LIVE - FS Czech Competition Blog
Short summary
A real roller coaster of emotions. We started the competition quite well with having only minor fixes for battery and mech scruti and even managed to pass them the next day. So everything went quite well until we had to go into high voltage on the electrical scruti… A problem in the battery was found which meant we lost our sticker again and had to do fixes.
Luckily, we managed everything still just in time to participate in all events on Wednesday. So we did our skidpad run (which was a first in the history of FEB) and went straight to autocross after it. During autocross we found out that we only had 2 motors working and during our run 1 of these 2 fell out, meaning we set our lap driving with only one motor and loosing drive in our first run as well. Trying to figure out what the problem was, we changed some settings which could cause the issue and trying again. This time we completed the autocross (also a first in the history of FEB) without loosing drive but still only had 2 motors running. With only little time left we had to try to fix the motor issues and do an acceleration run so we could get the maximum amount of points possible. With only 10 minutes remaining, we managed to get everything working again and went for our run. 2 very good runs saw us cheering, but going 0.3 over the power limit meant we got a DSQ for both runs… The mood was mixed, the team was on one hand quite frustrated and sad with the DSQ but on the other hand, we wrote history by already driving everything here on our first competition.
On the last day, endurance waited. Because of the quite slow (what did you expect with only 1,5 motors) run in autocross, this meant we had to start as one of the first. And so we started. Carefully managing the battery to make sure we would finish, everyone was on the edge. And so we did, with a smooth driver change and a lot of list-and-coasting we managed to finish an endurance on our first competition!
Already being very happy with what we achieved, things got even better for us during the prize ceremony. Because of being so careful and a lot of lift-and-coasting, we were quite efficient with our energy and managed to grab 3rd place for efficiency and getting a trophy back home. If that was not enough, we managed to become 6th in the overall standing with over 500 points in total!
A very good start to the season, now let’s try to take this even further!
Scruti Status
Mech Scruti
PASSED
Battery Scruti
PASSED
Elec Scruti
DV SCRUTI NOT PASSED
Rain Test
PASSED
Tilt Test
PASSED
Brake Test
Manual
PASSED
EBS (Driverless)
WILL NOT BE DONE
Thursday 31/07
16:32 – Truck arrives
16:35 – Start loading the truck
18:23 – Truck loaded and leaves to Czech!
Sunday 03/08
7:00 – Meet and leave for FS Czech!
12:23 – Lunch break
18:34 – Arrive, setup the tents and pits
19:02 – ESO & ASR registration
20:25 – Dinner
21:42 – Team briefing and chill
Monday 04/08
07:00 – Wake up and breakfast
08:01 – Get to the pits and start working
09:24 – Driver registration
10:32 – Battery Scruti started
10:39 – Mech Scruti started
11:59 – Back from Mech Scruti. 2 minor fixes that need to be done
12:02 – Lunch
14:41 – Going back to Mech Scruti
14:48 – Back from Battery Scruti. Did not pass everything yet, we’re applying for a new scruti slot
15:24 – Passed Mech Scruti!
16:39 – Passed Battery Scruti!
18:10 – Dinner
18:32 – Going to Elec Scruti
20:04 – Back from Elec Scruti. Couldn’t finish low voltage, some fixes needed
21:52 – Team Briefing and chill
Tuesday 05/08
07:00 – Wake up and breakfast
08:01 – Get to the pits and start working
08:05 – ASR Briefing
08:30 – Elec Scruti
11:06 – Low Voltage Scruti passed!
11:26 – Back to Elec Scruti
12:01 – Lunch
12:50 – Passed Elec Scruti!
13:20 – Business Plan Presentation
13:50 – Back from Business Plan Presentation. Went really good and got an applause from the jury
16:44 – Going to DV Scruti
17:40 – Back from DV Scruti, EBS buttons are out of surface envelope. We can’t fix it here without having to do mech scruti again which gives a risk of not driving manual as well so the team voted to not drive driverless on this competition 🙁
18:00 – Dinner
19:39 – Tilt Test done
20:39 – Rain Test done
21:00 – Team Opening Ceremony
22:20 – Debrief & Flunky ball team selection
Wednesday 06/08
07:00 – Wake up and breakfast
08:01 – Get to the pits and start working
08:05 – ASR & Driver briefing
09:00 – Cost & Manufacturing
11:30 – Going for manual brake test
11:55 – Manual brake test passed
11:58 – Noise test
12:00 – Lunch
12:02 – Buzzer only reached 65db (need 80db), going back to the pits to fix it
14:06 – Noise test passed!
14:43 – Going for a testdrive on test track
16:00 – Prepare ED
18:43 – Dinner
21:00 – Debrief
21:30 – Official Flunky ball tournament
Thursday 07/08
07:00 – Wake up and breakfast
08:01 – Get to the pits and start working
08:05 – Driver & ASR briefing
09:00 – Engineering Design Presentation
10:10 – ED went well, now preparing the car for events this afternoon
12: 15 – Lunch
12:20 – Small testrun
14:07 – Acceleration first run Lander: 3.87 but too much power
14:26 – Acceleration second run Lander: 3.85 and valid!
15:35 – Skidpad 2 runs of Lander: best time of 5.31
16:07 – Skidpad 2 runs of Lucan: best time of 5.25
17:40 – Acceleration 2 runs of Lucan but no improvement
18:00 – Dinner
18:30 – ED Feedback
18:45 – Prepare car for tomorrow
21:01 – Debrief and chill
Friday 08/08
07:00 – Wake up and breakfast
08:01 – Get to the pits and do last fixes on the car
08:05 – Driver briefing
09:54 – Going to the test track to test setup for autocross
Friday 18/07
08:00 – Wake up and breakfast
08:40 – Start packing everything
11:30 – Leave
12:30 – Quick lunch pitstop
13:30 – Drive back to the office
17:52 – Arrive at the office and unpack everything
19:02 – Everything unpacked and cleaned, now let’s go home after this crazy week