2018-08-11 ASC Post Mortem

Mechanical - Good Stuff

@Adam Marchand @Former user (Deleted) @Robin Pearce

• Steering was responsive and stable

  • This is a characteristic of smart geometry and steel steering components

• Aerobody was very aesthetically pleasing, especially the headlights - the car was a “head-turner”

• We did 3000km with zero tire changes

• Drop out panel was intelligent - we had easy access to the majority of the electrical system

Mechanical - Bad Stuff

^

• Tires were overbuilt, something more flat would have been much more efficient (many teams didn’t need to change even with bridgestone shaved tires)

• Electrical enclosures really should be OTS

  • This will make more sense if the number of enclosures is reduced

• Brakes and the wheel assembly needs to be revisited

  • The hubs could not actually be removed

  • Brakes were shit quality, could use something better

• Jacking the car was awful

  • Should be considered earlier in the design process

• Ballast box location was ehhhhhh bad

  • Think about a removable ballast box that provides optimal location but can be removed for sponsorship/marketing purposes

• Doors

  • Doors were not easy to assemble, operate, and fell apart under operation

• DFA

• Electro-mechanical steering column should be investigated

• Seats

• Interior design/polish - carbon panels might not work

• Thermoforming for polycarb for strength and rigidity

• LATCHES

Firmware - Good Stuff

• Completing the race with minimal changes to firmware was a big win

  • Infrastructure was stable, architecture was stable AFAWK

• We were able to just build and flash boards when needed, knowing that they would build correctly (thanks to our CI)

• Having some form of real-time telemetry was invaluable

  • Being able to understand what was going on in the car made debugging things so much easier

  • Really highlighted the importance of telemetry for both ensuring your car is working, and from a strategy perspective

  • This should probably be a requirement that we must have, going forward

Firmware - Bad Stuff

• Solar sense needed to work, because y’know, solar cars

• More polish due to a lack of debugging time

• Most of the issues boiled down to architecture in some spots, and needing to hack around design issues

• It’d be ideal to have more data coming back to us

• Driver display - should move behind the steering wheel so that drivers do not have to take their eyes off the road to check the speed

Hardware - Good Stuff

• Connectors were mostly good, duracliks were quite nice

• Having spare parts was good, should always provision to have parts

Hardware - Bad Stuff

• Wire routing was not well done - could have used more planning

• Too many enclosures - using a master enclosure or two similar to App State

  • This was driven partially by the large quantity of small boards, as opposed to a small quantity of large boards

• I2C

• Telemetry was not consistent - most likely an XB issue that we didn’t have time to test

• Backup camera was meh, not killer but not great

• Precharge was simply too long

• Motor controllers - did not have internal fans, too spicy

• Power stalk was a poor choice

• Battery box needs to be redone, both from weight and labour/assy standpoint