Newsletter September 2019

newsletter September 2019

A New Season A New Team

The Rollercoaster of Summer ‘19 Text: Lars van der Lee Photos: Revolve NTNU

Exams have just passed, the sun is out, two cars are sitting in the garage, and the test crew is ready for action! That was the picture of the first week of summer. From this point on, the summer became a giant roller coaster. Not only did it contain plenty of ups and downs, it also flew by just as fast!

Testing is an intense process. We started with testing the cars at slow speeds. Here the goal is to check that all systems, each developed by one of our 67 students, work together.

Once the systems ran for the first time, the first of the summer’s “ups” was reached. But just as fast, we also encountered the first downs, where the systems failed and the cars needed to head home for some love and care.

Throughout the summer, a cycle of driving, fixing and charging was repeated countless times. For every lap on the track, we learned more and got faster. All of this built up to the climax of the season: Competitions!

In 2019 we traveled to three competitions: FSEast, FSA and FSG. DV competed at FSEast, EV at FSA and both cars met in Germany to compete at FSG. FSEast was the first competition for the season. Starting in the middle of July, the truck and Atmos left together a few days earlier while the members prepared the last documents for the static events. After the truck arrived and the campsite was set up, the competition started!

First, we got through all statics, gaining important experience for the next competitions. Getting to defend designs and discuss with judges is one of the “ups” from competitions. The downs in Hungary occurred in the technical inspection. Atmos could not pass all inspections in time, and was unable to compete.

FSA was the first competition for Nova.

After we dropped of Atmos in Karlsruhe, to test together with KA Racing throughout the summer (Thanks <3), the truck arrived in a soaking wet campsite in Spielberg. This however, does not stop a Revolver! In the pouring rain the campsite was quickly set up, and Nova was prepared for competition!

Some initial technical inspection issues were quickly resolved, and Nova was soon ready for both a Design Final and the dynamic events. Winning Engineering Design, a first for Revolve NTNU, and getting second place in AutoX, Endurance and efficiency meant we were in for a good overall placement as well. All points were counted up on the last day, and we equaled our best overall finish ever, with a second place!

FSG was the main mission for both cars.

With some valuable experiences obtained from FSEast and FSA, we prepared for the biggest event of the season. Competing alongside and against 120 cars is a unique experience, and the level was sky high!

Both teams attended the static events early in the week, with EV qualifying for the Design Finals. The week progressed slowly and technical challenges occurred for both cars. The technical inspection proved to be the final hurdle for Atmos, while Nova got through it in the end. This meant that Nova was ready to shine, both on and off the track.

The Design Finals lasted for over 2 hours, with judges from F1 and the automotive industry going over all of Novaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parts. Afterwards, it was time to charge the batteries and get ready for track-action.

The first dynamic day featured skidpad and acceleration. Going out early meant we could set the early benchmark, and we stayed in the lead until TuFast came out. It was a hard battle, but we got second place in the end! Unfortunately, we had to miss the acceleration event due to technical issues.

We managed to fix these on Saturday before the AutoX. Here, Nova again competed at the top! After an exchange of solid lap times from many teams, we came out in second place again. This was turning out to be a close fight over the overall standings! The last event of every competition is the Endurance.

22 km of hard racing, pushing the cars and teams to the utter limit! Nova started in the Final 6, and performed amazingly! However, even though we finished with the secondfastest time, there was one final hurdle: Post-inspection. After Endurance all cars

are scrutineered once again, checking all 130 pages of rules. Unfortunately a tiny electrical component failed during the inspection.

Despite excellent performance, this meant 0/425 points from Sunday. Without these, we had to settle with a 10th place overall for EV and DV in 15th place. The summer would, however, contain one more â&#x20AC;&#x153;upâ&#x20AC;?. The FSG Engineering Design results. Having spent countless hours, every single Sunday all spring, we entered the Design finals prepared for most questions. This showed in the results, where Revolve NTNU came in first place! Winning one of the most prestigious events in Formula student, on the biggest competition there is, FSG! We are extremely proud of this achievement, and the trophy has gotten a prime position in the office. This really shows how we are pushing students to become world-class engineers! Together with the endurance DSQ and inspection issues, the trophy will motivate us throughout the next year to perform even better in 2020!

ŠFSA

Autumn Testing Text: Kristian Sandaa & Marius Hamre Nordrik Photos: Revolve NTNU

The idea with the autumn testing is to gather vital information about the car and the systems after the competition season. During the course of the summer, new ideas arise or indications of problem areas appear daily - but with competitions quickly coming up, it was hard to find the time to test everything that was not critical.

An early September morning, the driverless team assembled in the garage for one final day of driving with Atmos in the 2019 season. Eager alumni and new members were packing and preparing the car in the frosty air. They were lucky enough to borrow a parking lot at Moholt this day.

During the course of the day, they gathered a lot of useful data for the coming season and drove multiple events. Fixes on several communications protocols were confirmed, while others still needed more work. Control systems were put to the test, and new problem areas were discovered.

For the 2019 DV team, the competition season was though, with no driven events at competitions. It was a real motivational boost for them to finally see the vehicle perform at its peak. That really made all the hard work worth it. For the new members of the driverless team, this was their first ever meeting with the vehicle. This visualized and made a goal that somewhat seemed abstract before, now more definite and clearly.

The EV team on the other hand has been lucky to have driven a lot on competitions.

Throughout the season they learned the pros and cons of Nova, but to further investigate what could be improved for the upcoming

season they also arranged a fall testing. The idea was to test the limits of Nova in a way that was not feasible during the pre-competition season because of time pressure or risk.

A lot of different handling tests were done to get a better understanding of the vehicle dynamics, but also to get a good benchmark for the next season. This was all done while taking advantage of the carâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s present competition state where it was completely tuned for performance. The results gave them a good indicator on where there is room for further improvement, but also where the limit has already been reached,and thus a good basis for creating next yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design.

All in all the fall testing was a success, both teams have learnt more about the cars and were able to test and validate their assumptions and simulations.

A Kickstart for the New Team!

Text: Caroline Tran Photos: Revolve NTNU

After a hectic recruitment period which resulted in many good applications to our main admission, we finally gathered a solid team. Shortly after our new members has gotten the good news about their newly acquired position on Team 2020 it was time for bootcamp: two intense weeks full of educational workshops, inspiring lectures and team-building! We started it all off with a get-to-know each other and the project on a sunny Sunday. For many members this was the first time they saw the rest of the group they will be working with closely for the rest of this Revolveyear!

Mid-bootcamp, we took a well-deserved break and went off to Åre for a cabin trip.

The weekend was filled with fun games and activities and made room for getting to know other members than those solely in your own group.

Recharged after Åre we continued the second week of bootcamp. Now the members have obtained valuable information about their systems and were preparing presentations for the rest of the team and alumni!

Now with newly obtained Revolveknowledge, new friendships and useful advice from Alumni we are ready to start our adventure towards next summer’s competitions!

Embedded Navigation Solutions