Things I saw at the Formula Hybrid competition today

"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel) 05/04/2016 at 19:41 • Filed to: None

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Today I went out to NHMS for the day to join my team at the Formula Hybrid competition. I had not been able to go sooner due to group presentations for final projects. Lots of large companies take interest in this competition as a source of their engineering talent including FCA, Ford, and GM. While some of my older teammates were there looking for internships and jobs I am only a first year student so I was there to see what the competition was like and learn for when I return the next 3 years.

This is New Fast Car, or NFC. 6 weeks and 2 days ago we decided that our car from last years competition was an overcomplicated pig that was never going to work properly and we proceeded to design and build this car. Yes we are completely insane. It passed tech which many cars are not able to do (last year only 3 cars actually passed tech and got onto the track).

On the way in while traveling past the FCA garage I saw this:

I honestly can’t think of a car that goes more against the idea of this competition than the 707 HP Hellcat. They also had a hybrid Pacifica which is more relevant to the ideas behind the competition but its still a Pacifica.

The supercharger is huge, also painted valve covers

I brought my helmet with me so that it could be used as a spare so I had to bring it to mechanical tech to get it stickered for use. This took me past the Ford and GM garages. The Ford garage was rather boring with only a FiST, a Mustang GT, and a C-Max test mule (which was kinda cool to me but not picture worthy).

The GM garage featured a Bolt, a V6 Camaro, and 3 of the new Volts. the new Volts manage to look like the old Volts from the front and a new civic from the back. And then there was this:

Sorry for the close picture, it was pouring so my phone was right on the edge of the garage to try to keep it dry

HOLY CRAP THAT’S A Z07 C7R EDITION!

These wheels are pretty cool but I’m not sure about the yellow stripe

The LT4 doesn’t look as cool as the Hellcat’s engine

The spoiler is wonderfully large and the translucent panel is a cool detail (It also has corvette logos near the screws on the backside of the panel but those didn’t photograph well at all)

Another item that didn’t photograph well was the C7.R Edition decal on the roof.

I really like the Jake logo on the hood. I also had a chance to sit inside but I didn’t take any photos. Its standard C7 with the exception of corvette competition logos in the seats, a small badge behind the shifter (this one was an 8 speed auto) noting Corvette’s 7 Le Mans wins and 10 manufacturer’s championships. There was also an alcantara steering wheel. I never realized I needed an alcantara steering wheel until now, it feels wonderful.

Back at the FCA garage there was also the front wing and kers unit (the red box on the right, I was an idiot and didn’t take pictures of it) from the F2012. There is an interesting contrast between the two. While tv broadcasts would make you think F1 wings are extremely thin, spindly things. Not the case. Everything is extremely beefy. The end plates are about 3/8 of an inch thick. The upper wing elements are about 1/4 inch thick.

Meanwhile the kers unit is a LOT smaller than you would expect for something so powerful. The unit contains the entire system: Motor generator, batteries, control circuits, and the watercooling loops for cooling the whole thing (outlets would lead to radiators elsewhere in the car). The entire system is so dense that it is about the size of a briefcase. The motor is about the size of half a 1 liter bottle of water. I want some of these motors, now.

I also learned that only the top 2 elements are adjustable on this wing. Teams make wings for each track but I would have thought they would have wanted to be able to adjust the entire wing for a greater adjustment range but they know more about this than I do.

Next year I will hopefully be able to go for the entire competition next year. I want to see how tech actually works as well as possibly do some driving. I will also be there looking for internships.

Our team currently sits 2nd in the electric class after the acceleration and autocross tests. I will provide an update when the competition concludes with the endurance test and judges scores tomorrow.

Captain of the Enterprise > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 05/04/2016 at 20:07

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Awesome I used to do combustion. How hard is it to get a hybrid through tech?

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Captain of the Enterprise 05/04/2016 at 20:51

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Both classes (Hybrid and Electric) have a hard time with tech. There are a ton of rules ( 178 pages total , compare that to the ACO regulations for LMP1 which is 79 pages for 2 languages) and you not only have to meet all of them but be able to definitively prove that you do. Mechanical tech is easier to pass than electrical due to the lower complexity of the rules. Most mechanical rules can be proven with an FEA in Solidworks. There is a lot more complexity to the electrical requirements as the electrical systems are easily the most dangerous part of the cars. Most teams get caught by the isolation requirements. It is required by the rules that the high voltage system (anything greater than 30v) be electrically isolated from the low voltage system. This means that you can’t do something such as run the signal from your gas pedal (low voltage) to your motor controller (high voltage), as they have to be isolated. Other teams get caught by the battery management requirements. You are required to monitor the voltage of every cell in your pack as well as the temperature of a certain percentage of the cells (changes based on cell type). This is an extremely complex system and some teams can’t get theirs to work right.

The only reason my team even had a hope of building a rules compliant car this quickly is because we have 9 years of history in this competition and we utilized the battery management system from one of our older cars that we knew was good as well as rules compliant.

bobbe17 > Captain of the Enterprise 05/04/2016 at 21:34

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Ridiculously difficult. The year I was working on it at MSOE, I think only four teams actually made it through and got to go on track. We never even made it to competition that year because we took on too much.

bobbe17 > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 05/04/2016 at 21:36

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Did your team struggle to find good electrical engineers? That was the challenge when I worked on it. We had 1 EE that cared, and the rest just got placed into it for their senior design project. As long as they passed the class, they didn’t really care what happened with the car.