Update: Mid October

These past few weeks have been very crazy here at the garage. We've been doing a lot of machining, carbon fiber work, and also a good bit of experimenting with wheel speed sensors. However, the big highlight of the past couple of weeks has been our Alumni Driving event. We were fortunate enough to have a weekend that a lot of our alumni could be here to visit, and to make it a little more special for them, we decided to host a driving day for them early one Saturday morning. Overall, it was a fantastic morning, and we all seemed to have a great time. The list of alumni visitors includes Dan Lacher, Joe Goo, Jules Finlay, Will Gardner, Ivan Wang, and John Ingalls. And without further adieu...on to some pictures!

Ladies first...it always applies

"Safety Dan" ripping up the hairpin to the starting line

Joe taking the slalom at blazing speeds

Jules getting ready to show us all what the car can really do

We also had our faculty adviser, Dr. Neal Simmons, swing by with his two daughters to come hang out with us. He brought us some *much needed* coffee and donuts, which helped top off a great day. We made sure he also got in the car as well. 

Getting D-WAIT all warmed up

 

Dr. Simmons demonstrating his extreme driving skills

It was a great event, and we definitely look forward to holding more of these in the future.

Like I said earlier, we have also been pretty busy machining some of the drivetrain components, such as the rear sprocket and differential caps. Instead of using our mill to manufacture the diff caps, Dr. Simmons suggested that he could go up to the professional machine shop and use their CNC lathe to help us out. Over fall break, we went up to the shop with Dr. Simmons and cranked these diff caps out, and they turned out beautifully!

The master at work

Half-way through the operation

Finished: Top side of cap

Finished: Bottom side of cap

We've also been working on the new carbon fiber intake design, but we've come across a couple of snags, including what we believe to be an error in mixing our epoxy solution. I'll make sure to post some pictures soon.