News

UWAM has been honoured with 3^rd place at the Formula Student Germany 2009 competition!

We had a very strong endurance event and with many other teams suffering failures, we were awarded with a result that we are thrilled with. To travel so far, at a completely new competition with some new rules and different procedures, we are extremely proud of ourselves.

We would like to thank all of our dedicated sponsors who have stuck by us, the University of Western Australia, our family, friends, supporters and everyone else who has made all of this possible. I would also like to acknowledge the Formula Student Germany committee who went out of their way to help us and ensure that we were well taken care of. Thanks especially to Frank Roske who has never failed to answer my endless questions that I kept firing at him!

All of us are travelling around a bit after the competition, some longer than others, but all taking advantage of being in this awesome part of the world.

Please check out the pictures available. Take special notice of the picture of the car where it is completely airborne! This was possible thanks to a large bump on the track.

Hello All,

Well, today was the beginning of the dynamic events including Acceleration, Skid-pad and Autocross. As I write this, the guys are in the Design Finals along with 3 other teams fighting to be design winners. We have had excellent reception to our car since it has the innovations such as the much-talked about carbon flexures. Our pit area is almost constantly surrounded by people trying to figure out our car and asking questions. We love answering them as we are all very proud of what has been produced. All I can say is, well done guys.

Now, I’m sure everyone is eager to know how we have gone in today’s events and it is as follows:

Acceleration: 8^th

Skid-pad: 16^th

Cost Event: 26^th

Autocross: Unknown as yet. The event was run today but the results have not yet been released. Unfortunately we didn’t get the result that we wanted, even though the car was working well, and our star driver, Peter Marsh was at the wheel. This means that we are more than likely out of the running for a win. TU Delft have performed amazingly well in all events and we take our hats off to them.

We were also finalists in the Light-weight concept Award since we are a four-cylinder car weighing in at 199kg wet (meaning full of fuel and engine oil).

Tomorrow is the all important and most heavily weighted event of the competition; the endurance and fuel efficiency event. We will do everything we can to win and hope for a good overall result for the FSG competition.

Sunday is the final day and for all of us, the final day of Formula SAE. We have all worked extremely hard and learned a lot from the experience. I’m sure that even the hard times while being on the team will be cherished by all since we have all grown thanks to the experience. I’m sure I speak on behalf of all of the team when I say that we are looking forward to a bit of a holiday.

We are all in good spirits, but are very tired. The days are extremely intense and as a result of all the walking between the pits and the venues, we will have amazingly strong legs! It must be said that here in Hockenheim is a motorsport fan’s dreamland. We have seen numerous supercars, like the Carrera GT today, Touring cars on the track, race bikes, motor museums, drag racing, dynamometers and other such things. A fantastic experience.

More tomorrow and make sure you check the web for pictures.

Kind Regards,

Michael Talikowski.

Dear all,

Today, as with every day was absolutely full-on for the team. The goals were to pass all scrutineering, tilt test, noise test and finally brake test. The next goals were to partake in all of the static events including cost, design and presentation. The fantastic new that we were just informed of was that we were only one of four teams out of 78 to make it to the design finals!! This is an unbelievable testament to UWA Engineering and the guys really have something to be proud of. Well done to Brett, Nigel, Luke, Denis, Ziggy, Alex and Michael L. You guys make up a team that is one of the best in the world.

We are still waiting on the cost event results but we were informed of the presentation event which was less than ideal. We obtained 59 points out of 75 for that event and came in at 27^th place out of 78. At the moment, we are about 10-15 points behind Delft, who are also in Design Finals and obtained second place in Presentation event.

Tomorrow is a huge day with Acceleration, Skid-pad and Autocross. Sunday is the day for Endurance followed by a party with free beer! We are all looking forward to the next few days and wish to let everyone know that we are safe and well. The showers and toilets at the camping ground leave something to be desired but we are all men and can deal with a bit of a lack of luxury!

Tune in tomorrow.

Dear Sponsors, friends and family,

Firstly I must apologise for the lack of updates. I’m sure everyone is sitting in front of their emails, refreshing their web browsers and waiting for news from Germany! Well, we have had a crazy few days as I will briefly explain below.

Tuesday 4^th August – Day 9

We were greeted by a heavy Luxembourgian fog (please see the pictures on the site) which made driving to Goodyear a challenge.

Tuesday only saw us working on the car before it was to be taken to Hockenheim on Wednesday. The plan was to conduct an engine rebuild to have a fresh motor for the competition. We had planned to have the rebuild complete before our evening testing session on the Goodyear test track but unfortunately due to complications, we were unable to get on the track. This would lead to us having to stay in Luxembourg until Wednesday afternoon, which proved to cause us some complications.

Dinner on Tuesday consisted of all of the left-over’s from the past week so that we wouldn’t need to carry as much food with us to Hockenheim on Wednesday. We had scrambled eggs with fried sausage, grilled bacon and some left-over salad and dressing. It certainly was a different dinner to what we are used to be it seems to fill the guys up nicely. We planned to leave for Goodyear in the morning so had to pack everything the night before.

Ziggy, Michael Larcombe and myself were also practicing our presentation event on Tuesday night since we were set to present it on Thursday. After that, we hit the hay ready for a big day of travelling to Hockenheim on Wednesday.

The Hirni Nominations were put

Wednesday 5^th August – Day 10

We awoke at 6am and began packing straight away. This was to be our last time at St. Hubert, the renovated school that we called home for the past week. We packed the crate up, our clothes and all the food and prepared to leave for Goodyear for our final test session. The car was ready to go, apart from a few things that needed fixing. 11:30am came around and we got out onto the track to scrub some tyres and ensure that the engine rebuild was successful. Thankfully, everything went well and we began packing the crate to make our way over to the event venue, Hockenheim.

The problem was that we left at 3pm, and were supposed to arrive at 11am! The idea was that the earlier that teams arrive at the venue, the earlier they are allowed to scrutineer, which must be done before the cars are allowed to begin the events. We were given ticket number 79...and there were 78 teams. This simply meant that we were last in line for scrutineering which made us nervous since it is a long process and we wanted to be ready for the dynamic events which begin on Saturday.

After arriving in Hockenheim at about 7pm, we frantically went to register and found out that rumours were circulating that we weren’t going to show up! Luckily we were here and the car was also. This meant that although we were late, we were still able to register. Thanks to the friendly staff at the FSG event, things were ok.

Sleeping presented an interesting issue because we didn’t make it to the shops in time to buy mattresses! Luckily a few of us had mattresses packed but most of us had to make do with the floor of the tents that we set up on the camping ground! This has earned me the prestigious Hirni Award for not purchasing tents earlier. I am proud to accept this award and as a result, I made good friends with German soil! Most of us actually didn’t mind or notice the discomfort thanks to pure exhaustion. We went to bed after setting up our pit, tents and getting some dinner.

Thursday 6^th August – Day 11

We awoke to the beautiful sound of trucks from the Autobahn that runs no more than 100m from the camping ground. Quite a change from the amazing mornings we experienced in Luxembourg.

We attended the compulsory driver briefing at 8am then got some breakfast and proceeded to scrutineer our car. We kept getting rejected because cars with numbers lower than ours, 79, got preference. I am writing this at 7pm on Thursday and we will be trying again shortly. Realistically we should get through tomorrow morning. But first we will be going to our Cost Event and Design Event which are at 9am and 10am respectively. We will hope to get a good night’s sleep as we also have our Presentation Event on at 1:30pm.

We are all tired but in a good mood. We love being here with some amazing teams, at an amazing venue and ready to present our car, something we have worked long and hard on. All the time spent on the car and all the time spent away from family and friends, it is all for this game FSAE. It is coming to an end for us but we are having a great time and will miss these days, even though we have wanted to strangle each other at times!

Stay in tune for tomorrow’s update where we will report on results of Friday’s events.

All the best!

Michael.

Hello everyone,

Today was largely a work-on-car-to-prepare-for-Tuesday-testing day. We arrived early and began work on the race-car as soon as we could. We are allowed to test on Tuesday arvo/evening and will be preparing for that session. This may very well be our last testing slot before we head off to Hockenheim on Wednesday. It has already almost been a week here in Luxembourg but it has flown by. We can’t believe where all the time has gone!

At this point we would like to thank Remi, Romaan and Jason for their generous help. They have made us all feel not only welcome, but assisted us in every way possible and for this we are grateful. We have been given almost free-reign of the work space which has been fantastic when working on the car. Access was given to the floor space in the garage, a workshop with a mill, lathe, belt sander, TIG and MIG welder, material, tyre mounting machines, vices, tools, pressurised air, power and other such crucial items. Thank you Goodyear!

The coveted Hirni Award was difficult to assign today until our resident Vehicle Dynamics Team leader, Mr Davies, tipped the head of our engine upside down. This caused all of the buckets and shims to fall out which had been set up specifically for the race engine! Well done Brett! Other nominations go to me, for forgetting to bring the daily portion of snacks to Goodyear. Another Hirni goes to the one-and-only Alex, who managed to befriend the strangest person in the village. Finally, Mr Sala Tenna gets a nomination for putting the differential together wrong during one of the rebuilds. Well done everyone, we have all earned it!

Dinner took place at the renowned Lux’M Burger. Having prepared dinner many nights in a row, we decided we would leave the dinner duties to the well-named restaurant that resides on the route between Goodyear and Chateau D’UWAM. After having ordered some Lux’M Burgers, we sat outside to witness one of the best sunsets we’ve ever seen, even compared to the ones in WA. The dinner was good albeit a bit greasy, compared to the good wholesome food we are used to so far. After taking a million pictures and finishing our food, we left for HQ.

Please go to our updates page on the UWAM website which has now been filled with pics and all of the past updates. Click here for the link.

That is it for now. Keep an eye on your emails and the website for further updates and pictures. The days of comp are coming up so ensure you are up to date with all the latest about UWAM’s first campaign in Europe.

All the best.

Michael.

Today was our one and only full-day testing session at Goodyear. Thanks to the kindness of our 'observer' we were able to use the facility on a day that it is usually closed on.
After a few glitches and gremlins we were able to get some valuable track time in on a very wet day. We used our Goodyear D2691 wet weather tyres which perform very well in such conditions. All of our drivers got some time in the car for the practice of Autocross, Endurance, skid pand and acceleration. Today's weather was a real contrast to yesterday's beautiful summer weather where a number of us got slightly burned!
 
We are now back at the house and preparing a dinner of pizzas and salad. Alot of our meals are very hearty and always have some green in them. The continental style of bread, hams and cheeze seems to be the order of the week as we all enjoy it since the food here is of excellent quality.
 
That is it for now. Please keep an eye out for future updates. We are still here in Luxembourg until Wednesday where we travel to Hockenheim for the event we have been preparing for.
 
The latest Hirni Award goes once again to Denis. After much deliberation and studying on Saturday night for the setup of the testing track at goodyear today, Denis managed to leave the drawing at HQ!
 
A link for pictures coming soon!!
 
See you all!
 
Michael.

Today was a truly awesome day. We slept a bit longer in order to catch up on some sleep since the week was a long one. After breakfast we unloaded the car in the most unlikely workshop anyone of us have ever seen. The pictures tell say a thousand words so please see them on our website for some great shots. Behind our accommodation there is a children's playground which we turned into a workshop, composites layup lab and baseline platform. The backdrop to our new workshop was the beautiful country-side of Luxembourg with horse and carriages going past everyone once in a while. We were also lucky enough to have the amazing European summer sun warming us all day. A more memorable workshop has never been seen!
 
All this work was conducted back at uwam HQ since we did not have access to the Goodyear workshop on Saturday.

Friday 30th

I cannot believe how many flies there are here. As I sit here and write this on a Saturday morning for the Friday update, I can count 10 flies just by looking to the left of my computer...and I am inside! We all truly believed that we would leave the flies behind when we depart from Australia, but I guess they followed us here!

Friday’s Hirni Award saw a number of nominations. First nomination goes to our resident Russian Denis Streltsov who successfully managed to walk into the oven door, causing catastrophic failure. Thankfully one of us is a certified oven engineer and it was repaired. Second nomination goes to DHL Australia for giving me the wrong instructions about the sending of a package to Frankfurt. I will share my experience in a moment. And the winner of Friday’s Hirni Award goes to Denis, congratulations mate!

Friday morning we got up as usual travelled to Goodyear. We were allowed our usual lunch time track session where the setup is coming along well. We weren’t given an evening session (4:30 – 7pm) which must be accompanied b y an Ambulance. The testing regime for the coming week is:

Sunday 10am – 5pm
Monday (none)
Tuesday 11:30 am – 1pm & 4:30 – 7pm

My Friday was decidedly different and it involved travelling across the beautiful Deutschland in a day to pick up a number of items. We had sent a package from Australia to Frankfurt with various items, but most important of these were a set of pistons for a rebuild. This package was to meet us when we arrived in Frankfurt. We also needed to pick up a bunch of tires from the Goodyear distributor in Cologne and finally a flexure replacement that Brett had left in the hostel in Frankfurt (Hirni Award nomination slipped under the radar).  So, I set off with our support crew (James Marshall) from Luxembourg to Cologne to get the tires. 2 hours later, we have the smell of fresh rubber in the back of the car and we left for Frankfurt. I knew exactly where to pick up the flexure, but had no idea where the important package that was to meet us in Frankfurt was. It had been delayed in customs and i also found out that I was given the wrong instruction by DHL for a pick up address. Needless to say, I was close to throwing myself out onto the Autobahn because we had travelled so far, I didn’t know the location of the package, it was 4pm on a Friday afternoon so everyone is going home, traffic is building up, and the team NEED what is in that box. To cut a long story short, through a stroke of huge luck we got the package, picked up the flexure from the hostel and headed back to Luxembourg for a cold beer and a good rest. I should mention that the return journey presented some of the most amazing landscape I have seen, what an amazing country this is.

That is it for now. We have slept in a bit today, but will be working hard on the car to prepare it for tomorrow’s all day track session. An update for today (Saturday) will also be sent out. I should mention that we do not have internet access and due to various email issues, I hav e not been able to send out the emails as easily as i would like.
See you

Thursday 30th

The 4th day of our assault on Europe has been both fun, interesting yet very tiring. We have just finished our evening wind-down after a hearty meal of various meats, steaks and sausages, with a side of potatoes and some salad. I can assure all the mothers of this fine team of young men that we are eating well and getting a good amount of sleep. Most of the team have gone to bed upstairs while myself and Alex are still up.

Today between our two track sessions at Goodyear, we were given a very interesting tour of the facility including how and where the tyres are made. We were also shown how some of the tyres are tested before being cleared for manufacture. We discovered how much work really goes into the design and construction of these tyres. Not only is there an intense design stage, followed by rigorous testing, it appears that the manufacture is also very involving. This proved to be an extremely interesting tour and gave us new insight into the world of the black rubber things on our wheels that we often take for granted.

Today saw us testing our race car on the Goodyear track for the first time. The venue is simply amazing and also extremely large. We utilised a very small section of the testing ground for our autocross track in a morning and afternoon session. It was fantastic to see the car moving again after such a long time. We had shipped it in late May and I think we all secretly thanked the gods that it didn’t fall off the container ship and into the vast ocean.

Obviously this sort of wo rk is extremely tiring. After getting up at 6am and staring work at 7:30am at Goodyear, there isn’t a moment in the day, apart from lunch time, where we can sit and take a moment to relax. Right up until bedtime it’s go go go and this proves to be very draining on the mind and body. Thankfully we have comfortable beds and surroundings, good food and excellent company. It may be hard work but such an opportunity only comes around once and we are all extremely grateful to be experiencing it.

Today’s Hirni Award goes to our Vehicle Dynamics Team Leader, Brett Davies. Brett successfully snapped an expensive sensor while working on the car, failing to remember that there are many other, much cheaper, things to snap. This act of expensive sensor snapping has earned him Thursday’s Hirni Award!

Thanks again and look out for the next instalment of the UWAM European Campaign story!