6th October 2020 (including a 7 week catch up!!)
Virtual Car Team Week 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, AND 27!!!!!
It's been 7 weeks since our last blog post and whilst we may have continued to log onto zoom each week to carry on work with the new car...we may have taken a little break from the blog. Therefore, this afternoon, we decided to take the opportunity to sit down and fill you in on our antics over the last 7 weeks!
So make yourself a cup of tea, grab your favourite snack and get comfy as I have a feeling this maybe a long one!
As usual, we have begun each call with a huge catch up. Although we are now back at school, year group bubbles mean we are still unable to see other team members in different year groups. Consequently, these weekly calls continually prove to be a great way to have a laugh and catch up on what everyone has been doing.
The topic of conversation can quite literally be on anything and everything - however, we often find ourselves reverting back to sharing our favourite memories of Greenpower races (especially as we will be unable to get our fix of racing this year!) and the new Covid measures put in place at school - including outdoor corridors for each year group!
Another key task in these mammoth catch-ups' is to find out what the team's snack of choice is for the evening. Just like the topic of conversation, the snacks vary immensely; from the standard custard creams, bourbon biscuits, cheese and crackers to the more bizarre choice of raw macaroni?!!
With snacks pretty much demolished and having just spent in excess of 30 minutes putting the world to rights, we get cracking with our new car. We've made some brilliant progress on the car over these last seven weeks - which makes us all the more excited for the time we can get back to the race track and into the workshop.
I'll start with an update on our buck....which now has its very own set of wheels!
Since our last post, all of the individual foam pieces for the buck have been stuck together and steel tubes have been inserted, creating a skeleton to ensure the buck doesn't move and remains rigid during the layup.
Richard has attached some mini wheels to this skeleton in order to make moving the buck in and out of the garage far easier.
Currently, we are in the process of perfecting the finish of the foam - gently sanding down and filing in any gaps, holes or imperfections. To help with this process, we have purchased Pattern Coat Primer. For those that don't know, this is essentially a paint that helps guide the sanding process by changing colour. When applied the primer is black, once sanded, it turns grey. The changes in colour help to highlight which areas require filler - as shown by the picture below.
This process is extremely time consuming however one we hope will ensure a smooth and high quality finish to the buck ready for moulding. We are certainly extremely grateful to Richard and Jeff for putting in the time getting the buck primed and prepped ready for when we are safely able to start physically meeting up again and begin the lay-up process.
Moving away from the buck - we have also continued to use Solid Edge for the design work. You may recall from our last post that we began to discus how we could section the car. We have since continued these discussions to help us decide which parts of the car need to be made separately from the buck.
Richard gave us a presentation on different ways in which the car could be split up and how this can easily be drawn and shown in Solid Edge - including showing us the benefits of using the family of parts feature when trying to design the configuration of something.
In addition, we've spent some time designing the construction of our seat, seatbelt fixings and the roll bar; frequently referring back to the Greenpower regulations to make sure our designs are acceptable and within the rules!!!
As well as this, we've also had discussions on the strength points of the car and whether we will need some type of support or brace for the motor and axle. These conversations are ongoing so watch this space!!!!
Week 24 saw the return of the very much missed 'Graph Tuesday'!!! Although we may not have been able to attend the first Greenpower Race of 2020 at Castle Combe, that didn't stop us from using the race data to analyse our competitors performances and discuss the impact of stop/start sprint races on the batteries and performance of cars.
These Zoom meetings are not complete without finishing on our obligatory 'CAUC Lockdown Quiz Night'. Over these last few weeks we've taken part in Pub Quiz Kahoots!, General Knowledge Kahoots and a quiz created by Becksy with rounds on guess the inside of the chocolate bar, Real or Fake place names, two truths one lie and finally CAUC on tour - where are we?!
The Kahoot! quizzes are always rather interesting and often results in lots of laughter as you never know what question is coming next. We've had questions where we've shamefully all got the answer wrong or times when people have accidently clicked on the wrong one -to quote one team member: ''I'm so disappointed in myself, I clicked the wrong one!!'
We've even had a few parents join in - including Immy's mum who not realising that they weren't on mute was telling everyone the answers. That was of course until Immy exclaimed "shusssh, don't tell them"
For this week, we decided to give 'Mr Sim's Engineering kahoot!' ago!. Any guesses who the winner was?!
...Yep that's right, it was Mr G. It's only taken an Engineering quiz for him to finally win quiz night!!!!!!! ;P
Although, credit to Karoot (Rachel!!) who was hot on his heels!
With the results of the last 7 weeks counted - our leader board is as follows:
Richard and Jane are currently in the lead with 26 points, followed by Cate and Cerys.
...and finally, to finish - If you've been missing your weekly instalment of #CAUCPetsonZoom then you'll be in for a treat! Here's an update on our favourite ducklings. Can you believe how big they've grown?!
This brings us to the end of our mammoth catch up blog - you are officially caught up on all things CAUC! We promise we won't leave it so long until the next one!
We'd also like to wish everyone racing at Goodwood this Sunday the very best of luck. We are gutted not to be joining you but rest assured, we'll be supporting from back here in Sandbach - keeping an eye on those live timings!!!
Stay safe and see you soon!