2015 Car (“Rasaerba”) Stats

January 2016 Newsletter

Inside this issue:

The Car

Competition Update

Team Update

This Year’s Focus

Outreach

Member Spotlights

Thank You

Contact Us

“ From day one I was able to get hands on experi-

ence in a machine shop, which is a way to get out

of the classroom and apply what I'm learning in a

way that yields immediate, physical results.”

- Zachariah Gamble ’19

Brown FSAE

The 2015 car at

Michigan International

Speedway

0-60: ~3.2s

Overall Weight: 450lbs

Weight Distribution: 49.5F / 50.8L

Wheelbase: 62.4in

Front Track: 47.5in

Rear Track: 47.4in

Members of the 2015 team with the car at competition in Detroit, MI

Top row (from left): Jaekyung Song (’17), James Dilling (’16), Grant Menon (’17), Brett

Sherman (’17), Christine Herrmann (’16), Naryan Murthy (’18), Matthew Shorter (’17),

Nicholas McGurk (’17), Thanin Kovitchindachai (’16), Brennan MacInnes (’16), Rohil

Bhansali (’17), Graham Keeth (’16), Kyle Laracey (’17), Philip Mathieu (’17), Mitch Lee

(’17), Paul Friedman (’18)

Bottom row (from left): Sebastian Ali (’18), Isaku Kamada (’17), Elizabeth Bixler (’18),

Rachel Murai (’17), Victoria Lee (’15), Kelsey Sandquist (’17), Samuel Friedman (’15)

Member Spotlights

Matthew Shorter ’17: Matt is a junior from Lexing-ton, Massachusetts, studying Mechanical Engineering. When he’s not making next-level puns and broadening our horizons of what defines a bad joke, Matt is hard at work as the Chassis design lead, ensuring that our frame is successfully manufactured. According to Matt, “FSAE has what engineering is truly about: practical problems, difficult and complex design topics, individual initiative, and a strong reliance on teamwork.”

Mimi Faulhaber ’20: Mimi is a freshman from Sara-sota, Florida, studying Mechanical Engineering and In-dustrial Design in the Brown-RISD Dual Degree pro-gram. She strongly believes that art is a crucial aspect of engineering. Because students in the dual-degree pro-gram often don’t start taking Brown Engineering classes until their second year, Mimi says that “car team gives me a chance to experience hands-on engineering even though I haven’t started my engineering coursework.”

Outreach

The team continues to prioritize outreach, both to current Brown students, prospective Brown students, and, most importantly, to school-age children in the area.

Last spring, the team participated in the Brown Engineering Groups Fair at the A Day On College Hill event for admitted students, answering questions about the team and what it’s like to be an engineer at Brown.

Over the summer, campers from the SPIRA Women’s Engineering Camp toured our shop (thanks to Liz Bixler ’18, who was a SPIRA Coordinator).

So far this fall, the team has displayed the car and sat on a panel for Brown’s Engineer-ing Day for prospective students; given a lecture on intake design, racing transmis-sions, and data analysis to the Engineering Department Undergraduate Group; and par-ticipated in Barrington High School’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) event, where we discussed our experiences on the team and as engi-neers with Barrington students and their families. Additionally, representatives from the team were present at the groundbreak-ing for the new School of Engineering build-ing.

These events have all been extremely re-warding and we look forward to our next outreach opportunity!

Competition Update

When the team arrived at competition in May, they were looking forward to testing the new-and-improved car. The major changes from 2014 included new rear suspension geometry, a pedalbox reworked for significantly easier manufacture, a Drexler differen-tial that is much smaller and lighter than the old Torsen, and a fuel tank redesigned to improve fuel pickup when the figurative gas gauge nears empty.

Wednesday morning at 9AM, we ar-rived at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, ready to get to work. We quickly pre-pared our car for the technical inspec-

tion. Due to a rules interpretation, the judges required changes to parts of our vehicle, and Wednesday afternoon we worked to rectify all discrepancies. On day two, the team brought the car back and passed the technical inspec-tion, and also competed in a number of static events. On day three, we moved on to collect the rest of our tech stickers. The team successfully passed the tilt test and moved on to noise. Captains Tori Lee ’15 and Sam-uel Friedman ’15, junior Christine Herrmann ’16, and alum Morgan Walti ’13 got the engine roaring to life. With Graham Keeth ’16 on the throttle, the team passed the noise test on the first try.

(continued on facing page)

Graham Keeth (’16)

driving the car at

competition

We hurried to the brakes test area, and with Graham still suited up and strapped in, we began our runs. Almost immediately, however, Graham noticed that the car con-tinued to accelerate when he stepped off of the throttle. Reacting quickly, Graham dis-engaged the cockpit-mounted master switch and shut the car off. After some fiddling with the throttle by the pit crew, as well as some suspension adjustments, Graham did some more runs, nearly com-pleting the event on several occasions. Unfortunately, the throttle continued to stick open, and Graham made the call that it wasn’t safe to continue driving the car un-less the throttle was fixed. With the sun sinking lower in the sky, there wasn’t time to fix the throttle and retry the brakes test, so unfortunately our competition ended. Safety is always our top priority, and the team has always valued learning over re-sults. While it was disappointing to be una-ble to drive in the dynamic events, the team was thrilled to see the car driving and looked forward to putting it through its pac-es back in Providence.

Despite not doing as well as we would have liked, the team improved in nearly all static events. In the Cost Presentation, Brett Sherman ’17 presented a great cost-reduction strategy for our steering wheel, exceeding the target of a 15% cost reduc-tion, and going all the way to a 35% cost reduction! As a result of this, we earned full points on the “Real Case” scenario of the cost event. Sebastian Ali ’18 and Philip Mathieu ’17 joined Christine Herrmann ’16 to give the team’s best business presenta-tion to date, where the judges were im-pressed with our professionalism and confi-

dence. Events like the business presenta-tion help us hone skills that are critical for engineers but not taught in a curriculum -- how to sell a design!

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who supported us at competition. Thank you to alumni Nick Vina ’11, David Brown ’11, Morgan Walti ’13, and Jeanette Miranda ’14, as well as family members Mr. Friedman P’15, Mr. & Mrs. Keeth P’16, Mr. Herrmann P’16, and Mr. Laracey and Mrs. Feraday P’17 for cheering us on!

Team Updates

Both seniors (and captains!) on the team last year successfully graduated. Having decided that car team should have its own graduation sashes, both received their di-plomas with 6-point racing harnesses draped over their shoulders. Tori is pursu-ing a PhD at CalTech, while Sam is enjoy-ing some well-deserved time off.

The team has changed its name, and is now officially known as Brown Formula Racing. We chose this name in order to better communicate our purpose and scope to people and companies outside of the team, who may not be familiar with the FSAE competition. Accordingly, we now have an exciting new logo designed by Michela Bentel ’18!

This year’s captains are Christine Her-mann, Graham Keeth, and Thanin Kovitchindachai. Christine is studying Ma-terials Science and Engineering, Graham is studying Electrical Engineering, and Thanin is studying Mechanical Engineering. Com-

bined, the three captains bring a diverse set of skills to the table, and are looking forward to the spring testing season (and then competition!).

This Year’s Focus

This year, the team has decided on a fo-cused strategy for the design cycle that emphasizes data analysis and design veri-fication. Design leads have endeavored to get as much data from the 2015 car as possible, and they have designed their subsystems for the 2016 car with data col-lection in mind wherever possible. For ex-ample, Oil Lead Paul Friedman ’18 has added bungs to measure the oil tempera-ture at many different points in the system, and Powertrain Co-lead James Dilling ’16 is working on a setup to ease physical test-ing of different intake runner designs.

Additionally, Philip Mathieu is the team’s first “Analytics Lead.” His responsibilities in this role include coordinating data acquisi-tion and logging on the car, helping other subsystem leads analyze and understand their data, and analyzing car and driver performance (“Graham, more power won’t help you stop eating cones through that corner!”). Phil wants to make our alumni aware that David Brown ’11 has, by far, the best traction circle of any driver for whom we have data.

Finally, this year’s team has focused on recruitment and onboarding of new mem-bers, to great success. Significant efforts to this effect have been contributed by a group of members including Rachel Murai ’17, Isaku Kamada ’17, and many others.

The new members of the 2016 team! We’re really excited about all of the new members joining our team this year. We have peo-

ple coming to the team from many different disciplines (from engineers to artists), various years (from freshmen to seniors), and

various parts of the world (as close as Rhode Island, and as far as Turkey).

Thank You

We want to extend a warm and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped us out, both as a team and individually, over the past year.

The team has a number of sponsors and donors, without whom our work would not be possible. We are very grateful for their generous donations of resources, knowledge, and perpetual support.

We would also like to thank the team’s many alumni, who continue to donate their time, energy, and expertise to help us out. A special thank you goes to Mor-gan Walti ’13, who flew out to icy Provi-dence in January to run a “Powertrain bootcamp,” which was extremely helpful for the team. We like to say that one never truly leaves car team, and whether that’s because team members tend to pick up an undying love of racecars or because they learn to expect urgent emails at weird hours, even years after they have left the team, the adage has certainly proved true over the years.

Last but definitely not least, the team’s faculty advisor, Chris Bull, remains an invaluable resource to the team and a bastion of patience. Thanks for putting up with us for all these years, Chris!

Best Regards,

Graham, Christine, and Thanin Co-captains, Brown Formula Racing P.S. We would like to warmly welcome parents and alumni to visit us at this year’s competition, which will be held at Michigan International Speedway from May 11th-14th. We hope to see you there!

For more frequent updates, visit our facebook page at facebook.com/BrownFSAE, our website at www.brown.edu/fsae (look for an overhaul, com-ing soon!), or email us at fsae@brown.edu. Let us know if you’re ever in Providence and would like to see what we’re up to; we’d love to show you around and talk about racecars!

The Class of 2014

Conrad Herrmann

Dana and Don Keeth

David Brown

Diana Herrmann

Elinor Fung

Jeanette Miranda

Morgan Walti

The Murai Family

Kevin Laracey & Stephanie Feraday

Luke Angelini

Mr. and Mrs. Mark E. Fuller

Stephen Weinreich

The Von Preyss-Friedman Family

SPONSORS