64Digits

…Is how you build a racecar.

The Auburn Formula racing team is halfway through its build season and smack in the middle of our "Holiday Build Marathon", where we all ignore the pleas of our families and spend 20 hours a day working on getting the car ready to race.

I've been basically living in the shop since last friday trying to catch back up to our build schedule, and I want to vent in a blog for a bit with the precious free time that I have right now.

Things this year are going pretty well from a design perspective, but the enthusiasm for building has been pretty lacking. We've somehow managed to fall several weeks behind our plan for the build season, and will be lucky if we can get the rear of the car sprung (on wheels) by the time everyone leaves for christmas. To make matters worse, the molds for the front of our car haven't even arrived yet (we get them cut offsite) so it doesnt look like the car will be done until early February. (we were aiming for early January so that we could have plenty of testing time)

To offer a bit of explanation, we build our car in two halves. The front is a carbon fiber monocoque, which provides full protection for our driver, and the rear is a steel tube space frame which allows easy access to the engine and suspension components.

Here's the progress we've made so far:

If it doesn't look like a lot, that's because it's not. We've run into tons of problems since starting, from tubes needing to go directly through the engine block, to lazy smucks who cant get their parts done on schedule. and I personally had to remake the tab jigging (the structure we use to fins points in 3d space and hold them while welding) like 3 times because I apparently cant do math late at night.

The best part is, everyone went out drinking last night and got hammered, so almost no work got done today. we lost like 14 good hours of work. I can't say I blame everyone, as its been a bit stressful lately, but im a bit peeved I wasnt invited to black-out drunk as well.

I'm going to get back to work now! with luck we can have at least one tire on the car and suspended by the time I have to leave tomorrow night. If we do I'll add some pictures!

In the meantime, here's the hype video for last year's car:

colseed 11 years ago

Your hide tag implies that nothing has been done (on the physical creation of the car), yet the text implies that things have been done. .-.

Sounds like neat stuff though, post how it goes.

KyleKubik 11 years ago

._. there were supposed to be pictures there I swear. thanks for pointing that out.

edit: fixed it. TIL you can't direct link to a dropbox public folder. who woulda thunk it?

MMOnologueguy 11 years ago

Under what circumstance have you been able to find yourself with so much spare time?

Toast 11 years ago

Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

@MMORPG Oh fuck off most of everyone on here spends half the day procrastinating

@MMORPG:

At the time I was working on making the tabs to hold the suspension points, but they had to weld the entire underside of the frame before I could continue. (at this point the frame was basically only tacked together) It took them a good 3 hours to undo the frame, weld all the joints and jig it back up in the correct position, buring which time I could not make tabs because I need to be able to see the frame in relation to the points.

after that everyone else left, so i balanced my time between signing at the top of my lungs, procrastinating, and making all the tabs. then i took a 3.5 hour nap, and here we are. Our welder still hasnt shown up, so i get to just sit around with my thumb up my ass for a bit.

All Work and No Play...

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