?

Circuit diagram. This also reflects the state of my 4^th year project right now. Also, I actually prefer The Oatmeal these days.

What should your subteam’s theme tune be?

Electric Avenue – Eddy Grant

I’d also like to suggest “The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore” by James Morrison for the composites subteam.

Age: 22

College: Robinson

Engineering Specialisation: Aeronautical

Fourth year project title: Computational Study of the Aerodynamic Stability of a Solar Car

What your fourth year project actually involves: Slamming my head on a desk when the CFD fails to work. Look, I even have a picture:

Height: 5’8’’

Anything else that you feel defines you: If I had an aura, it would read “Kick me”. I’m always really nice. Apparently people take advantage of that.

***

Describe your typical daily routine.

Set alarm for 8am

Set alarm for 8.30

Set alarm for 8.40

Repeated between 8.40-8.45

8.50: Finally realize I have to get up

Cycle at insane rate to lectures

9.05: Make lecture on time (just)

10.00: Project meeting with supervisor

10.30: Check last night’s CFD

10.32: Find that cluster has crashed

10.33: Call Oli to fix cluster

10.35: Start new mesh while reading webcomics and BBC news in between mouse clicks. Occasionally add a sentence to my fourth year project report.

11.30: Suddenly realize I’m hungry because I haven’t had breakfast

11.40: Run into friends, have chat, walk/cycle into town for food

1.00: Come back to lab, check on mesh progress. Despair

2.00: Start to fix mesh problems when it all breaks

5.00: CUER meeting

6.00 Pub with the team

10.00: Cycle/stumble back to college

10.10: Watch some TV

11.00 Write a paragraph for my fourth year project to make myself feel like I’ve done some work in the evening

12 midnight: Sleep

If you could be any element on the periodic table, what would you be and why?

Helium. It’s small, noble, and won’t react no matter what you do to it.

What three things would you choose to take with you to a desert island (such as Australia…)?

Packet of fruit gums

Nuna 5

Toolkit to make flotation device to escape island under solar power

What does your ideal Saturday night involve?

Pizza, examples papers, Doctor Who and a library. One without invisible monsters that eat you when you step into the shadows, though. So not the UL.

How many hairdryers would it take to power you?

None – I don’t use a hairdryer.

If CUER had to compete in an Olympic (or Winter Olympic or Paralympic) event, which would it be and why?

Skiing – as it reflects the inevitable downhill plummet of all our plans

What is your favourite joke?

Er…

If you were a Pokemon, which would you be?

Psyduck. The combination of mental prowess and small cute fluffy waterfowl clearly captures my personality.

What was the first thing you ever wanted to be when you grew up?

A rocket scientist.

What do you want to be now?

Still a rocket scientist, if I can, but I’ll settle for fluids engineer.

If you had to organize a Cambridge bop, what would the theme be, and what costume would you wear?

An ultraviolet bop. I’d wear enough glowsticks to create a small sun.

If your subteam were on the Titanic and there wasn’t enough room in the lifeboats for all of you, who would go down with the ship?

Me, because I am too nice to kick anyone else out of the lifeboat, and technically as the captain I should go down with the ship.

If you were CUER’s Title Sponsor, what name would you give to the car and the team for the 2011 WSC?

“Help, I’m trapped in a solar car factory”

…ooh! That can be my favourite joke, too…

What is your favourite xkcd cartoon?

Ducklings

They’re so adorable!

What should CUER’s theme tune be?

They can’t buy the sunshine by Turin Brakes

After roughly half an hour of faffing with straps and tarpaulins and raiding the department vending machines for emergency food supplies, the convoy of three cars set off for Jaguar Land Rover’s main site at Gaydon. The intrepid CUERites braved the endless monotony of the A14 and the tumultuous terror of congestion on the M6 to arrive, eventually, about an hour later than expected.

The journey highlights included some exceptionally poor navigating from Oli; also some interesting (and not entirely unrelated) short cuts down winding country roads. Meanwhile, everyone else who wasn’t driving enjoyed a bit of a sleep while the drivers and navigators yelled incoherently at each other about poor communication, deafness, wilful ignorance and the ability, or lack thereof, to find one’s bottom with both hands.

Upon reaching Gaydon, Endeavour was set up in the street inside the main building in full view of Jaguar’s hard working staff:

Our first visit was from the Aerodynamics Department, to whom Tom and George very excitedly described all their awesome CFD and lamented their many problems. It was not long before the conversation turned to the familiar process of pointing out the distinct flaw of having a massive discontinuity where the upper and lower shell meet. Still, even with imperfect surfaces, Endeavour is hands down more aerodynamically efficient than most road cars (they thought wistfully, as they eyed the designs of the C-X75).

The electrical team, meanwhile, were shown around the rapid prototyping department, where there is some fantastic equipment for printing 3D shapes out of baths of resin, by drawing patterns over the liquid surface at high speed using ultra-violet lasers*. They generously offered to produce parts for us to help with new lights (indicators/brakes) which we need to be race legal in October.

Throughout the day we were visited by many other engineers and received far more advice than we could have hoped for. The interest and enthusiasm of many of the staff certainly made this one of the most enjoyable visits we’ve had in recent memory and in addition a lot of useful contacts were generated.

In particular we’d like to thank all the people involved with crash modelling who came down to talk to us during the day, as well as those who offered to keep in touch with us and even help out with our refurbishments this coming year.

We look forward to continued contact with Jaguar Land Rover and hope that a lot of useful things come from this.

I think there's a bit missing...?

*Lasers make everything cooler.

]]> http://www.cuer.co.uk/blog/cambridge/2011/02/21/there-and-back-again/feed/ 0 http://www.cuer.co.uk/blog/cambridge/2011/02/15/tales-from-the-dismantlement-1/ http://www.cuer.co.uk/blog/cambridge/2011/02/15/tales-from-the-dismantlement-1/#comments Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:18:29 +0000 Lucy Fielding http://www.cuer.co.uk/blog/?p=922 This weekend we had a close-up of destructive testing, electrical team style. To clarify: this refers to the very careful, delicate removal and disassembly of the motor, followed later by some reconstructive testing – i.e. putting it back together again, with most of its bits intact. This post is not about the accidentally much more destructive testing of the battery’s ability to withstand some wholly unexpected arc-welding, which may be expounded upon once Ed thinks up a viable excuse for why it wasn’t his fault.

Friday morning saw a small gathering of Dan, Lucy and Tom congregate in the centre wing at CUED, with the intent of removing the front wheel (a.k.a. the motor) and tyre. It is worth mentioning that CUER has come down in the world where workshop space is concerned. Gone are the days of nailing together plywood in a freezing room in Bedford; of shifting modelling board by the ton in St Neots; of late-night cargo manifesting in the Hopkinson Lab. All ground underneath the ever-turning wheels of progress, our favourite haunts are now, respectively: a sauna and swimming pool; a machining lab; and a set of partly-built open-plan offices. Affinity and much of the kit from…
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It’s been a hard four years, and this last year has, for most, been one of the toughest. Receiving a degree from the University of Cambridge is an outstanding achievement, and to get through finals while building a solar car on the side is doubly so.

A well-earned congratulations, therefore, goes heartily out to:

Richard Barnwell, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Lucy Fielding, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Richard Hall, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Laura Hughes, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Anthony Law, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Hannah McMillan, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Michael Probyn, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Evan Scouros, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Jonathan Smith, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Kento Taoka, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Chao Yu, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)