Snow in MK

Woke up this morning to nearly all white outside.  All the secondary roads on my walk to the bus were still almost completely white.  The bus was about 15 minutes late instead of its usual 5-8.  I was concerned that the roads near campus might be a bit too snowy, but they seemed fine, the bus wasn't particularly slow or anything.  It's been sunny most of the morning though, and some of it is starting to melt.  I think there may be more coming later in the week though.

The module has been ok so far, still very generic overviews, with not much application specific discussions so far.  I think that is coming though, we have a guy from Motec to talk with us this afternoon.  That should be more specific I would think.  We do have a little group assignment, but it's relatively easy, it's just to get us thinking about some of the concepts we've discussed so far.

Another Week

I had a good weekend, London was fun, though I keep forgetting it gets dark so early, so I didn't really see what I was trying to.  Spent most of yesterday reading through notes for the last two modules.  This week is Electronics and Data Acquisition.  I think I'm ready for a break from the modules though.  The days are very mentally exhausting.  Maybe this one will be a bit lighter than the last two though.

Here is a link to some pictures of the two cars from Friday.  Should be a video of the sand test in there too.

26-11-10 Tests and F1 Car

Last night I did buy some Scottish salmon from the Waitrose, and pan-grilled it with some cajun seasoning.  Used a leftover sweet potato to make some fries as well.  Got in a workout after dinner too, but I really am missing a true gym workout.  It's been too cold to run outside too.

A Short Picture Summary of the Last 24 Hours

I think we got actual snow last night, all the pavement seems pretty white

The nose and rear bodywork was on the floor so we could see the working bits of the car

A simple F1 wheel by today's standards, but notice how small the cockpit is

The Bowler Nemesis stuck in the sand pit

My casserole, couldn't get the marshmallows to brown though.  But it was quite a hit at our dinner, the recipe will be going out by email I believe.

Was a Tiring Week

But enjoyable overall, at least I'm looking forward to studying this module material a bit more than the others.  We did get to walk around and see a 2002 BAR Honda F1 car today, so that was just a little cool!  Watching the Bowler Nemesis sink into the sand pit at the off-road facility was also really neat to see.  Gonna keep this post short, not really feeling like too much writing right now.  I'll try and get up some pictures and a video of the Bowler on Sunday.

The forecast is for below freezing temps all weekend long.  Not sure I have enough warm clothes for that!  I am headed to London again tomorrow for the afternoon.  Going to try and check out Buckingham Palace and a couple of pubs of course too (I found another beer festival, I know, shocking).  The thing is though, it's a cheaper train to London, and almost as quick, than it is to get a taxi to campus.  And my bus pass expired yesterday, but I'm trying to see if I can get by on buying a couple weekly passes instead of another monthly one.

Headed to our Thanksgiving dinner in a few minutes, hopefully I didn't mess up the casserole too much.

Today Feels Kind of Weird

Well I saw the first snow of the year today!  There was light dusting as we headed west toward Shrivenham.  Supposedly there is a possibility of snow here in MK this weekend, but it doesn't seem very certain.

The labs were good, except that our group didn't get to use the 4 post rig.  A rear shock mount broke while we were at lunch and the technicians were running a test to film and take pictures.

The Broken Formula Renault Suspension

Picture a car sitting on four platforms, and the platforms can apply forces and or motion to the wheels of the car.  It can be used to simulate a given track or road condition, or just to see how the suspension reacts throughout the whole travel range.

You can kind of see 2 of the platforms that the car was sitting on.

We also tested the lateral force capabilities of a tire at different slip angles, tested damper settings on a single wheel station, and tested the response of just a single damper.

The slip angle test

There is no assignment, but we are encouraged to try and analyze the data for ourselves.

At lunch we had been told there was a McDonalds, or we could bring our lunch.  I brought a sandwich, but walked over to McDonalds with most of the other guys.  Wasn't planning on buying anything, but then they had a Terry's Chocolate Orange McFlurry.  I had to try it.  The chocolate orange stuff is super popular over here, you can buy it just about anywhere.  It is sold as regular bars, in little slices, and as the whole orange like I'm used to seeing at home. It was pretty fantastic in the McFlurry too!

I'm watching the Pats/Lions now, getting my sweet potatoes ready for the casserole.  I also bought a small carrot cake for dessert tonight, it was as close as I could find to pumpkin pie unfortunately.

Gonna Be a Long Day

But it should be good, we will have 3 presentations from current and former F1 engineers.  The first two are in the afternoon, one about the effects of tire (tyre) temperature on performance, and the next on general vehicle dynamics from a chief engineer at Renault who used to be Mark Webber's race engineer.  The last one is open to the public, but still on campus tonight at 7, with another engineer from Renault.  That one will probably be a bit more general, but we will see, the Q&A session could be interesting.

I think I've finally found a show on BBC that I can actually get into, it's called How Not to Live Your Life.  The 4 episodes I've watched so far have been pretty funny.  The other one's I've watched bits of are a bit too much like a soap.  And of course I don't know any of the characters backgrounds, so overall they just aren't very interesting.

I did buy the ingredients for my sweet potato casserole contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner on Friday.  Almost bought the "Carolina Sun" sweet potatoes from Tesco, but they were 3x the price of the other ones, so I didn't.  Wish me luck putting it all together!

Hopefully

Today goes better than the bus ride home yesterday.  To start off with, I think we were stopping without brake pads, the grinding noise was just awful.  Then there was what I suppose was an accident at the roundabout leading out of campus that caused a 10-15 minute backup.  All of that made the 40 minute ride home into an hour and 10 minutes.  I should've run home I think.  I decided my troubles were worth a stop at "The Barn" a Beefeater chain pub for a pint of Hobgoblin.

The lecture was pretty good.  Some basic things that I knew, but it was good to get reminders of a lot of the math and free body diagram analysis stuff.  I did learn some things too about how to interpret some different plots of data.  The rest of the week should be good.  One correction though - Shrivenham is for the 4 post rig and some other assorted testing equipment, the off-road facility is here.  We also have a few very exciting guest lectures tomorrow.

One thing I've been meaning to mention - a lot of people here who walk in groups like to just stay in the group, as wide as the sidewalk.  I think I will just run into the next one that does it to me, it's gotten a bit ridiculous.  I guess it's mostly on campus though, but it does happen around MK as well.

Hi

The 6:10 wake up call this morning was a bit rough, trying to catch up after a late night with some of the guys on Saturday.  Hopefully today's lecture isn't too introductory and will be easy to pay attention to.  This week is Vehicle Dynamics, which is really the area I'm most interested in.  On Thanksgiving Day we are travelling to the Shrivenham campus for the off-road testing facility.  Don't know the exact details of what we will be doing exactly though.  

I wish I had more to tell you.  I should start writing down the things that come to mind during the day to blog about.  I usually write in the mornings and by then all my ideas have slipped my mind unfortunately.

Oh like this for instance - I finally bought a jar of Branston Pickle.  I'd call it relish, that's really what it is for everyone back home.  I bought the seasonal Red Onion and Cranberry variety, and I'm using it on turkey sandwiches for lunch, quite appropriate for Thanksgiving I think!  I'm still curious about the Branston Pickle and Cheese sandwich I've been told to try, might be my next pub meal.

Well it's time to head to class, so hope everyone has a good Monday!

Sainsbury's

I'm finding Sainsbury's to be the best place to do most of my grocery shopping so far.  It's a decent walk, a little over a mile I think, maybe 1.5.  The problem is, it's only really convenient for me to go on Saturday's, and I wind up buying too much stuff and then the bags get real heavy on the walk back!  I do have two nicer reusable shopping bags that help some though.  What I should do is take the bus a few extra stops one night a week and split my shopping up a little.  But during the week the last thing I want to do is make the bus home longer and then the walk home longer.  

I'm going to try and continue my Saturday run ritual here shortly.  Need a bit of a snack though for some energy.  The weather is on the chilly side for a run, but I'll put on another layer and should be ok, I hope.  At least it is not raining.

For the record, the monitor is working out fantastically, it's really nice being able to have a streaming video up on one screen while emailing or reading study notes on the laptop screen.  I've still been working my way through reading the binder of engine design notes we had to print out.  The exam is open book for this module though, which really just means that the questions will be more complicated ;)

Alright, well off for that snack and a run, then back here for some more studying and the State/Carolina game later.

So Glad it's Friday

This week has been pretty exhausting.  The lectures have been filled with information, so the days have felt longer than our previous couple lecture weeks.  I think it is due to the sheer amount of complexity in engine design, and it is a huge amount to cover in a week.  I suspect next week Vehicle Dynamics will be the same way.  I have enjoyed the week greatly though, well especially after I figured out that it wasn't necessary to spend all Wednesday night playing with the simulation software like some of us did.  I had to take the bus back home and get dinner, but some guys stayed until 3-4 in the morning.  The thing is though, the assignment wasn't at all to optimize the given engine, it was to make some changes and talk about why they helped or hurt given performance parameters.  So my frustration Wednesday night was not really needed :)

Today's lectures are on turbo and supercharging and transmissions.  I do find it odd that the module is "Powertrain Design" yet only one part of a lecture is dealing with transmissions!  We will have a bit of time today with the dyno, running some tests on the University's Formula Ford.  That will be good to be out of the lecture room for sure!

I did buy a TV to use as a monitor yesterday.  It will let me play PS3 in some downtime, it has a DVD player so I can rent movies if I want, and it should also be helpful studying to use as a second screen.

Another American here that I met at the wind tunnel (he's doing an Aerodynamics MSc) is organizing a Thanksgiving dinner for next Friday night, so that should be enjoyable.  I'm going to attempt to cook a sweet potato casserole, so if any of you have favorite recipes, please send them my way!

Quickly

I can't write for long because I need to get back to the engine simulation assignment that is due this afternoon.  It has been a neat assignment, though it could've been much better if the network and software ran fast enough for all of use to make our own changes.  Instead we had to work in teams and wound up not trying as many configurations as we would have liked.  We were focusing on changing air/fuel ratios yesterday.  Today we can play with just about anything else on the engine to attempt to make more usable power.  Then we have to write up the report and explain why the changes made power.  Should be fun if the software cooperates.

Engines are Bloody Complicated

It's been a good couple days of lectures so far.  Each point or concept is not necessarily complicated, but as always the devil is in the details.  Where it gets tough is the interaction between all of the design elements and principles that govern the performance.  Add in the fact that almost everything you can do seems to have a penalty or drawback as well as the benefit you're trying to add, and I really have a newfound appreciation for engine design.  We are using a program called AVL Boost to model what effect a multitude of basic geometric changes can have on an engine's performance.  I haven't started modifying anything yet, just analyzing the basic engine we were given as a starting point so far.

The fog was really freezing this morning, it was all over the cars and ground too. It also didn't really lift until about lunchtime.  While eating dinner tonight I was watching a show about a drive up the coast of Scotland.  Learned some interesting things - and I might have to try and find a "Smokie" while I'm over here.  Did you know one citizen had an idea to train sea gulls to spot German U-boat periscopes by teaching them that there would be fish to eat behind them?!

Well it's nearly 8pm, and the bus home was a bit slow, so I'm going to have a go at sorting out some more of the engine design assignment.  You're welcome for all the proper English :)

Back to the Grind

Another 3 weeks of day long lectures start today.  Powertrain design is the first week, then Vehicle Dynamics and then Electronics and Data Acquisition.  The last two might be in reverse order, I'm not sure right now.  I think I'm actually ready to get back to them, though the long relaxing weekend was needed and nice.

The weather when I woke up this morning was "freezing fog".  Now I'm not really sure if the fog was actually freezing, but it was 30F and foggy.  Yesterday I spent watching NFL online after watching the F1 season finale from a pub a few hundred feet away from the Aston Martin site in Newport.  It is kinda cool to say I'm living in the city where the team that won the Constructor's and Driver's Championship are located.  Hopefully they'll have some celebration of some sort, and maybe have the cars out to see!

I was trying to stay up and finish watching the 49ers, but I passed out as the 4th quarter started.  It's probably a good thing, as the game wound up in overtime, and I really really would've been struggling by then!  At least they pulled out the win, as did State.  There is also a chance that I win all 3 of my fantasy football matchups this week, which hasn't happened yet.

We are supposed to have lunch with the Motorsport Advisory Board on Wednesday.  I'm not sure if the whole board will be there, hopefully we'll get some details today.  The list of board members is here.  We had to send CV's to them, so I'm curious to see what the meeting is like.

Where did the Rain come from?

So I assume because I said the weather was good, that is why when I got to London it was raining and cloudy!  I didn't do as much walking and sight seeing as I intended because of the rain.  I did take the Tube to the Embankment station and walked around and got to look at the Eye and Big Ben.  I took some pictures, but because it was raining and not very bright either, they really didn't come out very good at all.  After that I took the Tube to Monument and walked over and saw the London Bridge from a distance.  All I had was my pea coat, and it was pretty soaked at this point!  I did find some dinner at an insanely crowded place called The Ship.  Bangers and mash hit the spot with a pint of Fuller's London Pride.

The Euston Tap was pretty awesome.  It's a tiny little building, but they had a great selection.  They had a good combination of good British beer and imports from the US and Europe too.  The cooler of American bottles was rather impressive, with around 10-12 bottles from Port/Lost Abbey, Goose Island, Victory, and others.  They were very expensive though, so I resisted taking any home with me.  I did buy a bottle of Mikkeller Ris a la M'ale, which is a cherry kriek of sorts, should be very interesting.

Well I can see the sun again out my windows, so I'm going for a run to Willen Lake again.  Not too sure what else I will do today until the State game at 7, maybe some laundry, maybe some vacuuming of my room, maybe something else!

Great Weather for London Today!

It's nearly 50 F today, sunny, and barely a raincloud on the radar.  I believe I'm going to venture to Buckingham Palace, walk over to Big Ben and walk along the Thames River.  I'll be able to see the London Eye too.  I've been advised to wait until dark to actually pay for the Eye, so I think I will save that for a later trip.

Got in a workout and watched the F1 practice session this morning.

I want to know how I did on exams though!  Not sure when we will find out either.

And We're Done

Well this was a long week.  Even though the exams were only 2 hours each, it felt like much longer.  The first exam, metallic structures was awful.  Two of the 4 questions were on material that was very very briefly covered in class.  And nothing about titanium, or high strength heat treated steels, which was discussed a lot during the lectures.  I think I did alright from talking with most of the others, I think I had the right idea on the unexpected questions.

The composites exam was great, we had been told what to expect, and that's what we got.  I am interested to see how strictly the exams are graded, as passing is only 50%.  The aerodynamics exam today was somewhere between the other two difficulty wise.  Aero is not my best subject, but I had studied a bunch and knew what to do with most of the questions.  A couple I was lost on but hopefully used enough keywords to get some points on them ;)

The bus again failed to show up after the exam so I wound up having to split another freaking taxi back to Milton Keynes.  I don't understand what the problem with having buses show up when scheduled is.  Very frustrating.  I don't even want to think about how many hours I've wasted already waiting for buses that were late or never showed up.

My care package from Jess did show up yesterday.  Cookies, some spices, waterproofing spray for my jacket and some other things that I'd been waiting for.  Unfortunately I can't get the usb video capture device to work so that I can play some PS3 this weekend.  I was really looking forward to that, but the drivers will not install correctly and Windows will not recognize the device when I plug it in.  I don't get it!

Tomorrow I am venturing into the North side of London.  There is a new craft beer bar that opened last Friday, and it just happens to be outside Euston station, which I think is the first stop on the way into London from here.  I'm hoping to find some more adventurous brews from around the UK.  There seems to be a lot of beer culture up north, towards Manchester and Leeds.

Not quite sure yet where else I will venture out to while I'm in town.  The tube does run to a couple of convenient places from Euston, so I will strategize tonight.

I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend, I'd like to go for a nice run or two, get in some workouts, and I should probably clean up a bit around my room.

Into First Exam

Here we go, I'm ready, just hoping for no surprises or unexpected questions!

Easy Sunday Morning, Sort Of

It's been a relaxing Sunday morning.  Done a little laundry, a good bit of studying, and just finished lunch.  Yesterday was fun, met a few alumni, and watched some good racing.  The historic car races were the most interesting, and the American cars stood out drastically because they were huge compared to everything else.

The Formula Ford races were as usual very close and competitive, the cars just aren't all that interesting to look at.  I think my favorite car was this black Chevron.

I took this video of the cars rolling off the false grid:

An original Mini and a Lotus were also in the field

From 6-11-10 Walter Hayes Trophy

With sunset somewhere around 4:45, the racing was over by about 4:15, which worked out perfectly as the F1 qualifying session began at 4:00.  Watching with a few F1 engineers in the house made it a little more interesting!  It was even more interesting when Hulkenburg unexpectedly took the pole by over a second.

Studying is coming along pretty good.  Feeling pretty comfortable about the exams at this point.  I do need to remember that here they expect explanations for all answers, not just the answer.  So I just need to give much more detail than I am used to from my schooling back in the USA.  

Guy Fawkes Day

So, on top of all the engineering knowledge I've learned, I learned about a new "holiday" today.  November 5th is Guy Fawkes Night.  The English celebrate with bonfires and fireworks and the burning of effigies.  The burning part might be a bit tough tonight though, it's supposed to keep raining like it has most of the afternoon.

My week was a lot of studying, and I still have a bit to do tonight, Sunday and Monday.  Honestly what I'm struggling the most with is math - integration mainly, but also some simplification of algebra.  It's coming back, but I just haven't had to do math like this in over 5 years, so I either forget or have to remind myself of things that should just be second habit. Saturday will be a diversion though, we are all invited to Silverstone for the Walter Hayes Trophy, which is basically another Formula Ford event, similar to what I saw at Brands Hatch a couple of weeks ago.  Our event is in the Brooklands Suite, which must be close to the BRDC clubhouse that we visited last time.  It is also an alumni gathering for all former Motorsport graduates, so it should be a great place to make some new connections and enjoy the racing too!

I have gotten in a few more workouts this week, which has been really nice, including a morning one on Thursday.  Can't think of much else right now.  I'll try to write tomorrow after I get back home as well.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Study Week

Our first set of three exams are next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  So this week is a ton of study time.  We have some sample exams, so I will work through those, and spend a bunch more time just going through our notes and beating information into my brain.

I'll try to find interesting stuff to write about, but I may be a bit distracted this week.  I did make a big portion of an Indian chicken and vegetable dish last night, enough that I'll have leftovers for probably 3 more meals out of it.  The time spent cooking was a good diversion from studying though.  We do have a couple library sessions in the mornings - talking about all the journal databases, and how to reference them and things like that.  I think I'm heading back home after the one today though, so I should be back home by 12:30 which will be nice.

Most of you will find it funny that I seem to have become accustomed to the 6:20 alarm clock and getting the bus at 7:30.  I find the time in the morning before class to be very productive actually.  Though I am still staying up until 11:30 or 12:00 most nights, so I hope I can keep up the schedule.

Comments

So I know a few of you have asked about how to add comments or replies to my posts.  The easiest way is if you just sign up for a Google account.  You can use your existing email address, just go here and enter your details.  Alternatively, I've set up a second email address if you do not want to post the comment publicly.  Email me at this address please if you have questions.

I know from the page views that plenty of people are reading, I would enjoy it being a bit more interactive.  I want to know if I'm staying entertaining, at times it can seem like what I'm writing might be a little mundane to some of you, but maybe not. Also, if you have questions about anything technical that I'm learning and writing about, please ask me with an email.  I've gotten quite used to explaining things to Jessica ;)

So in summary, I just want to make sure I'm telling you all about what you are interested in, so please don't be shy about giving me feedback.

Cheers!  (I guess I'm English now)