16. January 2012
Pat’s Corner
Well, 2011 has passed into history, so we are all a year older and hopefully a year wiser. I wish all teams around the world, the very best wishes for the New Year 2012. Whether you are building a FSC or FSE car, or a hybrid car...
03. June 2011
Testing Times
The first major event of the FSAE/FS season has passed with Oregon State/GFR winning the FSAE event at Michigan International Speedway a couple of weeks ago.
From my perspective the Michigan event was the best ever. This was...
13. March 2011
How to make a correct design and layout of your brake system?
It has been brought to our attention by one of our design judges that there is a very useful paper by prof. K.H. Bill on the complete layout and calculation of the brake system of a Formula Student race car. Here we would like to...
26. December 2010
Pat’s final corner for 2010
Well, 2010 is almost finished, cold weather has spread over Europe and hopefully we have all been good little children and Santa Claus has been kind (he brought me a new DSLR and zoom lens) all the better to record ‘Design Error...
02. December 2010
Chassis Stiffness and Compliance
In a recent email exchange with my fellow Chief Design Judge Steve Fox, the subject of ‘compliance’ came up. Steve wrote the following comment and it prompted this latest Tech Column.
Compliance is something that…
Their CADs...
10. July 2010
Steve’s Box (of tricks)
A guest article by Steve Fox, Chief Design Judge, FSG. Pat’s overheated keyboard needed a little cooling down time. So until his new liquid cooled keyboard comes in, I agreed to contribute a little something to keep you all...
28. June 2010
Pat's Corner – Design Reports
As the Design Reports for FSG 2010 come in, I am reviewing them with mixed feelings. Some are good, very good! And some are, well, not so good.
I know I have stood on this soapbox many times and have actually published (with...
08. June 2010
Pat’s Corner – Safety
It has been a little while since my last column, due primarily to work pressures, but now we have FSAE Michigan out of the way, I can concentrate on FSG again.Congratulations to Oregon State University on winning both Design and...
15. November 2009
Pat's Column - Car set up
Apologies to all for the lack of a column over the last few months. Insane work pressure has kept me away from home for 7 of the last 9 weeks. Last week had me in Adelaide where I witnessed the finish of the Solar Challenge. It...
06. May 2009
Pat's Column - Space-frame Chassis
I have never made any secret of my preference for space-frame chassis in FSG. This preference is not because of some nostalgic feeling, but for very pragmatic reasons.
The thing I like most about a space-frame structure is that...
