Power gets a Back Axle

Following last weekends race, the year 9 team had a good Wednesday session resulting in a nearly completed back axle.

Die-cutting M12 thread is hard work!

Back axle bearing blocks and brake calipers mounted

Axle and discs in place and the same pin-drive system we use on Projectile
allows for quick wheel and sprocket changes

Startin to look quite car-like!!!

So next to mount the front axle/rollbar combo.

Goodwood race report

Last weekend saw our first race of the season and the very first outing for our new car "Projectile". The car was only just ready and still has a lot of finishing to be done (including some paint!).

Tash and Ellie Pennick  (aka Crash and Panic) prepare Poppy for her first drive

Good luck Poppy, chocks away!

Nikhil prepares to push off from the Grid.

The day didn't get of to the best start, as during the first race we quickly realized that the batteries weren't fully charged for year 9's Darkside of the Plume forcing and early retirement from the race. Projectile's race went better but from the telemetry we could see that we were in much too high a gear causing us to retire near the end of the race in an attempt not to damage out batteries too severely!

With Darkside consigned to the paddock for the second race, we quickly changed plans and having changed to a lower gear ratio, we decided to try and give as many of our new drivers a stint behind the wheel as possible.

So as the final flag fell, we managed 16th place out of 45 cars. Very promising considering that we did twice as many pit stops for driver changes as necessary AND it transpires we overcompensated on the gear ratio and went too low, this time effectively finishing with half a tank left!!! A gear ratio somewhere in the middle next time I think!

To top off a rapidly improving day, the team walked away with the Siemens trophy for best engineered car and second prize for best portfolio (for this very blog!!) YAY!

So onto the next race (July 5th) which will be a year 9 special at Ford's Dunton Technical Centre in Basildon.

Just about ready!!

This weekend is our first race of the season and following a weeks worth of frenetic tinkering, our new car Plume Projectile will race!! Admittedly it won't be sporting any paint or a drivers head fairing.......but it will race!!!

Reece tries out the harnesses.

The new headrest (it now has a lot more padding!)

View from the front.

So tomorrow morning, we leave the school at 5.30am (groan!) to head for Goodwood with both our old car Darkside of the Plume and the new Plume Projectile. The weather forecast is good and we are all quite excited to see how the new year 9 team will perform and how the new car will do. Mr Raymond has been very busy making and programming the new on-board computer which will help monitor and regulate our power usage.

Mr Raymond tests the new super bright brake light......err.......

I shall post a full race report with details of the races on the day, but if you would like to follow the racing live, you can check out this website:

http://bbk-online.net/gpt/event84.htm