Click here to visit the TSR-4 Construction Diary.
October 20, 2007
“The website has been deliberately quiet of late, not least the mammoth effort that building TSR-4 absorbed took a lot out of the team. It also has, I hope, given other teams the urge to develop their site and so get this years website prize. Any rumours that we gave Honda some tips for the new season when we visited them last February are untrue!!With the Motor Sport extravaganza that the Midlands heat offered, Greenpower F24 on the Tuesday and then two days of the Shell Economy Marathon with 4 cars, we had reached saturation point at the end of the summer term and with key team members (like the designer/lead driver of TSR-4) not available and with TSR-2 needing some workshop time, we decided to give the Sussex heat a miss. It cost us the #1 slot but did at least alert us to the unexpected competition! Entering TSR-4 in the solar class at the SEM was a bonus too, with a confirmed figure of 2,925 mpg equivalent being achieved. Electric cars (so long as the electricity is green in origin) are clearly the way to go – TSR-3 managed a meagre 1349 on petrol!
With summer over TSR-2 was overhauled and checked out for the annual pilgrimage to Bedford Autodrome. Despite the wind we pulled off a convincing win, with power to spare at the end. Our new drivers took a re-vamped and still-to-be-reckoned-with TSR-1 back out on track for some training. The Surrey heat at Dunsfold was attended by a skeleton team so that the new drivers could get more wheel time and it was also a chance to see the opposition at work. Seaford’s new car, looking a real masterpiece but still a long way off the ground, re-discovered the laws concerning speed and cornering, falling over and spoiling the paintwork on the pit bend. Fortunately the driver was un-hurt. The Eltham College cars were having fun, seeing how fast they could go, followed by, ‘whoops, I’ve missed my corner’ ™. Distances were understandably down but it was a fairly tight circuit, much improved on the 2006 version. And so, on to the preparation for the final. TSR-2 had another health check and had it’s LED brake light repaired - vibration from 2,500 miles had finally killed it –now it is all secured with hot glue! Two new tyres were fitted and the chains lubricated. TSR-4 had a major check over and adjustment, taking care of the 300 miles bedding in changes that had occurred. Nothing major was found and the time was mostly spent tidying up bits and pieces, adding our sponsor details and the racing numbers. Both our aerials were faired in, every little bit helps. Our digital dashboard was re-configured for better visibility and all the batteries were cycled and checked for capacity. Even the forecast was looking good. With three cars in the final (we decided to run TSR-1 as (a) it had qualified adequately and (b) the new drivers would get a feel for a very busy track. As it turned out they drove fine, it was another team that spoiled their day (Bananarama taking a truly stupid line out of the chicane).
The race start nearly caught me unawares as the Earl of March dropped the flag at 12:55. They were off and so was I, just up the grassy knoll to see who was going to be first round the Shell Building. It was no surprise to see several of the top cars going for it, I did expect this and although it was hard to accept it was the right decision as we fell to 9th place, it did not take long to unwind the apparent difference. Only Seaford remained out of reach (see later) but it would be a close thing that just had to be waited out. TSR-2 was trouble free all day and just went about it’s business pretty much as usual. TSR-4 lost a lap due to our digital dashboard getting unplugged during a pit stop, so the driver had limited guidance for a lap, meaning he drove slowly, and had to pit again (best hard wire than for next year I think!!). The first set of batteries lasted 2 hrs 20 mins, so we then set about burning up the second set in 1 hr 35. Our last driver got the long slot and was progressively told to wind things up a bit. This he duly did, turning in laps around 3:35 at well under 30 amps. With half an hour to go Eltham started to slow (we don’t just time our cars!) and we knew our strategy would pay off. Would it pay off enough to get both cars on the podium though? With 10 minutes to go TSR-4 was a lap up on Eltham so we knew we had second place – the wireless data distribution told us that on comms. On the last lap TSR-2 was flying and just a tiny bit behind Eltham who had just managed a 9 minute lap. We were pretty sure we had it in the bag but until both our cars took the flag it was nail-biting. Once it was announced we had done it, it was euphoria all round. We have been racing for 6 years now, but have never managed a podium at the final. To get both cars there is great, and with TSR-4 only on it’s third race a great achievement for the designer and main builder Joshua Evans together with John-Luke and Nick. I have long held that ‘bubbles’ are not the only answer to Greenpower racing, vehicle handling, technical backup and a race strategy that delivers you to the finish line are just as important. Our two top cars have managed firsts or seconds at every race we contested this year, and at the final they both got a podium. Our finest year, and justification for the school motto – He who perseveres, conquers….well nearly, there remains the spectre of Phoenix disappearing off into the distance. I’ve not go the lap times yet, but I think they were slowing towards the end, they certainly seemed to be in the pits a lot. After the race we measured what was left in the race batteries. The first set were pretty much done for, just a few minutes at full load. The second set, however, well they contained a substantial amount, enough to catch the Phoenix? You will have to wait until next year, when TSR-4 will emerge fully completed and ready to take on all comers. Can’t wait……”
July 6, 2007
Despite the truly apalling weather early on Castle Combe dried out nicely and we had a great day. Data logs from practice showed that our average amps draw was well within the power budget and so it was - the first set lasted an easy 2 hrs 10 mins and the second set had over 20 minutes spare at the end. TSR-4 withstood it\’s \’shake down\’ and came home a comfortable second. The only problem was really the lack of visibility that our hastily constructed digital dashboard offered in bright sunlight. It was partly that that caused the unplanned assault on TT\’s lap record. If we had saved that until the end they may have not worked quite so hard to fix their car. We can at least blame ourselves on this front, as we lent them the 4 mm drill they needed to repair the car!! However, it did provoke them into showing how fast TT can now go with a hole in the roof (I think both cars have been modified in the spirit of the regs)and we are reasonable sure that with it\’s planned bodywork and spats TSR-4 can catch them...at some point.The new Midlands heat was fun too, we have been using Rockingham for the Shell Economy marathon since it opened years ago so knew we were in for a treat. So it turned out, pretty much a textbook race for us although TSR-2 picked up a piece of someone\’s car that damaged the front ssupension so causing longer lap times at the end. That Brian was turning in 2:45 lap times certianly showed how fast they could go, but as we correctly assumed they were pushing too hard and went flat before the end. We did try chasing their fastest lap time, but we limited our drivers to 30 amps for that. As it turned out we were a few seconds off their time, but with a WEP tune in the digital dashboard (War Emergency Power!!) we could have clinched it. As it was we were more than happy with our second 1-2, and TSR-4 got a first on it\’s second outing. Time well spent we feel.....now!!
RGEnull
June 14, 2007
After the frantic work over the Easter holidays things have been quiet as key team members have been involved with their public examinations. The race batteries have been well and truly investigated, re-orgnised into best, good and practice packs and fully charged ready for their next race at Castle Combe. We hope TSR-4 will be ready by then and have everything that we need ready to go, but there are still 101 things to finish on it. If we do make it it will be mostly for testing and development work and to see if our plans might bear fruit. It\’s been a long term project this...For the Sussex/Hants heat, TSR-1 will be dragged along again to help test out our new recruits. With both our faster cars representing a huge investment of time and money we are not about to let raw beginners loose behind the wheel. Due to other commitments TSR-4 will not race at this heat, not least as key personel are not available. It will re-appear possibly at Bedford (TSR-2 will be there for sure, trying to break a 100 miles in 4 hours on that circuit)but definetely at the Dunsfold Surrey heat. The Shell Economy Marathon is also looming large and we have some bodywork and gearing changes to make to TSR-3 before then. I have to fit engine management and LPG injection to my own entry and some repairs are also required to our Strident Trident to make it fit for competition. With an Electric class available this year, and the Greenpower Midlands heat the day before, we have entered TSR-2 and TSR-4 if it is finished in time in that class. By using low gears, a pair smaller 17 A/Hr batteries culled from those cheap \’jump-start\’ packs we hope to derive an MPG equivalent. Should be interesting and will no doubt add the the electricity vs fossil fuel debate.
RGE
May 2, 2007
Well after working horrendous hours over the Easter holiday to finsih TSR-4 it was clear that it would not make it to the season opener, but at least TSR-2 did. The longer practice and the ability to use a spare set of batteries made practice really useful and all four of our available drivers had a few laps. The car was faster than last year, as a result of a new bodywork package, and was on target for 5:10 laps without any bother at all. The race kicked off and as we hoped, TSR-2 was first round the chicane. The Phoenix ’streamliner with vent’ soon caught us up but no one else did and by two hours, as our lap times crept up, we pitted for our first battery change. At this point dissaster struck as when the ’go’ button was pressed nothing happened! A very quick investigation (thanks to SKS for the multimeter, which we forgot to bring!!)behind the pit wall showed that a crimped connector had cut through the wire and although looking good, was not actually connected, as pulling it revealed. A very quick fix was made and off it went, (thanks to SKS for the wire strippers!!) 10 minutes lost and our precious two lap lead over our nearest competitors gone, leaving us in 6th place. We fairly quickly caught up the 6th place but the remainder of cars were lapping on very similar times. It was down to the wire to see if their battery management was up to the fours hours. As it turned out, although we lapped SKS on the last lap (we were just unlapping them fortunately, as to have taken third place from them would have been embarrasing to say the least!!) we did not catch anyone else. So, a podium finish lost through a single crimp connection failure!! Why not solder?? Well, aircraft looms are crimped, not soldered as it is more reliable....I hope!! Suffice to say we will be looking hard at the quality of ALL our crimps before the next race. After the race the data log was retrieved and analysed. I’ll publish it here so all can see, but it basically showed an average draw of just 18 amps (average). Keen to find out what our batteries had left, I hooked tome up to our 0.8 ohm load, our precision amp sensor and watched the multimeter voltage. One pack delivered a further 15 minutes at 27 amps, the second pack delivered 30 minutes at 27 amps, both down to 11 volts per battery under this load. If we divide that by 18 (our average draw) we end up with another hour and four minutes running time. So, we could have managed a 5 hour race without charging!! Lap times would tail off a bit though, our best on the day was 5:04, our slowest 5:20. But it is useful to know what we had spare, and in the absence of Phoenix, could easily have affored a top gear lap near the end to clinch the fastest lap. Next time maybe....March 30, 2007
Today marks the end of our spring term and the pupils all go home at 12:30. The building of TSR-4 will continue until around 5.30 today when it will all be packed away for at least a week. Both key builders are facing up to their exam revision schedules over Easter and unless they work to the relevant parents requirements there will be no activity during the holidays. Of course, the burning desire to win and the thought and effort that has gone into planning TSR-4 should tip the scales in the right direction. When we built TSR-2 it took about 270 hours up to the first race, and another 30 for the second race a few days later. TSR-4 is a far more precision designed and built car, with a lot of attention to detail. This of coure takes time, and if we do make it out at the season opener, it will be with hasty bodywork and no spats. If it proves to be faster than the 2007 TSR-2 (which itself should be back up to, or beyond, 2005 performance levels) we know we will be driving a winner and as exams finish the car should be ’fully finished’ (yeah, right!!) for the Castle Combe heat. It will probably NOT race at the Sussex/Hants heat although TSR-1 & TSR-2 will. There is a limit to the space in our trailer!!I don’t suppose we will be alone in working flatout over the holiday, so best of luck and see you at a race somewhere this year.
RGE
February 28, 2007
TSR Honda Factory Report, By Ollie Woods, TSR Power Management.On the 22nd February, the TSR team was lucky enough to visit the Honda Racing F1 Team headquarters in Brackley, Northamptonshire. This visit was won by Michael Jones for the team, as his amazing website (the one you’re on now!) beat all contenders to the 2006 Greenpower Website Award.
After a long, wet drive up from Croydon, we arrived just about dead on time at Honda HQ. We were met at reception by Barry Shears, chief of Greenpower, and Sara, a marketing and hospitality lady from Honda. We were given brilliant Honda team caps, some with Jenson Button and some with Rubens Barrichello on, before being escorted upstairs, past two previous BAR-Honda cars hanging from the ceiling, to the Honda Experience Centre. We were introduced to three of Honda’s engineering students, who presented their idea of what they called a “soapbox” car – albeit one that can weigh up to 90kg. This car, that looked much like a Greenpower car to me but with a professional steering wheel and carbon fibre casing, has raced in various series, winning most of them. From here we moved on past the Honda car that beat the land speed record over the Bonneville salt flats in America last July, to the all-important trophy cabinet, which contained the winner’s trophy won in Hungary last season by Jenson Button. We were also shown an exploded cross section view of the Formula One car, before being led out towards the factory. It is worth pointing out that the “Experience Centre”, as we were in, is right next to Honda’s brand new full-scale wind tunnel, that cost £61 million to build!
This was only the beginning of the tour – we walked through the car park to the main attraction – the factory itself. After pausing to admire the 2004/5 test car we were led up a winding staircase to our first port of call, the design office. We passed the marketing and hospitality room on the way, but the ladies and gentlemen who worked there were too busy negotiating to see us! The design room was massive – on one side, there were the race engineers, who are constantly with the car trying to set it up. They were away in Bahrain with the rest of the race and test team, trying to get the car perfect for the launch on Monday. On the other side of the room was the main development team, who stay at base to design the components of the car. We were told that the engine team, who are based in Japan with Honda’s main base, send a few Japanese workers to the factory to liaise with the designers, since if you change one component, another is always affected. We were also told that Silverstone is hardly used to test on thanks to the wet weather, despite only being a few miles from Honda HQ!
From here we went past the race room, where a set of engineers and general technical boffins watch every minute of every session, in order to liaise with the team down at the track. We were also told they use messaging services for this purpose – MSN has a purpose, after all! We were led to a cabinet, showing the metal pieces that are made in the machine shop. We weren’t allowed in this room, but could see it – there were all sorts of metalwork machines, far more than I’ve ever seen in our DT workshop. Apparently, titanium is preferred to aluminium despite a weight gain, because of its strength – the same goes with steel and magnesium. We were shown Jenson Button’s brake pedal, which is unique to him, as well as another really intricate piece of metal work, that Mr Evans and Barry Shears agreed would have taken days to do in the workshop! We were shown the Non-Destructive Testing lab, where metal parts are checked before every race for cracks and defects using dyes and ultraviolet light. Every part has a “barcode” that tells the engineers how long it can last for – it would be horrendous if a part stayed on the car for too long and ended up causing a retirement or worse, in turn causing a massive investigation at the factory. Sadly, the main R&D room was shut since bits of metal could be flying everywhere.
We were shown how carbon fibre is used to make the shell of the car – this involves first making a template on a computer, then the piece being cut, before being “baked” in an oven at a massive temperature and 10 times the pressure of the Earth’s atmosphere, so that it is toughened – the carbon fibre we were given to play with broke really easily! This cooking takes 3 hours to do, so many pieces are cooked at once. Carbon fibre also has a “shelf life” of only a few days, unless it is frozen, in which case the lifespan becomes a year – in order to protect this, all handlers of carbon fibre have to wear lab coats and wash their hands before going into the rooms. We were then shown a steering wheel from one of the F1 cars – it costs £30,000 to make because of the intricate electronics required to communicate with the pits and be able to alter brake balance, differential, traction control, and many other setup matters on the fly while in the car. It was easy to imagine us driving with one – it’s a pity we couldn’t get one for TSR-4! We were led past the other component rooms – in one there were all sorts of extractors to prevent dust inhalation, which can obviously be a real problem.
The last stop on our tour was the engineer’s bay. Each set of race and test engineers has a bay at the factory, in order to be able to assemble and disassemble the car speedily and effectively, so parts can be taken for testing. We were told that the pitcrew tend to only last two years on Grand Prix duty, before taking up a factory job in order to be near family – unlike our pitcrew, some of whom have been ensuring fast pitstops for four or five years! We were shown the pitstop practice car, and finally a new Bridgestone tyre – for 2007, Honda have been forced to switch to Bridgestone as they are now the sole tyre supplier in Formula One. The tyre really wasn’t heavy – at 22 kg, it was actually less than the batteries I look after in Greenpower! No wonder their pitstops are so quick!
Our time at Honda was amazing – it truly was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and as a massive F1 fan it was of great interest to learn how an F1 car is designed and built. The factory was even bigger than I expected, and the amount of work going on was mindblowing, but that’s what you get for a $350 million budget! Thanks to Greenpower for organising our day, to Mr Evans for taking us, and to Honda for allowing us two hours of their time at the most busy point of their year – here’s hoping Honda, in particular Jenson Button for the British F1 fans, build on their success from last year and challenge for the World Championship in 2007.
February 15, 2007
Time for an update, as detailed on the TSR-4 build pages the team have been making steady progress on both cars. TSR-2 in particular is nearing completion to comply with the new regulations and to benefit from what we have learnt over the last few years. It’s 2006 motor is still to be load tested on our test rig, truely the only way to be sure it is still delivering it’s best. TSR-4 is moving on but is clearly going to need a hefty injection of time to make the season opener. There is some detailed machine work pending on that, especially the back end where we have some radical ideas to realise. For those of you seeking a little bit more, I have at last taken pictures of our wheel covering process. When viewed in conjuntion with the text I hope it makes the process clear. It takes me around 1/2 and hour to do each rim side and in terms of longlevity, 3 of the 4 sides of the TSR-2 front wheels are still the originals now entering their 4th year of service. The material we use is a fabric rather than a film and as such a small nick or tear does not lead to the whole sheet tearing off. The forum has been fairly quiet of late but no doubt things will liven up as the race season approaches. Half term for us next week but the team will be in working at least 1 day on the car, plus we have our tour of the Honda F1 factory to look forward to next Thursday.RGE
January 26, 2007
Nearly a month of 2007 over and no news?? Well not exactly it’s just that I have been busy on many diferent fronts and the news has all appeared on the TSR-4 build diary pages, written by the Team manager or the Technical director...have a look here to read about our progress to date..... http://www.trinityschoolracing.co.uk/News/diary.shtmlAfter an interesting 2006 during which we learnt a lot (again) TSR-2 is being restored to pretty much 2005 ’spec’. What is clear from the years racing is that so long as your steering and rolling resistance is low, the single most significant factor is frontal area. Although we have yet to prove it, the bubbles were ’beatable’ it was just that we did not have the car to do it at that point. Whilst the rule changes have taken out the all-enclosing bubble-canopy-tear-drop shape, it is up to teams to design around the limitations and come up with something capable of similar or better performance. 2007 will be an interesting year and hopefully safer under the new regs. The ’shorter’ races will not make that much difference - imagine F1 running for 4 hours, that would sort them out - but it will focus teams more on making best use of what they have to start with. Derived directly from our data logging sensors, I have designed a simple ’bar graph’ LED dashboard display that lights up an LED depending on the voltage (related to current) that the unit is supplied with. Having a glowing Green, Yellow or Red LED in the drivers vision should ensure that, assuming they follow it, the batteries last the course. Cost is high at about £33, but the expensive bit (the current sensor) can do double duty and feed a data logger or telemetry. Having a good number of gears to choose from, or at least being able to change a ratio to suit the course, will make cars much more reliable with race endings probably becoming MORE unpredictable as teams ’save up’ something for the last half hour. Data logging will soon show a driver who is not following team orders (and if we get the live telemetry working will have him out of the drivers seat in minutes!) as in this case the needs of the many (the team) outweigh the needs of the few (a driver or two). Our first outing is planned to be the Season Opener where the all-new TSR-4 will start it’s racing career and TSR-2 will continue. See you there??
November 19, 2006
A new section has been added to the website. The TSR-4 construction diary will help people keep up to date with news concerning the yet to be built TSR-4. See it here.November 10, 2006
The video for the Greenpower final is up, watch it here.November 1, 2006
Now that the new regs are out we can finally refine our design for TSR-4 and make sure it complies. It looks like we will have to make it a little bigger to cope with the foam padding...whatever, if the regs say so, so it shall be! With the loss of chargers, power management will become much more of an issue. We are thinking about a ’cruise-o-meter’ that we can preset a target average amps into (based on load testing at base)and then as the car runs around the track the driver either gets a green light(power spare) or RED light, (over limit) and so he will have to slow down or coast lots more until he gets back into the correct current drain average. It will be interesting if it works. Details will be published, in fact it would benefit from an airing on the forum. The other route would be to have a fuel gauge on each battery pack, but that won’t stop power hungry drivers from flattening the packs early. It may mean that the end of a race will see the fastest laps as teams burn up the excess just before the flag but it will certianly stop the arguments about battery chargers - we used just 3 KW/Hr for the final, but I’m sure in the past, when pushing hard, we used over 4 KW/Hr. Maybe it’s time to check the motor against a stock item, and to capacity test our batteries again. Either way, it all starts again next Monday......RGE
October 21, 2006
A mileage meter has been added to the individual car pages. Another picture has also been added to the front page slideshow. Remember to refresh your browser.October 20, 2006
OK we have just loaded up a driver and batteries and tipped TSR-2 onto its side to see where it balances. The pictures below show its over 60 degrees before it ’balanced’ on the LHS wheels. Unless really unlucky and you got caught in a rut, there is no way this car will roll - the tyres would slide a long time before. Another advantage of a flat bottom just 28 mm above ground zero, it does not leave much wheel sticking out to get caught in a rut. Anyone good enough at maths to work out radius and speeds to roll over? Lets hope it stays a theoretical but worthwhile investigation.
October 20, 2006
Race Report from the National Final, Goodwood on Sunday 15th October 2006Well the forecast did what it said on the tin, the sun shone! Our usual 6 am departure paled into insignificance on hearing some of the travel epics made by other teams – I thought we were keen! If Goodwood was in the middle of the country it would be much fairer on the northern teams but not even Barry could move Goodwood. Anyway, on to the race….in a desperate attempt to get pre-race data we sent TSR-2 out with two loggers on board, just the two laps were needed and one worked perfectly – the data is up on the site (graph and real excel file if you want to see) down the bottom of the data logging page. It gave us a lap average of 20.5 amps which despite the headwind was well within our power budget. We were lucky to be on hydrogen power and although some teams wondered if it was delivering the goods we monitored the voltage like a hawk and it was steady at 233 all day. If anyone measured the voltage in the mains charging tent I’d be interested to know what it was.
The team got everything sorted and ready for the parade lap and race and I got a photographers ‘bib’ to capture some footage. It should be a bit more of ‘everyone’ this year and at least I think I got every car on the chicane. I hope to get it mixed up over the next couple of weeks and then up on the site before too long.
And so to the race..well we got a flying push start from our experienced pusher (had a look at the start sequence photos – great) but by the end of the pit strait TT had shot past, followed by several others. The race unfolded without any dramas, although a couple of our drivers were being pretty wary due to the heavy traffic and dropped several seconds off lap times. This moved the driving orders on a bit sooner than expected but gave our ‘secret weapon’ lightweight driver a full two hours and the chequered flag. The closing speeds of some cars were pretty scary too (I spent some time actually on the chicane, close up) and sometimes space was not left for a closing car, meaning some hairy moments for some as over-correction or drastic swerving was required. Fortunately, pretty much everyone stayed out of each others way and as the hours rolled on we crept back up the field, eventually managing 9th place and with it, a sigh of relief in that although not as good a finish as we had hoped for - we planned for over 160 miles, i.e. 1 more lap would have been nice but a combination of the headwind and our shy drivers dropped us down by about 11/2 minutes. If we had kept that we would have got another lap on the clock. But at least TSR-2 kept its 100% reliability record – not a single failure all year and 818 miles added to the clock.
As published in the programme, Barry hints to the fact that our ‘aerodynamic changes for 2006’ were still under consideration. In fact, pretty much as soon as the first race started in 2006 (the Handicap) it was clear that we had made a good car sleeker but slower. And so we learnt about frontal area. Knowing that it was not worth pushing against the now substantial wall of air, we elected to run a safe year, resolving all the small issues and trying to sort stuff that we never seem to have time to do properly. As it turned out, our pit to car comms have been a huge success and the team are now all licensed amateur radio operators. Joining the team will require new recruits (if accepted) to take their licence too. The data logging has had it’s moments, proving that TSR-1 could go further at Castle Combe, logging a whole Shell economy run with GPS derived speed (yet to be posted) and not least showing that we could sustain our single tooth sprocket increase for the final. As it turned out, the wind took it back, but at least the sun shone! TSR-2 will be back next year, serviced and loaded with on-car camera and other toys, probably driving around in 1st gear with new drivers but the emphasis will be on TSR-4, now at the advanced panning stage and due for work to start after ½ term. Designed to beat the bubbles (well we can try!!) only time will tell. Either way, we have certainly learnt a lot over the years and now feature in our school prospectus, so the future is looking good. A recently closed sponsorship deal has bought us the gearbox we needed for TSR-4 and I think we have enough electronics that work to make best use of it. What would really help us, and others, is a chance to test more. Whatever, this closed season is going to be anything but slack.
As always, if any readers have questions about our cars, email me or try the forum, apart from a few too many ‘lols’ (;-)) it’s turned out to be a great asset.
RGE
October 17, 2006
The data logging information from the practice lap is now up. See it here at the bottom of the page.October 17, 2006
Well as of yesterday late afternoon our final set of batteries were up to 29.4 and were left on overnight (limited charge unit, they peak and then hold at 27.5 volts) which used up a total of 3.25 KW/Hr to return the batteries to their pre-race condition. From our data log of our practice lap (soon to be up on the site) we were using an average of 20.5 amps per lap, so, allowing a bit for chemical inefficiency etc, we used about 500 wats per hour and the whole race (158 miles) cost just about 30 pence worth of electricity. Not bad!! In the past, notably in 2004 when we were pushing very hard, I think we got it up to 4.5 KW/Hr. Shows what a few extra mph can cost though!At last we have found a sensible priced T-shirt printer who was prepared to print onto our own shirts (Primark "3 for a £5" specials!!). Using our TSR logo as a Jpeg this was thermally bonded to the shirts for just £3 + vat each. With Primark out of stock of some sizes we bought the smaller sizes direct and they were only £5 including the logo! Pretty much anything can be printed on the shirts and for the same price if its the same side and colour. Contact Richard@protectall.co.uk and mention that Trinity School sent you. Their website is www.protectall.co.uk and they do everything, including embroidery badges, sweatshirts, bolier suits etc.
RGE
October 16, 2006
Well 9th out of 75 isn’t bad, given the way other cars have changed over the last few years. We had a steady race, with no on-track issues apart from Seaford cars trying to run us onto the grass, no failures either(810 miles trouble free this year!) and no problems in the pits.Congratulations to Slippy Trug, #1 at last and so close to the lap record. Not bad for 3 year old batteries and beginner drivers! We were pleased to be selected for "harmful emission-free" charging (Hydrogen fuel cell), and measured what we consumed on the day - a mere 1.02 KWHr. The race batteries are still filling back up (on fossil fuel power I’m afraid) but it’s looking like the whole race used only 3 KW/Hr. 150+ miles on 30 pence, not bad!!
More news soon and video too.
RGE
October 13, 2006
A new sponsor has been added to the sponsor page...Solar panels supplied by http://www.marlec.co.uk/ - ask about Spectra 20W - Part No. CA-10/32
October 13, 2006
Trinity School Racing just got GREENER!!Due to the outstanding discount Bigfoot Bikes gave us on the new hub we had some funds spare, so we hunted around for some solar panels that would provide power for our comms, battery float charging between races and possibly that little bit extra for races. After a lot of fruitless searching I eventually found a very helpful company that was able to offer some semi-flexible panels that should withstand the rigours of Greenpower!
Have a look at http://www.marlec.co.uk/ and if you are interested ask sales for their Marlec Direct PDF file. We chose a pair of Spectra 20W - Part No. CA-10/32 which means we can either go for 12 volts (comms) or 24 volts (float) by wiring in parallel or series.
RGE
October 12, 2006
The future is bright (and fast), it’s got a 14 speed gearbox in it!!Due to a cracking sponsorship deal "brokered" by my Team Manager we have been able to buy a Rohloff 14 speed hub gear in anticipation of next years Greenpower-F24 and the arrival of TSR-4 (at last). Thanks are due in large amounts to one of our main supporters, Roger and the team at Bigfoot Bikes (http://www.bigfootbikes.com/) who advise us on, and supply anything ’bike related’ especially this hub at cost price - "THANKS"!! The team are looking forward to the final, with reasonable weather forecast it should be a great day....
RGE
October 5, 2006
Well the race lap times from DUnsfold arrived and they make interesting reading - or top driver turned in 4 successive laps within 1/10th of a second of each other and our second driver (some 25 KGs lighter) also managed a couple within 0.15!In preparation for our school open day we have been doing some "adding up" and have the following data to hand....TSR-1 has raced over 2,000 miles since we first entered in September 2002, whilst it’s faster stablemate (to use a Barryism!!) has raced over 660 miles this year without a SINGLE failure - except for the data logging, at an average speed of just over 25 mph, but the best bit, using less than £2.00 worth of electricity for 26 hours worth of racing!! How GREEN is that??
On the technical front our gearing hike for Dunsfold payed off, meaning if we extrapolate forwards to 6 hours, 165 miles should be well within our grasp at the final. The last hour of the race is going to be interesting to say the least as power stratergies pay off (or not) and assuming no cars collide, a bit of rain will make it really interesting. Time to find the tranquilizers for teacher!! (Another Barryism)
RGE
October 1, 2006
What a day! Dunsfold that is, truly wild weather and not a bad circuit either, according to my drivers. Due to a nasty crash when the all-new Seaford car took a very nasty tumble (AFAIK driver OK, car salvagable or little damaged) but that stopped the race for 40 minutes and then the heavens opened and pretty much flooded the track. With the forecast grim for the afternoon the decision was made by the management to stop the race. Not many teams objected, conditions were really ’wet’ and the enclosed cars would have had a hard and dangerous time if racing continued.TSR-2 was out testing a new primary drive sprocket and turned in a best lap of 2:01 with our lightest driver. As usual the data logging failed on track, we are increasingly mystified what is causing this but then I bet Renault are asking similar questions about who slipped the imperial wheel-nut into the pile (or something like that).
Basic checks will be done over the next week and with Open Morning next Saturday the cars (TSR-2 & TSR-3) will be subject to the great British Public, so that means ignoring ’DO NOT TOUCH’ signs then...;-)))
I suspect we all hope the weather stays fine for the final, with 70+ cars vying for gold it’s going to be another busy one!
RGE
October 1, 2006
The Goodwood circuit guide is back up, click here to see itSeptember 27, 2006
The video for the Shell Eco Marathon 2006 is up! Watch it here.September 24, 2006
A new picture of TSR-2 has been added to the home page slide show and gallery.September 20, 2006
Bedford Autodrome Race Report, 17th September 2006Firstly, an apology, about ½ way through the race one of our new TSR-1 drivers took an uncompromising line around the top bend, seemingly ignoring car#34, (Top Cat) that was on his inside. However, he misjudged his line and collided with #34, causing substantial damage to both cars. I was sitting watching this and there was no doubt that it was our drivers fault. On questioning him he claimed that he ‘Did not see it’. Sorry, not good enough, he is off the team for good. TSR-1 has raced since 2002 without a single collision, testing and training 10’s of drivers in that time. It will not be in the final – I hope Top Cat make it to Dunsfold and can qualify.
As usual it was a 6 am departure time from Trinity, having loaded up the previous evening with everything we needed. Unfortunately the ‘Highways Agency’ (I use the term loosely) had decided to close the M25 clockwise from J8-10 so we had to take a ½ hour diversion via the A roads, meaning we finally got to Bedford at 09:00. My well-practiced team then went into overdrive and actually got both cars ready for the practice session, although the electronics decided to stop playing at that point so other than a suspect pair of TSR-2 practice laps, which pretty much confirmed our race strategy, we were ‘gadget less’ for the race, except the comms which were 100%. Meanwhile, 3 new drivers were feeling their way around the circuit in TSR-1. Despite our best screening efforts, one decided to do a ‘yuey’ ON THE TRACK and proceeded to drive up the pit lane the wrong way!! This is despite being given an A4 aerial photo of the track, labelled as required. Where has all the talent gone??
So the race started and within minutes our driver in TSR-2 reported that the clutch was slipping on the uphill sections (checked the day before, it was fine….) so after waiting to see if a bit of heat would lock it up (it didn’t) we pitted for a quick adjustment and back out we went in about 8th place. A new car, #3 was clearly the one to beat and what a speedy little thing it was, an excellent take on the ‘bubbles’ and to be honest it looked smaller than any of the current crop of ‘all-enclosed’ cars. It was turning in 1:10’s whilst we were running around the 1:16s. With the race and weather unfolding nicely I took the time to wander up to bend 1 and watch the cornering action as drivers fought cars and each other around what must be the most evil bend in the southern series circuits. Unfortunately our usually reliable G sensor (which had been tested around the school the week before) failed to deliver but you could see our and others drivers hanging on for dear life. Interesting to note that even some of our more experienced drivers were taking less than kind lines and mindful of excess tyre wear they were verbally corrected over the radio, helped by another 5 team members all passing their Foundation license course the day before!
Things did not progress quite as planned, one of our ‘upgrade’ drivers was slotted into TSR-2 and promptly took the worst line I have ever seen! TSR-2 slid in protest but at least the driver held it with a touch of opposite. Then his lap times dropped to pretty much TSR-1’s 1:30, so he got shifted out as soon as his 20 minutes were up. Our other young hopeful who has done so well this year both in F-24 and the Shell Eco-Marathon, felt ‘sick’ after a short time and although delivering crisp laps had to be replaced ahead of schedule. It was left to a couple of stalwarts to fill the register and race the 6 hours. Around the 12:15 mark #3 had blow out on the top bend and that took us up a few laps into second place. Around 4 hours in #3 started to slow and it was clear they were now in ‘dying battery’ mode, (been there and done that, although not recently) and the writing was on the wall. We took first place around the 5 hour mark and then slowly pulled away. In the dying minutes the team manager issued a ‘go for it’ lap which was aimed at the fastest lap, but we could only manage a 1:15 as the batteries were beginning to groan. I missed the chequered flag on video which was a shame as it was one of Barry’s better ones, and our best this year, our first ‘First’.
RGE
September 10, 2006
Report on the annual Shell Economy Marathon, July 11th-13th 2006.After the Goodwood Festival of Speed, with attendant camping, late nights and early starts it was all a bit tight getting everything ready for our departure to the annual Shell Economy Marathon, held again at the excellent Rockingham Raceway, near Corby. Matters were complicated when Shell asked us if we could lend them our diesel powered ’Mouse’ for press use at the event. We were unable to get our hands on a suitable trailer so although the loan was not a problem, we were not planning on taking it. After various vehicle juggling involving TSR-1, TSR-2, our non-running Ford Sierra and a donated but nearly stripped Granada (350,000 miles on the original engine!) we got TSR-3 on the Land Rover roof rack (no spare minibus due to a big Biology department field trip), tools, spares, baggage etc in the back and my own petrol/LPG ’Mouse’ loaded onto my small purpose built trailer we were ready to go around 2.30. We usually take the unusual but normally fast route M25, M11, A14 but the Dartford tunnel, it say ’NO’ even though it was early afternoon and midweek. After that hold-up, around 3/4’s of an hour, we were away and drove non-stop to Rockingham, getting there a shade before 6 pm. Our cars were unloaded, polished, dusted, charged, driven briefly up and down the pit lane (useful driver training) and then it was back to the nearest Travel Inn (Kettering) where we usually stay and a nice big feed, followed by an early night. Next morning greeted us with a power cut, so no cooked breakfast for us, instead a visit to the petrol station for bacon and egg sandwiches. At least we got to the track in good time and as usual got in the queue for scruitineering, which we passed no problems....nothing like reading the regulations on the journey up, just checking we had not missed anything.....since last year!!!
With scruitineering over and drivers briefing attended the track opened for practice and away we went, briefly...TSR-3 threw the starter chain off and my Mouse had a front wheel puncture! Having fixed these early traumas it was the turn of the drive chain on TSR-3 to drop off. Closer inspection revealed that is was indeed out of line so an additional spacer was added, alignment and tension carefully checked and away we went....for a while. Although clearly quicker to accelerate, economy was not at this point looking good and as the day warmed up, the driver reported engine ‘stuttering’. Inspection concluded that in our attempts to streamline the carburettor we had removed vital cooling air and the Walbro ’pump’ type carburettor, normally allowed to circulate fuel back to the tank (and blanked off in the SMM application) had found that it could not pump vapour and so we had the starvation problem. Simply removing the gaffa tape fairing solved that one and from then on all went well, apart from our first attempted run failing on the second lap as the hydraulic brakes warmed up and decided to apply themselves. By bleeding out some fluid running clearance was once again restored and Joshua, our technical director and most senior driver was, after a lot of wriggling and squeezing, sent out to get the car ’on the board’. 40 minutes later we eagerly awaited the fuel consumption figure - 1,150 mpg - at last, we had cracked the 1,000 mpg ’barrier’ and by a good margin too. Next out was our new driver Daniel, fresh from making a good start in TSR-1 and then TSR-2. He managed 1050 mpg and was clearly overjoyed. We had a ratio in hand, so we decided to make the change up a tooth and see if it helped. Sure enough, it did, with Joshua managing 1175 mpg. With just one run remaining it all hung on young Daniel, could he beat the current leader on 1224? With nothing to loose other than the day getting hotter, out he went. Clearly learning fast, he delivered laps with increasing consistency until the 7 were up and it was fuel measuring time. The message came over the radio (comms worked faultlessly again) that it looked like a really good run and sure enough, once it was filled, an miserly 31.2cc had been consumed to cover the 10 miles at an average speed of 15 mph. This equated to 1426.3 mpg and put us over 200 miles into first place. Our nearest competitor still had one run in progress but by ear-wigging their fuel measurement were knew we had done it - first in the Autocar sponsored schools class! Pretty much since I first entered this competition way back in 1990 (I think) I have been trying to ’break’ 1,000 mpg, and now after fifteen years trying on a variety of budgets, initially one of nil, we have done it. So what now? Well, first place comes with some prize money so in conjunction with some hardware acquired over the years we will probably be going for fuel injection (see http://www.megasquirt.info/) and if there is enough budget a wide-band oxygen sensor (see http://www.techedge.com.au/). To test this and to fine tune the engine we need to get on and make a load for our rolling road (we already have a pair of rollers for drive-train testing) and an old exercise bike with a fairly huge cast iron ’load’ wheel. Quite how we calculate how it relates to the ’real thing’ will be something for my mathematicians/physicists to work out. True to form the electronics nearly worked most of the time but it did work long enough to capture a whole run (actually Joshuas 1175 mpg) so we have GPS based speed readings every second for the whole 39 minute run. Although there is no need for a gps to derive the speed (which could be done in a much simpler way) it does offer the advantage of inherently accurate timing, also something else that could be done in a simpler way! The altitude resolution is not much help as unlike my personal (for hiking) GPS, the cheapo gps ’engine’ we are using is only a 12 satellite receiver....but it was cheap! What the graph shows with wonderful clarity is the way the run progressed with a fair degree of consistency, given the somewhat cramped conditions Joshua had to endure! We are able to see the entry speeds to the pit straits which we aim to coast along, as once you reach the end, you literally ’drop off’ and coast up to around 22 mph. Then follows a long climb back up around the other side. Clearly a case for data logging especially in terms of looking at differences between different drivers. So, despite the event starting off with a few disasters, we ended up with five valid runs to our credit and an excellent result. Even my ’Mouse’ did well, beating it’s previous best on LPG by over 50 mpg, netting 410 at the hands of Reuben. For a very crude gas delivery system, that isn’t bad as the best it managed on petrol this year was 503, itself not bad for a road legal car. For information, my ’Mouse’ is powered by an internally standard Honda C90 motorbike engine (3 speed semi-automatic) with the addition of an air-bleed tap that the driver can use and an anti-run-on valve that opens when the ignition is switched off. One day this engine is due fuel injection which will sort out a few more mpgs.
