Saeef Alam Saeef Alam saa238@cornell.edu Subteams: Chassis MAE 1900 Prof.

Al George May 20, 2013

May 20, 2013

Topics covered: chassis subteam, freshman, switch panel, grinding, carbon fiber, product
ordering, roll hoop padding, seat

Introduction
The Cornell FSAE Project Team works throughout the year to design a Formula-style racing car, build it up from scratch, and put it through field testing. The overall aim is to develop the fastest, lightest and most cost-efficient car for competing in the annual Formula SAE (FSAE) international design competition held in Michigan. At the competition, the car is tested on the track in multiple categorical events, and marketed to judges as a well-designed, fast and efficient product. Spring 2013 was my first semester on the team and I worked primarily as a member of the chassis sub-team. I worked on parts of the cars structural frame, assembling portions of the cars carbonfiber body, making the drivers seat, and ordering padding for the cars frame and making sure it is compliant with FSAE safety requirements.

Brief Semester Summary

My first task of the semester was cutting out many layers of various dimensions from a large sheet of carbon fiber, then sticking multiple carbon fiber layers together using poly-resin to create parts like the seat support, steering wheel and accelerator pedal for the car. For a phase of about three weeks, I did a bunch of grinding work for metal parts for whoever required such work. This included creating all the brackets to stabilize the roll hoops position against the car body, grinding down the radiator mounts, making metal steel caps to cover the top of the mounts where they were attached to the radiator, and smoothing out the sides of the radiator. Next, I built the switch panel for the car. This involved marking out where the panel would attach to the car and where the buttons would have to come through, sawing it down to an appropriate shape and size, then attaching it to the car. Closer to the competition date, I took on the task of ordering padding for the roll hoop of the car. For this, I had to look u the safety requirements in the FSAE rules, take measurements of our cars roll hoop, and ordering padding online accordingly.

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Towards the final days, I helped make an ergonomic seat booster for one of our smaller drivers by filling up a plastic bag with foam, pouring in a resin and sealing the bag, then getting the driver to sit on the seat so that it molded to his body shape before drying. Apart from building the switch panel and taking care of the roll hoop padding, I did not really have too many large sustained projects, but did mostly miscellaneous handiwork around the lab. However, I think these were the most useful and helpful tasks on my part, both for myself and for the team. By taking these basic tasks on, I was helping more experienced team members focus on larger issues pertaining to the car while I took care of the handiwork for them. I also feel that I was not yet ready to take on larger tasks since I was completely new to this sort of work and felt in feeling very inexperienced. Doing tasks such as grinding and cutting down parts for the first semester helped me get accustomed to working in the lab while learning a lot about what exactly I was helping towards completing. While I feel that I lacked in leading any sub-projects over time, I feel that I am much more comfortable in the lab now and am in a good position to take on more challenging tasks next semester.

Comments and Recommendations

Overall, I feel like I had an excellent and exciting semester. I started the semester very anxious about my complete lack of experience but it really wasnt difficult at all to pick up the required skills and knowledge as I went along. Every single existing member of the team was there to help whenever I needed it and they made it very easy to get comfortable working in the lab and taking on actual tasks. However, despite having a great semester that I feel has set me up to get a lot of significant work done from now on, I feel like I could have contributed more to the teams tasks and efforts for this semester as well. I think that both myself and the team organization were to blame for me not getting more done. I was pro-active in going to the lab and asking for work to do, but barely pushed myself to take on more demanding work than the basic tasks which were usually given to me. That being said, this was mainly due to my lack of confidence in taking responsibility for some major part of the car, and it could have been helped if I was assigned specific tasks rather than being left to join in whatever I want This may not even be an issue and it might be best that new members find their flow of work as gradually as I did, but I think it might be worth noting that my full potential may have gone unused. I think the organization of the group would be helped if shadowees not only educated their newmember shadowers about the various work processes, but to come in at particular to times to help out with tasks specifically assigned to them. That is, I think it would be helpful if shadowees played a more pro-active role in maintaining a guided process for shadowers who may not be as comfortable with joining into whatever task is available simply because they are anxious about lack of experience and messing up as a result. I feel this would slightly force new members into doing hands-on work and realizing first-hand that the work around the lab is not as intimidating as it first

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seems; the system could easily be put into place by simply asking shadowees to carry out the one extra ask of specifically calling their shadowers into the lab. Otherwise, I feel that team efficiency is sufficient and the morale is excellent. Everyone is incredibly willing to help each other get tasks done, which makes it a true pleasure to work in the lab and produces a good level of results throughout the semester.

Reflections
As I mentioned, I was completely inexperienced when I joined the team solely because I had a personal interest in cars and wanted to learn more about how to operate as part of a large team creating a product in a practical work environment. So with that in mind, I feel that the most useful thing I gained this semester is the comfort of working in a car garage and the physical hands-on skills I gained. I have learned a lot about technical handiwork skills and safety procedures and feel comfortable enough to jump into any task at the lab now. This was the first time I did anything like grinding down metal parts or shape carbon fiber; in fact, the time I built the switch panel was the first time I ever used power tools. Id like to think that over the past semester, Ive become fairly proficient at using these tools. The overall team dynamic is amazing and far better than I could have expected. All team members across the three main sub-teams not only cooperate immensely when it comes to work on the car, but are also all very friendly with each other. Each new member receives a mentor in addition to a shadowee who is there to talk about and help with any life and school issues both outside and within the car team, which I think is an excellent feature of the team structure for newer members. I certainly feel recognized and included as a part of the team by all my friendly team mates. I also appreciated this years team leadership by Ryan Kennett, who did an excellent job of always maintaining a dynamic that was playful and enjoyable, but at the same time dead-serious about getting work done on time. My advice for the three most important things for new members in my position to remember would be: Dont rush the process, and take the time to get used to the project team and gain working skills properly. When I came into the team, I wanted to immediately do it for 3 credits but Prof. George did not allow me to do so since I was a freshman and it was my first semester on the team. In retrospect, I am very glad he did not let me do so. As he must have understood at the time, I needed to adjust to integrating such an involving project team into my college schedule and to first get an idea of what kind of involvement is expected of a full 3-credit semester. I could not have pulled it off this semester, but I feel that working sufficient at a 1-credit level has gotten me used to being on the car team and has allowed me to gain a full understanding of what will be expected of me if I join for a full credit course load. Make sure you take the time to get a feel of this too for at least one semester.

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Just go ahead and do tasks even if youve never done anything like this before. Its okay if you mess up a little, but chances are you will not do too badly anyway. Most tasks in the car lab simply need to be learned via practice and hands-on training and are not very hard to get used to. It starts to become a lot of fun once you get used to it, and you start to realize that youre just as capable as you need to be. AND ASK QUESTIONS! This is one thing I am very glad I did regularly and was the most valuable learning resource to me throughout the whole semester. I asked experienced members around me hundreds of questions about what they were working on and what I was working on. They are all more than willing to talk you through what they are working on, what you can do to help, and how everything works. Ive more or less worked how a whole car works on the inside simply by asking experienced members as they worked on ARG 13. Fit the FSAE team in as a regular part of your schedule just like other actual classes, allowing you to get into the groove of doing work regularly and sufficiently. The car team provides just as much valuable academic and practical training as traditional classes for academic credits, but does not always seem as obligatory without prelims, weekly homework tasks and such. However, it is a completely legitimate academic learning environment and deserves regular attention. I must admit that my time management was not very ideal this semester. While I did put in the required ~10 hours per week, this usually happened in the form of one or two days which lasted between 7 and 10 hours, rather than going on for an hour or two on a more regular basis. The latter will probably be more helpful in gaining more from the project teams overall work and getting more personal tasks done more efficiently as well.

Here is how I would rank the resources I used all semester to supplement my learning on the team: _____ Looking at previous years' cars and parts _____ Asking former team members __1__ Asking existing, more experienced team members __4__ Asking existing, less experienced team members _____ Asking a faculty advisor __3__ Informal team meetings __2__ Formal team meetings and mini-lectures _____ Manufacturers literature _____ Books __6__ Technical papers such as SAE meeting papers _____ Past reports (paper copies) __5__ Past reports (electronic copies)

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May 20, 2013 __1__ Other - please indicate what __Shadowing (in case this was not considered as part of asking older experienced team members)