Homecoming!

The car ride from Fiorano to Florence was pretty bad. The logistical problem I mentioned earlier was a truck swerving into our little racecar transporter, and then radioing another truck in as an accident “witness” for the police report. We were still in our uniforms, so they tried to tell the cops we were racing them. It was a long night.

The next day, we awoke and headed out to the Prato shop where the crate was, and sealed “gravedigger” into her coffin.

The rest was pretty simple… Train to Rome, Taxi to the Airport, Plane to Frankfurt, Plane to LA. We went out to dinner the last night, but we were wiped out. I think we’d all had enough of Europe. It was time to come home.


The Pomona brothers check out.

We ended up with 5th place. We also scored better in engineering than in the dynamic events for the first time in years. This is good, because one of the goals for this year was to change the culture of the team to value testing and engineering over just building and racing. We had a few systems where we really learned a lot about what was going on physically, and we are in a good position for next year… We have a fleet of ex-rookies, something to talk about, and a car that went from 515 lb to 455 lb in a year. And she’s going on another diet for next year.

The guys are already plowing ahead with the design for next year, and reminding me that I only have 4 classes left before I’m team history. (I caught Ross looking up water pumps for the 2008 cooling system, and I got jealous… It’s hard to let go.) There are a few target areas to improve for next year, but think I would upset the team if I posted them here.

We’re being well-received at school. My ME student collogues are asking me about the competition, and professors are telling us we did well.

I don’t want to get all sentimental, but I’m going to miss all this. It was stressful, difficult, and time consuming, but 100% worth it. I don’t know what I’m going to do after I get my degree… I think I want to work on engine systems, alternative power for cars, or cooling. All this new technology, the batteries, the fuel cells, electronics, etc... It all gets hot. Surely someone will need a cooling guy.

If you want more info about the team, email cppfsae@gmail.com, or email me at kjgasperini@csupomona.edu. (Or, hey, if you’re hiring…) I’ve also got big pictures of everything posted here, and much more.

Thanks for reading.

-Kevin

Competition: Day 3!

This was to be the most difficult day for us. We were up against three championship teams, and some good cars. Many of the European teams have well-credentialed drivers who would be tough competition indeed.

The day started with the results for the static events being posted, and we were in third place!

We were behind TU Graz, the Ferrari of the competition. (These guys have an automotive engineering major at their school, two to three teams running consecutively, and come out to lots of the FSAE competitions. Someone told me they had reserved 80 beds at a hotel nearby... They are the team to beat.) We were also just about tied with the other Graz team, Jonneaum graz.

3rd place? One point away from second?!? You know what this means... It’s time to roll out the ol’ stars and stripes!

And with that, we queued up for the dynamic events:

…We we kept it going for the endurance.


There was a bit of a scare because the car didn’t start right away for the 2nd leg of the endurance, but a little throttle solved that. We finished without incident, which is the way to do it.


This woman is Claudia Rossi. She works for ATA, and was really helpful, answering all the questions Jeremy, Cameron and I could throw at her. Thanks, Claudia!

The rest of the day was a blur. We packed up the car, and then headed to the awards ceremony. After that, we took a couple of pictures and then hit the road for Florence.


…And that wraps up another competition.


See you later, Pista di Fiorano... Until next time.

Competition: Day 2!

The second day of competition didn’t start quite as early. Day two was reserved for passing the dynamic tech inspections, and for the design presentations. Here we are, about to leave from the parking lot.

We had spent last night reviewing all of the design presentations, and auditing and critiquing everyone’s performance. Everyone had worked to improve their part of this contest since West.


We entered the track as they opened up, and attended to a few details, such as getting fresh tires mounted.


Looking for leaks on the tilt table.

Fixing leak from failed tilt table test, followed by returning to tilt table and passing.

Right after lunch, we waited for the practice area to open up. These lazy guys were all asleep when I went out to check on them!

Here we are, ready to fly! (Notice the three sticker sections. We get them for safety inspection, tilt table, and noise and brake testing. When you have all three, you may drive in the dynamic events.)

I don’t have any pictures of the actual judging, because I was busy presenting the cooling system. (To the technical director of Lamborghini!) Some of the other guys have these, and would love to show them to you if you drop by for a visit.

After we finished our events, we explored, checked up on our rivals, and left as the sun set.

Day 1 of FSAE Italy

We woke up at about 5, and got to the track at 5:30 to wait for ATA to let us in. We were the first team in line, and ready to go.


We set up before the sun came up, and were ready before most of the other teams had unloaded. This is the team I know. We were the same way in west, just ready to go. West was nice because we were also able to show our fun side with the kiddie pool and the event-sized stereo, but this one was only business.

Enzo’s house.


The awards at the opening ceremony.


Lunch

The rest of the day was spent getting through tech inspection, and going through the little checks to make sure we would be ready for race day. All was well, so after our inspection, we returned to the hotel to work on the much feared design presentation for tomorrow.

To Fiorano! (The Day Before Comp Take 2)

The day before competition, we moved the team and the car to the Fiorano hotel. We split up into two groups, one escorting the car in rental vehicles, and the other taking a train to Fiorano.

This turned out to be a pretty rotten way to get to Fiorano. We took a train, a tram, and then a bus. Problem is, the bus driver either didn’t like us or made a mistake and told us the hotel was “50 meters up the street” when he meant “50 meters up the street after you walk two kilometers.” Still, we arrived. And when we opened up our hotel window, we heard the Ferrari F1 cars testing before the upcoming Japan Race.

We did what anyone would do in our position… We ran the hell over to the track!


Unfortunatley, we had missed the F1 guys. They had stopped the cars and switched to the “I just bought a Ferrari and don’t know how to drive” crowd. We went back to the hotel, and decided to go for a team dinner.


Later that night, with the team tucked into bed, a few of us stayed up to get the paperwork 100% ready for our early day tomorrow.

Arg!

Ok everyone,

Iàm sorry itàs been dead. Competition got a little crazy, and we have a pretty aggressive schedule for getting out of here.

Here's where we stand:

We finished in 5th place.

After the static events, (design, cost, manufacturing) we were in third, only behind the two infamous teams from Graz, Austria. Unfortunatley for us, Stuttgart and Turin (who did poorly in these events) had really strong cars, and did well in the dynamic events.

We were consistantly about 4th to 5th in the static events, and bounced to second because other teams that did well in, say, design, didnàt do as well in the other events. I'll have more on this later.

We drove from Fiorano to Florence last night, just after the awards ceremony. There were a few issues that had come up that complicated matters, but they have been handled

Today, we crated the car. It is ready for its return to Pomona.

Half of the team is returning to CA, and the other half returns on the 26th. The remaining people are divided into two groups:

Cook, Dauphinee, Phillips, Torkay: Driving to Austria tonight, and to Frankfurt tomorrow.
Gasperini, Smith, Olson, Walters: Going to Rome tomorrow, flying to CA the next day.

We'll have more up in about three days. I'm sorry, but the next two days are going to be tricky because there are a lot of logistical details to track down. We want to make sure we get out of here cleanly, and without leaving anyone behind.

Another Update, Courtesy of Scott Borg

Sorry for the lack of updates, we just checked in at a hostel withinternet. The Ferrari track was amazing, the competition was fierce,and it was a good time for everyone.

On Friday was the tech inspection. We were one of the first teams onsite, we arrived before dawn. At the U.S. competitions, teams have to get in line for tech. With a smaller number of cars, the tech scrutineers made their way around the paddocks, inspecting each car in their pit area. We passed tech on the first inspection, and quickly went back to the hotel to prepare for the presentations on Saturday.

We spent a lot of time preparing for the Design, Business, andManufacturing presentations. A few first-year members would bepresenting systems that had been designed by former students, so their veteran teammates spent a lot of time quizzing and coaching them.

We did very well on Saturday, placing 5th, 4th, and 5th respectively. Not all of the other teams were this consistent, so we were sitting in 3rd place going into the dynamic events, which would all take place onSunday. Another difference between the U.S. and Italian events was that all the race events are held on the same day. At the U.S. competitions,the Skidpad, Acceleration and Autocross events are on Saturday and the 20-lap Endurance race is held on Sunday morning.

Ferrari's track time is very valuable, so we were only allowed three days there. This meant that all the racing would take place on Sunday.In the morning, we were pretty fast on the Skidpad, but the officialtimes weren't displayed for spectators to see. After all the carsfinished the skidpad, the Acceleration event began. This was a nicechange from the US events, which run both events at the same time,forcing spectators (and team members without track passes) to miss outon half the events.

During the Accel event, we were able to seeofficial times, and there were at least three-to-five cars that beatus in that event. The most concerning team was TU Graz from Austria,who had done very well at all the other events so far.The autocross event was held before lunch, and again there were a fewcars that were running faster than us. Both of our drivers hit coneson some of their runs, incurring 2 second penalties per cone, butDustin's fastest run was clean.

During lunch we prepped the car for the Endurance race: we wrapped anyoil lines that might leak and cause us to instantly fail. We changedto a fresh CO2 tank, and were a little worried because our larger CO2tank had been damaged a few days earlier; we would be forced to usethe smaller bottle, which might not be enough depending on the courselayout.The Endurance race is always tense for everyone on the team: you haveabout 20 minutes to wonder if something you built in a hurry will failduring the race or not, or if parts will wear out at the exact wrongtime, or if the drivers (from our team or other teams) might make amistake and damage the car.

We finished the race, and both drivers aswell as the car performed well, and I think we impressed a lot ofpeople. A couple of the top teams had problems and didn't finish, sothat could only help our chances at bringing home a trophy. On theother hand, we had been consistently slower than a few of the teamsout there, namely the Germans from Stuttgart and the Austrians from TUGraz.

Going into the awards ceremony, none of the scores from Sunday hadbeen posted yet, so we had no indication of how well we would do. Tomake a long story short, we took 5th place, and although it's notquite a top three trophy, we are very happy with it. Our entire teamperformed very well; we gave some high-budget teams a run for theirmoney, but some of them were faster than us. We got to walk aroundFerrari's private race track, see Enzo's house, and imagine that theirF1 teams were hiding inside one of the big hangars, waiting for us toleave so they could get back to testing for the next F1 race.

In closing, thanks to all who have helped get us this far, and keepwatching Cal Poly because they're going to continue to improve and dogreat things. Look for photos on www.csupomona.edu/fsae andhttp://blogspot.cppfsae.com/ , they should be posted within a coupleof weeks.