Beautiful TIG welding and some 3D printing!!!

The front and rear roll bars for Projectile have come back from Marcus our friendly TIG welder and they are fantastic!!

Cleaned up a treat with some wire wool!

Lovely welding!!!

Rear triangulation anchor to chassis floor.

Front roll bar in situ.

In case you were wondering the rear roll bar is actually reclaimed climbing bars from when the school gym was refitted!!!

In the meanwhile, Mr. Raymond got busy with our 3D printer, printing out a NACA duct which hopefiully provide a low drag airflow over the motor.

Halfway through...

The finished Duct

The wooden battery box with its bathroom bolt locks is now done.....

Easy and neat!

And this evening the year 9's made some excellent progress on the rear axle mounting brackets for their car Plume Power....

difficult to see, but carefully made triangulated
brackets will be bonded to the chassis tub. The axle brackets will bolt through.

A decision was made to locate the batteries inside the cabin, under the seat....

nicely hidden and still able to easily house a 6' driver!

Only 3 weeks to go before our first race, so the pressure is well and truly on to finish Projectile in time (thankfully Power is not racing until September...)

Roll bar mock up and more year 9 progress on Plume Power!

Our 2 year 11's Reece and Nathan, have been hard at work fabricating the complicated aluminium roll bar. This has involved some bending and careful notching of 32mm tubing (which I salvaged from the old climbing bars that were changed in the gym some years ago!)

Unequal triangulation is to allow enough room for
the motor to adjust back and forth on its hinge mount

Arrows in permanent pen are alignment marks for the welder

Here you can see how well the tubes are fitted together
this should help when they are TIG welded!

The plan is to re-tape the roll-cage together on a board, using the alignment marks. and then hand the whole jolly lot to our tame TIG welder, so we can just bolt it in when we get it back.

Meanwhile...

Tash and Hannah have started coating the foam nosecone
in silicon sealant, this makes it waterproof and shiny!

And this evening, the year 9's have been very busy with the build of Plume Power....

Gluing and nailing in triangular bracing to reduce flexing in
the stepped in nose section.

Alex starts to frame around the top of the chassis walls

Crikey, it's starting to look like a car!!!

It stops, It goes.....its getting a roll bar soon!

A fairly frantic week has seen the car gain a now fully functional braking system. I decided this year to use Sturmey Archer hub brakes a) because they are good b) because they are easy to set up and c) because we already had some in the spare parts store!!!

Brake cables follow and are cable tied to the steering rods.
The Teflon lined flexible "noodle" tubes help turn the cable tightly in towards
the sturmey drums.



Nathan turned up a split sleeve allowing the double lever to fit the 20mm steering column.

To test the steering, braking, turning circle and drivetrain, Mr Raymond threw together a speed controller and "go" button resulting in our first (and rather promising) test spin around the tennis courts....

Even our new year 10 team member Poppy had a go in what turned out to be a very productive first session!

Additionally, Reece and Nathan have finished the complicated "birds-mouth" Joints for the Roll bar (compounded by the two triangulation braces being different from each other). They now need to make some flat plates to mount the tubes to which will bolt to the chassis and hopefully also provide rear harness anchors too....

 

Good work Fellas!!!

Welcome the new year 9 team members!

Ok, So today was the first after school club for the brand new year 9 team.

Welcome to Yasmin, Jane Marie, Esme, Alex, Alex and Nikhil!!

They are going to start the forthcoming season in the tried and tested "Darkside of the Plume" (last years car), but today started to build their own new car, which will be called Plume Power.

Yasmin and Jane Marie measure up..

Nikhil, Alex Kay and Alex Thompson mark out..

Team using jigsaw for the 1st time!

 

Pieces tacked together with just a glue gun..

As you can see, it can potentially fit really tall drivers

(I'm only 5'6!!!)

Chassis mock-up with nearly completed front roll-bar, steering kingpins

and rear axle assembly.

Rear axle to be mounted to back of battery box (not yet built)

Turning circle looks good in mock up... 

As it needs to be, this car needs to get around

 the Dunton Technical Centre Hairpin!!

So all in all a great start for the year 9's!! A way to go with their new car yet, but it has to be ready for September!!

The new wheel discs are here!

Just got the new discs back from our local vacuum forming company Plastikos (Tolleshunt Darcy)
And they are BRILLIANT!!!

The team members spent a happy session this evening trimming them to size and trialling different adhesives to stick them to our rims.

You need strong hands to cut through these....
.....even with really sharp scissors...well done Nathan!

Newest year 10 team member Jack trims the discs to exact size.

And Nathan cuts the hole in the middle..

After some careful sanding from

 Tash, Hannah and Ellie....PERFECT!

Trial fit on the car looks great!!!

 

Above you can also clearly see last week's work, when the team added

white plastic electrical conduit covering the nasty sharp edges of the 

aluminium honeycomb chassis. (tis held on with cable ties!)

 

Testing bits of vacuum formed plastic with different adhesives

on a spare wheel...including SUGRU which is really cool stuff!!

Some more "Podging", working steering and drivetrain run-up

More frenzied progress in several areas at once....the team had split into sub teams, with Reece, Nathan, Tash and more recently Hannah working on the steering, me and Kirt working on the Roll bar and all of us working on Podging stuff together.



Mr Raymond and Kirt size up for the back of the battery box

Liam Works out the dimensions

 

 

 

Meanwhile Reece and Nathan make a steering support

 



Out of a "borrowed" chopping board

 

Test assembled - seems good - no slop!

 

Everything Podged together and drying

(Podge is fine sawdust and Epoxy resin)

 

Motor drivetrain podged in place

(gaps in podge where clamps where)

 

Kirt and my test rollbar

(to be professionally TIG welded together)

 

- Hannah waits for Podge to dry

- Nathan and Kirt are thinking....hmmm..

- Tash runs from the camera!

 



Meanwhile our CAD router is busy machining moulds

for wheel discs to be vacuum formed..

 



 

And the finished assembled mould is investigated

by my inquisitive dog, Maggie.

 

 

And Finally the Drivetrain being tested to warp factor by Kirt