It's Official

We have now recieved our entry confermation with the date of our heat, it will be on the 24th June 2010. That should give us plenty of time to build and fully test the car before the season starts. The venue is Newquay Airport this year, a new track to us so we will definatly have our work cut out for us! To qualify for Goodwood we have to procure a podium finish which last year was a drive of about 60 miles in 4 hours, a tough task but one that I am sure that we will be more than capable of. On a construction note, the fillets which reinforce the bulkheads are ready to be glued into place using the bone glue which will happen in the next few days so we are still on track for the Christmas deadline for the box chassis.

This Week's Progress

The floorpan and all the bulkheads are now cut, a little sanding and they will be complete. Work has also started on the cedar fillets which will reinforce all the joints. The three way mitres are proving complicated, but after plenty of practice with scrap wood the boys are ready to cut the real ones tomorrow.

Laminate Flooring

The floor pan was laminated using the bone glue yesterday, using almost every clamp in the DT department! The honeycomb section was sandwiched between the two solid layers to create a solid base without all the associated weight. After releasing it this lunchtime I think we can be very proud of the result. The lift in the back section came out brilliantly; the curves at the front and back just need to be cut and the excess glue fully removed and we will have a complete panel. At this rate we should have the box chassis ready by Christmas.

New Sponsor

 

I would like to offer a warm welcome and a big thank you to our newest sponsors, Ladds from Redruth. They have agreed to provide us with a massive amount of funding, so we will can now definitely afford all the components we wanted, including that NuVinci CVT hub we had our eyes on!

First cuts

The first plywood panels were cut today, we are now well under way on the construction of the floor pan, the side pannels and the internal bulkheads, that's all the panel components except the bonnet all out of two sheets of ply.
The picture is the panels held in place to get a feel for size, all the internal panels will be cut to match the hoop shaped one and the whole lot will then be glued together using biodegradable glue and then laminated.
Massive thanks to Woodstock in Penryn who have very generously provided us with all of our wood absolutely free of charge, this would be a much more difficult build without their help and support.

Wheels

Bike Chain in Redruth have agreed to build our wheels for us, they will have 20mm Hope hubs and they are looking into super narrow 20" rims for us which are normally used on recumbent bicycles. It's great to have Bike Chain back on board again, they were really great as sponsors for the V24 and we are looking forward to working with them again on the new car.

Tested to Destruction

We got to test the different backing materials today. We have been making test pieces for the last couple of weeks consisting of right angles of ply, laminated with bio-resin and different backing materials. What we learnt today was that cotton and muslin really sucked but the silk was very nearly a match for the glass fibre, in fact it was so good we are now defiantly going to use it on the car. The chassis of the car will now be fully biodegradable, we are definatly putting the green into Greenpower.

RLR 1 Design

Here is a nice CAD shot of the new car design, all the work of Mr Lloyd-King. Its a monocoque construction of birch ply and bioresin, probably with silk acting as the backing material for the resin.

New blog!

Well, this is the very first entry in the Richard Lander Racing blog. This is where we will be posting updates on the build process of the new car as well as our progress when we finally get racing in the coming season. First, a bit about Greenpower, the competition we will be racing in. Greenpower is a competition for young engineers, aged 11-16 to build and race an electric car. Everyone starts with the same motor and batteries but beyond that the teams are free to build the car in whichever way they choose. The races are endurance races, lasting 4 hours with no charging of batteries allowed during the race and no adults are allowed to work on the car during pit-stops.

The V24 was our entry in the 2008 season and made it all the way to the final at Goodwood motor circuit in Sussex. Hoping to do even better this year, construction of RLR 1 is already under way, albeit at the very early stages but stay tuned for updates and photos from the build as it happens.