NATIONALS PORTFOLIO

00 – Title Page Displays our brand, social media links and sponsors.01 – Contents Organising and explaining each section of our portfolio. 02 – Meet the Team Introducing the teammates, their assets and future prospects. 03 – Project Management Displaying the structure and approach to the F1 project. 04 – Brand & Identity Constructing a concrete brand with accompanying visuals.05 – Public Representation How we present our brand and identity using several mediums.06 – Sponsorship Gaining resources and support from external sources. 07 – Rules & Regulations How we will respond to the detailed ‘F1 in Schools’ limitations.08 – F1 Car Research Studying current F1 designs and using it in our design process.09 – Initial Concepts Our early ideas and thoughts in creating a successful design.

QUOTE #01: Nobody remembers the guy who finished second but the guy who finished second. – Bobby Unser, an American F1 driver.

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Contents10 – Ultimate Concepts Development Presenting our F1 car’s further advancements and developments.11 – Bespoke Wheel Design Design, creation and production of custom wheels.12 – Performance Simulation Using CAD software to improve our design’s form and shape.13 – Design Optimisation Final tweaking of the F1 car to increase speed during racing.14 – Orthographic Drawings Engineering drawings with dimensions of all components.15 – Balsa Manufacture CNC routering the car body using a lightweight wood, balsa.16 – Car Finishing Sealing and painting the exterior in accordance to our brand. 17 – National Finals Update Summary of actions after of Regional Finals such as car changes.18 – Final F1 Car Presentation Renders and photos of our final F1 car design.19 – Complete Project Evaluation Overall how the project went and our personal gains from it.

FACT #01: In an F1 car the pedals are shaped specifically to the driver’s feet, the left being the brake and the right being the accelerator. 

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Meet the Team

I am in charge of keeping our team informed, organised and motivated. I designed the logo and accompanying banners, profile pictures and portfolio.

In the team I am responsible for optimising the car and ensuring it fits the rules and regulations. I also manage our resources and expenditures to prevent any issues in costs.

My role in the team is designing and developing the car shape and using simulations to evaluate it. I also am in charge of our brand’s image and representation using social media such as Twitter.

My most useful resources are my organisational and motivational skills. I can keep a team on track and positive to complete any goal we set. Also, I am highly experienced using Photoshop and PowerPoint to create several styles of documents.

I have a highly analytical mind and a passion for engineering. I will use this to aid our team with the design of our car. Also, I am an expert with numbers and therefore will be managing our resources.

CAD is the most useful tool to me when I design anything. I have years of experience on Solidworks and I intend on using this to create very accurate models and simulations. I am also in charge of our P.R. as I use social media everyday and will update it consistently.

I want to study mechanical engineering at university or to join an apprenticeship program. I am eager to work for an automotive company in the future.

I am interested in an engineering degree of either mechanical or electrical but am unsure of what type company I want to work for in the future.

In the future I hope to study Product Design or Sports Technology at Loughborough University and to then gain a job designing sports items.

James McDonaghProject

Management & Graphic Design

Josh RobertsManufacture Engineer & Resource

Management

Sam WildDesign,

Development & Public Relations

Role Description

Assets

Future Plans

❝ Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational

objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon

results.❞-Andrew Carnegie

By applying each of our personal skill sets appropriately we can efficiently complete tasks. However, this does not mean we are working alone, any major decisions made are always debated between all of the team. As each of us considers each step using a different mind-set we ensure all bases are covered when anything is finalised.

QUOTE #02: If you’re in control, you’re not going fast enough. – Parnelli Jones, an American racing car driver from the 1960s and 1970s.

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Project Management

Process Time (Hours)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20Project Planning Brand & Identity Sponsorship Rules & Regulations Resource Management Initial Concepts Design & Development Final Concept Selection Design Optimisation Orthograhics Car Manufacture Car Finishing Portfolio Collation Final Checks

GANTT CHART

This Gantt chart will help organise our actions from January 2015 – February 2015 using hourly time slots

We used Facebook Messenger to communicate to one another during the process. We sent concept sketches for approval by the other members of the team and we would discuss improvements we could make to the design. It is extremely useful as it is available on phone and on computers which made it very accessible to all members.

Also, we used screen capture programs such as ScreenSHU where you can select an area to capture and then it is uploaded immediately and you can send the URL to the team. An example where this was crucial was for organising our logos for our t-shirts where I could send multiple designs very efficiently.

ScreenSHU Screen Capture Program

Facebook Messenger

Our Project Manager was James and his role was to organise and ensure that the team was on track to complete each task in the time allowed for it.

Communication is extremely important to be a great team and so every Thursday we would meet afterschool to have a 30 minutes round up where we would all present what we had done and discuss what we need to do. This was very useful as it made sure that we were following the Gantt chart plan (below) which we had set at the start of the competition.

Some aspects of our project went over the timescale due to unforeseeable events, such as the initial sponsorship letters taking awhile to arrive to the companies and then having to wait for the responses. This meant that we had to wait longer than expected to be able to accurately distribute resources to each section of our project to guarantee that we would not exceed our time limits and cause any issues. However, we dealt with this waiting period by bringing forward some of the other tasks which didn’t require that information such as concept sketching and development of the F1 car. This meant that our time was spent efficiently and that a delayed process wouldn’t mean adelayed project.

The ‘final checks’ period allows for any delays to be compensated for in

advanced. It will also enable us to tweak any previous aspects which

do not meet our high standards.

Dedicating time to design

optimisation will make sure our

design is the best it can be.

Brand & Identity

FACT #02: An average F1 driver loses about 4kgs of weight after just one race due to the prolonged exposure to high G forces and temperatures. 

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To have a cohesive presentation in terms of cars, portfolio, t-shirts andextras we need a concrete brand and identity. We had come up with the name Sixth Degree after long deliberations and quickly set off designing the brand.

We wanted our identity to be professional, simplistic and modern. We started doing some rough sketches of ideas for our logo, mainly playing around with the degrees sign as shown of the left. We digitalised our favourites and developed them further. Finally after a few more tweaks of colours and contrasts we had our brand. Using Photoshop CS6 by Adobe we transferred the logo onto different canvas so that we could use them for our social media, our portfolio and our sponsorship letters. Since we are using these logos on several platforms we designed two iterations, red & white and red & black. This ensures visibility of our brand on every background such as the white portfolio and black t-shirts.

The name Sixth Degree was chosen with great reason. We are in sixth form at school and Sixth gear is the

highest possible in most cars. Degree represents our accuracy and attention to detail as moving one degree is a minute change in direction. The combination

of both words creates a succinct and memorable name which can be

distinguished at a glance.

For our team logo we looked at other F1 team

logos and decided that a simplistic design would match our professional

identity.

Adobe Photoshop CS6

This logo concept was our favourite, however we believe it didn’t look like a racing logo and so we redesigned it to look modern while retaining the previous logo’s look. We loved it.

Our uniforms are sleek and smart, this

is a quick mock-up we made to help

quote the costs for them to be

manufactured.

Sponsor logos will be placed on the back to ensure high visibility.

Sponsors

Front Back

Public Representation

FACT #03: Since 1985 all F1 cars are required to be fitted with cameras which are used to provide on-board TV footage. 05

Public Representation is extremely important in the growth of a brand. You can connect with other companies, organisations and people with the click of a button. We utilised this and set up 4 accounts dedicated to our brand: • Gmail Account• Facebook Page• Twitter Page• Moonfruit (Website)

We used these accounts to post updates of our progression. Both Twitter and Facebook have a hashtag system (#) to link common trends and so in every post we tried to include the #SixthDegreeF1 to increase our reach.

Representation isn’t just online though it also includes our portfolio, pit display, t-shirts and other merchandise. This is why we have limited our colours and graphics to simplistic and modern aesthetics. This brings our brand together and allows people to recognise our products without the need to see our logo.

Having a strong brand is very important to our team members. Creating something which is noticeable, impressionable and memorable isn’t easy, however we believe we have achieved it and our very proud of our identity.

We invited our friends to like our Facebook page and to share any posts

that we made. This would increase our

brand recognition and reach as more people

learn about us.

Facebook Page

Using Moonfruit we created a glossy and current website with

links to our sponsors, social media and details about us.

Moonfruit (Website)

These three colours were our palette when designing any visual aid to our project and aimed for the combination to be attached to our team. Although red, black and white is a common scheme we believe the shades and way we have applied it to our brand set it apart from others.

#9A3030

#363636

#E9E9E9

Twitter’s strength is the ease of communicating

to other teams or companies and sharing

photos or ideas. We used this to our advantage and

maintained an active twitter feed. Our

followers were kept up to date with our

progress in the project such as seeing photos of our car after it had

been spray painted.

Twitter Page

Sponsorship

QUOTE #03: You have to learn the rules of the game, and then you have to play better than anyone else. – Albert Einstein, famous German physicist.  

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At the start of January we sent out over 40 letters to various companies searching for sponsorship. However we didn’t receive any support from the companies. In early February we began emailing and discussing with Lookers Chester Vauxhall and met with them on the 8th February. We presented our portfolio, shirt concepts and car concepts to them and they subsequently agreed to support us. We were extremely pleased and our proud to have a British automotive brand backing us up.

A week later, we met with the director of marketing and development of our school, Vicky Titmuss. After a short introduction to the competition and presentation of our team, brand and car she agreed to support us and in return we would professionally advertise the schools brand.

From this experience we learnt that although letters look more professional they are ultimately impractical. This is due to the time taken to write and print them, the cost of the stamp and the time taken to arrive (if it even does). Also we learned that approaching local companies will give you a higher chance for a reply as they would benefit from the exposure much more than a large company.

We used a mixture of media to ask for sponsorship such as letters with our brand watermarked onto the paper and signatures done by hand on each. We used emails to contact potential sponsors too however these two are not very effective as letters may not arrive and emails may not be read.

As a team we found out that meeting potential sponsors was the greatest way of exciting them about the F1 in Schools contest and persuading them to help us create a professional project which we will be proud to have been part of.

Vauxhall is a distinctively British brand and started manufacturing cars in 1903. They employ 35,000 staff and are responsible for the Insignia and Corsa. Their values are forward thinking, passion, innovation and quality.

The King’s School Chester was founded in 1541 by King Henry VIII.

It is a co-educational private school which

teaches from the age of 7 to 18 years old. Their values are ambition,

benevolence and cooperation.

Rules & Regulations

FACT #04: An F1 car can accelerate from 0 to 100mph and decelerate back to 0 in just four seconds. 07

All the teams in the F1 in Schools competition are scored using a points system. 5 different sections of the project are accessed each with a specific amount of points available and the more points you gain, the better your team has done.

We each printed off the PDFs and always reference it when making any final decisions to ensure we are gaining the maximum points possible out of the total of 860. However, we explored the tactics of purposefully creating a feature which was not allowed in the regulations to increase the points gained in other areas.

We used the points system to divide the tasks up so that we would spend more time on the topics which gave the most points such as the time trials which is worth 170 points and the specifications, worth 120 points. The project manager, James delegated Sam and Josh the roles of engineering, developing and finishing the car as this was worth over half of the points and therefore should have most of the man power behind it.

As a team we believe that by studying the rules and regulations thoroughly and using them tactically to apply more pressure to specific areas of the project this will give us an edge over other teams.

By consistently checking the specifications we

were able to be aware of any major faults before

developing them too much and therefore saving time overall.

After we have CNC routered the cars we will

then check all the measurements again to

prevent any unknown causes from having

distorted the dimensions.

We used digital callipers to measure our balsa car model as a stage of quality control. This makes

certain that the measurements were

not against any particular rules

which we had tried to fulfil when

designing the car.

F1 Car Research

Aerodynamic forms minimise drag and

maintains the velocity of the car

using less fuel.

BASIC F1 CAR

FORM

This CAD simulation presents the speed of air as it passes over the F1 car showing how the steep wheels produce great amounts of drag.

Spoilers are used to create a downforce as air passes across it. This ensures the wheels are always touching the ground to maximise traction.

Airplane wings are the same basic form of a spoiler but just inverted. This gives an upward force as air passes to maintain the height of the plane during flight.

FACT #05: During a race, a driver has a bag of isotonic drink attached to the side of the cockpit which is pumped to helmet using buttons on the steering wheel. 

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The form of our car is the most crucial element of the task. • We must direct air flow around the

body to ensure that there is low drag.

• We must ensure that the airflow does not cause the car to lift at any point as this lowers traction and therefore speed.

• We must minimise the mass of our car as the lower the mass the higher the acceleration.

• We must guarantee strength in the design as it will be travelling at high speeds close to an audience and we will only have one spare of the car during the competition day.

Our car is limited to the fuel available, the extensive rules & regulations and the manufacturing possibilities. We must work around these to produce a car with an optimal form in terms of mass, aerodynamics, traction and strength. These are the main specifications of our F1 car and will be designing, developing and testing with them in mind at all times.

Modelling the car in Solidworks by Dassault Systemes allows us to use the FloXpress feature, which displays the velocity of air particles as they collide with our model and SimulationXpress, which accurately measures the mass of our car using balsa wood. These features will aid our effort to produce an optimal car design.

Initial Concepts Development

QUOTE #04: Racing, competing, is in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I’ve been doing it al my life and it stands up before anything else. – Senna. 

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Everyone in the team was present to create initial concepts as we believed it was important to have a diverse range of ideas and features to give us the best design possible. Researching previous competition designs provided a wealth of thoughts such as combining the balsa with 3D printed components. We ruled out some of these experimentations due to the risks attached to them such as:

• 3D Printed & Balsa combination – ABS plastic used for 3D printing has a mass density of 1020 kg/m3 while balsa has a mass density of 160 kg/m3. The weight of ABS would be over 6 times more than if the component was made out of balsa wood.

• Strength of the design – The F1 cars travel at around 25m/s and this exerted a high amount of force upon the car and any thin strips of balsa may distort or vibrate during travel. This movement would cause a higher amount of drag and would slow our car down. Therefore, an overall sleek and aerodynamic design would have a high amount of strength.

• Carbon Dioxide Cylinder – All of the thrust of the car is supplied from the back of the car (as you would expect) but it is elevated. This means that when the force is exerted not all of it is evenly distributed along the car. Therefore having a sturdy support from the cylinder to the nose of the car will allow all of the force to be driving it forward, rather than into the ground.

We CNC routered some of our favourite initial concepts so we could see them in reality which would help us think of improvements and ways to develop the ideas further. Since the balsa blanks are relatively cheap this was not very money consuming.

We used multiple forms of media to present our concepts to the rest of the team such as Solidworks, sketching and physically changing previous car designs which had been manufactured in balsa.

Our next step is to choose a concept and then focus on optimising and developing a single concept to high standards using simulations and the rules & regulations as guides of what to do.

Ultimate Concept

QUOTE #05: I always thought records were there to be broken. – Michael Schumacher, winner of seven Formula One World Championships.  

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After deliberations with the team we finally chose the design we were going to takeforward and develop more. The design is based around the flow and redirection of passingair and managing downforce around the wheels to ensure that the car is in constant contactwith the track and isn’t losing speed.

The design may not look unique at first glance however we have put a lot of thought into every chamfer, fillet and extrusion. It was chosen to be developed further out of a broad range of concepts due to its effective form.

• The front wing has a steep gradient to allow air to be efficiently distributed around the car while also applying downforce to the front wheels which ensures they have a high traction through the race and therefore maintaining high speeds.

• The side wings have are curved which allows any air to be managed around the back wheels without having to travel all the way along the car which would happen if it was just a straight block from the front to back wheels. If travelling over a car the air would cause drag as it collided with the wood however, being guided around the car smoothly will prevent this drag.

• The carbon dioxide cylinder piece has been shaped to encourage air to travel around it rather than over it as this would cause more drag and more speed loss.

We debated about which concept to

pick and finally all agreed to chose this

form due to it’s strength,

aerodynamics and sleek aesthetic.

Front wing which creates downforce around the front wheels.

Side wings which allows air to pass around the wheels with a low amount of drag.

Dassault Systémes Solidworks

Aerodynamic tip which directs air around the cylinder.

Carbon dioxide cylinder casing.

Bespoke Wheel Design

FACT #06: For a monocoque, about 30m² of carbon-fibre mats are processed, in which the individual fibres are five times thinner than a human hair.  

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The wheels are very important as they are the only component of our car which come into contact with the ground during the race. Any increase in friction will slow the car down, however not enough traction will also slow the car down.

We printed 3 variations of the same basic wheel: one small, one large and one with a concave side. • The smaller wheel is the lightest wheel out of the three and minimises

the cars mass• The larger wheel has a larger surface area and more traction is offered• The concave wheel is heavier than a flat surfaced wheel due to the

extra material however in simulations it allowed the air to pass around the wheel with greater velocity.

Wheel bearings can be used with the car to lower the rolling resistance during the rotation of the wheels. They can be made from ceramics or steel. The full ceramic bearings start at around £45 per one (excluding shipping.) As a team we decided that the points earned for speed and design by having these bearings were not worth the massive amount of money needed to fund them and time taken to ship and implement them.

We used a 3D printer to create the wheels in ABS polymer. The files are exported from Solidworks in .STL format and the software calculates support material needed to print the wheel. The process takes hours to complete as you must wash the product after.

F1 car wheels are convex with a metal rim inside. This is to support the wheels

shape while carrying the mass of the car

body and engine. Our wheels just need

to carry a small mass and so can just

be a simple form.

Steel bearings.

In the end we chose to go with the concave wheels as although they may have a higher mass we believe it is worth the additional aerodynamics. We will print 10 of them to fit the 2 cars and 2 spares just in case anything goes wrong during the competition day.

We won’t be sanding or spraying wheels as the 3D printed layers createsA natural grip which will help grip the track and pull the car forward.

Although we haven’t used bearings for the regionals if we went tothe nationals then we would use any extra funds raised to investin ceramic bearings as we believe that they would greatlyimprove the time trial results. Steel bearings are cheaper howeverare twice the mass of the ceramiccounterparts and so we would rather investin higher quality components.

Performance Simulation

FACT #07: The fireproof gloves and racing boot soles are made as thin as possible, to ensure that the driver has the greatest amount of ‘feel’ to the controls. 

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We modelled the F1 cars in Solidworks, a CAD (Computer Aided Design) program by Dassault Systèmes. All of our team were experienced with the software and know it’s capabilities. Having modelled the cars within the rules and regulations we used the FloXpress Analysis Wizard to simulate a wind tunnel test of our designs.

To calculate the weight of the balsa wood body we used the SimulationXpress Analysis Wizard. The body came to a value of 39.29 grams which is very low considering our resilient and strong form. Our car design was then placed in a tunnel in which the front end was selected the input and the opposite the output. The program is then run and creates an accurate simulation displaying the velocity of air particles using different colour balls. Red balls indicate high velocity, what we want, and blue balls show low velocity air, what we don’t want.

This software is extremely useful when developing a design as you can change one small feature and instantly see how it affects the mass and aerodynamics without having to machine anything or travel anywhere. We will optimise the cars form to create our final car which will be put on the CNC router, sealed, sprayed and stickered.

Here are the results showing the mass of the

car made out of balsa wood.

The two simulations shows the same basic car form with and without a spoiler on the carbon dioxide cylinder to show it’s affect on the velocity of the air travelling past.

Although there is a higher density of red balls (high velocity air particles) above the spoiler the overall speed as air flows over the car is marginally slower than that without a spoiler. However, the downforce created by the spoiler will aid the wheels to maintain contact with the ground as the car accelerates. We believe this is worth the slight aerodynamic expense.

We also considered the weight of the carbon dioxide cylinder to be helping the weight at the backend of the car but without having one to measure and test accurately we are hesitant to remove the spoiler without any way of comparing how effective the weight of the cylinder is at increasing traction of the rear wheels.

Design Optimisation

FACT #08: The drivers will typically change gear up to 2,800 times per Grand Prix. At circuits like Monaco, this number can increase to 4,000 times.

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Optimising the car is extremely important to ensure that our design is as effect as possible on the day of the event.

To CNC router the cars we need a block at the end for the machine to hold it which it is cut (as seen on the left). The excess material is then cut and sanded lightly to size which introduces the possibility of human error. However, this issue was not avoidable.

Also while being cut one of the spoilers had been broken off due to it being too thin. We responded to this issue by increasing the thickness of the spoiler slightly to ensure it would be sturdy which would prevent it breaking off during machining and vibrating during the race, which would increase drag.

We added small humps to the side wings to push air over the back wheels rather than it colliding with the oppositely rotating components and causing high amounts of speed loss.

The front wing was made more angled (top view) to increase its aerodynamics by having a lower initial surface area when the air hits the car. Since the front wing is only 2mm off the ground we made certain that it was strong and would not ever come into contact with the ground as this would be a major issue as the friction would cause massive amounts of speed loss and potentially damage to the car.

The fillet between the front wing and body was changed after simulations revealed it was causing air to be pulled down.

After completing our optimisations we referred back to the rules and regulations to make sure that we had stayed within the limited of which it sets. After we were happy that it met the terms we exported the file and started up the CNC router.

Orthographic Drawings

QUOTE #06: We will fight as long as we have gas. As long as we have ideals, hands, money, the air we breathe and the blood in our veins. – Enzo Ferrari.  

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Orthographic drawings are used by industry to express a 3D object using flat 2D images with dimensions. This is important if we wanted to get our car CNC routered outside of our department.

Our main orthographics shows the car body and wheels. Both include rendered images showing how each part is finished in terms of colour. Simpler components such as the axles are so simple they do not require an orthographic drawing and can be expressed by just stating their material, diameter and length.

We will include photorealistic renders in our Orthographic drawings which will show the gloss and satin finishes we would want if we were getting our car painted externally.

Balsa Manufacture

FACT #09: An F1 car is made up of 80,000 components. If it were assembled 99.9% correctly, it would still start the race with 80 things wrong.

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The CNC router uses a small drill bit and software to accurately machine materials. This is very important as we machine our car from a line of symmetry which relies on the two halves being identical.

We start off with blanks of specific dimensions and create our car forms out of it. The only human error involved in the manufacture of the cars is the setting of the tool after you have machined 1 side. If you position the tool incorrectly the cut will be uneven and a line down the centre will be visible where the 2 halves intersect.

For the front wing of our design we cannot simply

CNC router it as the dimensions go to 0.

Therefore we must add a small block which

connects it to the block (held by the machine)

while being cut and then we will manually sand

down to the desired size.

The CNC process only takes about an hour per car using a relatively low cost material. This allows for improvements to be made and realised without having to wait days as you would for 3D printing.

For our final cars we lightly sanded the exterior to remove any excess material and smooth the body while also taking care not to alter any of the dimensions as the 2 cars must be identical. They were then sealed which fills any air pockets and prevents moisture from entering the car and weakening the body. It also increases the aerodynamics as friction is reduced with the new smooth body.

Our next process is to paint the cars but we have not chosen a design yet and so will need to agree as a team to which colours we will use, where we will use them and where we will put the sponsors logos.

Car Finishing

FACT #10: The engine in an F1 car typically revs up to 18,000rpm where the piston is travelling up and down 300 times a second.16

After CNC routering our car design we used a scroll saw to remove the block at the end and some fine sandpaper to smooth the edge to the required form. We used a cork block with the sandpaper to ensure it was creating a uniform edge as fingers would create different pressure areas and cause an uneven form.

After we had the final form we then would spray two fine coats of wood sealer. This would ensure that when we added paint to the car it wouldn’t soak in and cause the car to gain a lot of weight and to give it a better aesthetic. After sealing we applied a layer of primer to aid the painting of the car and used masking tape to prevent the white spray paint from covering the back end of the car as if we sprayed it white then red we would be applying more paint than necessary and therefore more weight. After this we then reverse the taped section and sprayed the red paint. We applied 2 light coats as this would create a vibrant clean colour without the risk of the spray paint running. Finally, a fine sand to give a smooth finish to our car. Decals were then applied after the paint had dried using a sticky back photographic paper sheet.

This render on Solidworks shows the colour scheme of our car. We wanted it to be simple due to the limitations of spray painting a complex form and also for it to be in keeping with our brands colours.

We used some waste balsa wood to practise spraying and using the heat gun to speed up the drying process.

National Finals Update

FACT #11: Formula One cars are built again in between races. They are completely taken apart and engineers do around 200 different checks on the parts. 

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On the bus journey back home after receiving the news of our success at the Regional Finals we began planning our next steps as we only had 15 days to improve and build upon our initial submissions. We looked at our scores on the 28th February and discussed our areas to focus on which were manufacturing and quality of finish.

The graphics and brand remained unchanged as we believe it was very strong and suited our overall identity and graphics.

We had adventurous plans for our cars development however with the limited time we were unable to realise them and had to make some fast changes to our initial car. This was to ensure we had enough time to have a great quality of finish as this was highlighted in our scores as a weakness.

We used another Gantt chart to effectively plan out our next steps as we all believe it was very beneficial in the lead up to the Regional Finals. We had already worked under strict time conditions with limited resources and didn’t need to adapt to this again in terms of time schedules.

We gained a great level of support from Timpsons and this enabled us to afford our expenditures for the National Finals however due to the short time we had, we had to account for delivery times and so we had to use our own money while we waited for the sponsorships to come through. Due to limited personal funds we were unable to afford all of our components to our project such as leaflets.

Our stand is made using 2 panels of wood a thin wood veneer curved around the front. This will be enhanced with 3 banners across the 2m x 1m x 2.5m booth. We will have a touchscreen TV as our key interactive piece where visitors can physically explore our project.

GANTT CHART

This Gantt chart aids our organisation from the 25th February – 12th March in preparation for the National Finals

Overall, we are very pleased with how we have coped under the extreme time and resource pressure over the past 15 days and are extremely excited to take part in the competition and compete against the best teams in the country. We were unable to fulfil some ideas and concepts due to limitations however we believe our project is still strong.

Final F1 Car Presentation

QUOTE #07: Just leave me alone, I know what I’m doing. – Kimi Raikkonen, Finnish winner of the 2007 F1 World Championships. 18

We believe our car is a winning design due to many decisions which we have made and how we have designed our components.• The front wing of the car allows air up and

around the car while creating minimal drag.• The side wings allow air to be moved away

from the car rather than riding on top of it which prevents additional drag.

• The Spoilers create a small amount of drag however the downforce created, we believe, will add enough traction to outweigh this factor.

• Thick connections allow for high strength and prevent vibrations during high speed travel. Vibrations would cause unpredictable drag.

• Utilising performance simulation software to tweak fillet sizes and dimensions with the intention of reducing drag and therefore increasing speed.

• Sleek and modern aesthetic which encompasses with our branding and identity.

• Bespoke 3D printed wheels with a concave side to increase speed of the car.

• Consistent referral to the F1 in Schools official Rules & Regulations to make sure we met as many specifications as possible to gain as many points as possible.

The only advancement which we would agree our car needs is the addition of ceramic bearings. If we had bearings we would also remove our spoiler as the extra weight inside the wheels and the weight of the carbon dioxide cylinder would create enough traction and the spoiler would be obsolete. The reason we have not got bearings currently is the increased cost and time necessary to implement them into our design.

Complete Project Evaluation

FACT #12: When an F1 driver hits the brakes on his car he experiences deceleration comparable to a regular car driving through a brick wall at 180mph. 

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Leading the team in the competition has improved my organisation skills and ability to function efficiently in a team. I have also developed skills in marketing and branding, for example presenting a brand on several mediums while maintain the same ethos.

I have learned how to work together as a team in order to achieve a goal in a set amount of time. I have also learned to model according to a very specific set of specifications while still being able to influence the overall final aesthetics of the design.

Competing in the F1 in Schools competition has helped me broaden my awareness of every stage that goes on in engineering and that it is not just the design but also the branding, marketing and funding of a project which is just as crucial to its success.

Although we believe that our project has turned out excellent there were a few learning curves along the way. • A few of the externally sourced material such as

banners and t-shirts were ordered late due to gaining sponsorship late on in the project and if any errors came to postage or manufacture of the products then we would have little time to work something else out.

• We had not heard of the F1 in Schools before we entered and so learning about the format, rules and expectations took time, a resource which we were lacking in our project.

• We had started the project in early January and in total including the holidays we had 10 weeks to complete the task which meant we had to put huge amounts of effort into the project to complete it to a standard which all members of our team would be proud to have been a part of.

• Having limited money to complete the entirety of our project means we have not been able to use some high cost components such as bearings which would only provide positives to our project.

If we went through to the next phase then we would use this information and learn from our mistakes and improve our overall efficiency as team. We would also seek additional funding to allow us to invest in ceramic bearings, develop more adventurous concepts using 3 and 4 axis machining, print more merchandise increasing the reach of our brand and other higher level activities to enrich our project.

Overall, we are all excited for the upcoming competition and have learnt a lot during the road to creating our project. In particular we have all identified the gain of knowledge of all the aspects around engineering and science in the real world such as branding, marketing, manufacturing and promotion. We will take the new skills and knowledge from this process and use them in the future as we all intend on entering the design and engineering world.

What did we gain out of the competition?

Our team have all benefitted from entering into the F1 in schools competition. From teamwork to aerodynamics, marketing to machining we have all broadened our knowledge and understanding of the engineering world. All three of us want to pursue a career in engineering or design and competing in this task has only increased our drive to succeed.

We have come so far to get where we are now, hours in and out of school, shortened weekends and lengthened nights. We have confidence in our project and believe that we have constructed a strong project considering the limitations which have affected us during the competition.

Part: Car Body

Material: Balsa

Number of parts: 1

Part: Car Body

Material: Balsa

Number of parts: 1

Part: Car Wheel

Material: ABS Polymer

Number of parts: 12 (4 per car)