I a seriously ready to get going with actual suspension design for my thesis. I'm tired of reading PDFs trying to develop stupid methodology. I'm trying to just grind through it though, I just hope it all turns out to be what I really need when going through the rest of the project. I really hope to start CAD design next week, but that is still dependent on getting some info and drawings that I've asked for. This did kind of happen in the group project too, I remember being frustrated at not having anything to show for a long time period of work. I did think I was closer to done with the research, but then wound up with a few more topics after meeting with James yesterday.
At least I'm enjoying being able to work from home, which is making it much more comfortable overall. Not having to pack lunches is a welcome break too. The weather has been much more, uh, typical I guess. Or it's what I was led to believe it would be. 50's at night, low to mid 60's during the day, with scattered showers most days. I have been catching some of the College World Series live, which is cool. I've almost gotten rid of that lingering cold/virus whatever it was. Just a little residual stuffy nose, but feel much better overall. I am still sleeping very hard though, which I think is related to the sickness, but maybe not.
Well I guess I should get back to reading... I have had to be more conscious of getting away from the computer screen throughout the day, going for a walk is usually the best.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Under the Weather
It was a long weekend at Brands Hatch. The weather was not too great, with lots of rain Friday, and spotty but heavy rain Saturday and Sunday. I was probably not helped by the fact that I've got some sort of cold or virus too, so my nose, throat and head still don't feel normal. Our results weren't really good either, qualified 9th, then 8th in the first race and 16th in the second after a 30 second penalty for driving off the course too often. We did find a few issues with his engine though, maintenance related things mainly, but also a faulty throttle position sensor and a melted catalytic converter too.
I was glad to get back home to a shower and a salad from my produce box for dinner. Between Le Mans and the track weekend I'd had just a few too many grilled sausages and burgers. The sunset here is now around 9:30, but it doesn't get truly dark until sometime around 10:15 or 10:30. I wound up going to bed before it was dark, which is a weird feeling. I'm going to keep writing up some literature review parts on my thesis this morning, then get a little shopping done before lunch. I'll probably head to campus for the afternoon. I did leave my USB stick on the plane unfortunately, which had all the PDFs I'd been reading, so I will have to go find and download them again - not for content, I wrote all that in my notebook, but for authors and references. I'd had the stick out doing a little work on the plane, and my pack was crammed under the seat and I didn't feel like getting it out. So I put it in the seatback pocket and then totally forgot it until Jeremy and I were sitting in London with a pot of tea!
I will get a post up about Jeremy's trip and Le Mans and all that, just be patient please :)
I was glad to get back home to a shower and a salad from my produce box for dinner. Between Le Mans and the track weekend I'd had just a few too many grilled sausages and burgers. The sunset here is now around 9:30, but it doesn't get truly dark until sometime around 10:15 or 10:30. I wound up going to bed before it was dark, which is a weird feeling. I'm going to keep writing up some literature review parts on my thesis this morning, then get a little shopping done before lunch. I'll probably head to campus for the afternoon. I did leave my USB stick on the plane unfortunately, which had all the PDFs I'd been reading, so I will have to go find and download them again - not for content, I wrote all that in my notebook, but for authors and references. I'd had the stick out doing a little work on the plane, and my pack was crammed under the seat and I didn't feel like getting it out. So I put it in the seatback pocket and then totally forgot it until Jeremy and I were sitting in London with a pot of tea!
I will get a post up about Jeremy's trip and Le Mans and all that, just be patient please :)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Back to Normal Life (Kinda)
So Jeremy has left now, I'm hanging around London with some wi-fi trying to be productive doing some more research. I'm trying to finalize my approach to the design and analysis for my project. Then once I get some data on a car (soon hopefully) I can dive right into it. Thankfully it cleared up from this morning, and the sun is peaking out every now and then. We got pretty wet walking to the Tube to get to Heathrow.
Le Mans was great, though I will say it wasn't the most spectator friendly track I've seen. The transport options between viewing areas were far from easy to use, which made it hard to get to all the corners. I'll get a detailed post up on it next week. We did drive the wrong way down the Mulsanne straight to leave on Monday!
I will be at Brands Hatch this weekend for the next Caterham races too. Then the next 2 weeks will be huge focus on my project, I just really hope I can get the information I need to proceed. As in the past things just seem to take forever around here.
Well that's the quick update from me, I'm sorry I haven't had more time or energy to write anything more detailed.
Le Mans was great, though I will say it wasn't the most spectator friendly track I've seen. The transport options between viewing areas were far from easy to use, which made it hard to get to all the corners. I'll get a detailed post up on it next week. We did drive the wrong way down the Mulsanne straight to leave on Monday!
I will be at Brands Hatch this weekend for the next Caterham races too. Then the next 2 weeks will be huge focus on my project, I just really hope I can get the information I need to proceed. As in the past things just seem to take forever around here.
Well that's the quick update from me, I'm sorry I haven't had more time or energy to write anything more detailed.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Home Safe
Just a quick note that the flight went well yesterday once we figured out that it was not actually cancelled. I even had an empty seat next to me which was really nice.
I do have my old cell phone activated again, so use it if you want!
Watching the ACC Baseball Tournament and taking care of things around the house after running some errands this morning.
I do have my old cell phone activated again, so use it if you want!
Watching the ACC Baseball Tournament and taking care of things around the house after running some errands this morning.
Monday, May 23, 2011
From a Hotel in London...
Well our flight tomorrow has been cancelled. Not sure why, the RDU-LHR flights were cancelled today too. As far as I can tell it must be something mechanical with the plane they use, other flights are leaving Heathrow, and I've been rebooked on a flight to Miami. Then the flight to RDU doesn't arrive until 1015 unfortunately. We don't know about Dad and Jane's reservation, theirs still shows as if the original flight is ok. The rental car has to be back by 9am tomorrow anyway, so if it hasn't updated in an hour or two, we'll figure it out in the morning.
It was a good weekend with them though. Our Saturday was spent checking out Bletchley Park - where one of Jane's neighbors (I think) had actually worked, and then a relaxing pint at the Red Lion where they stayed in Milton Keynes before a nice dinner in Olney. Jane even tried out the real ale! Sunday was Stonehenge and Bath, both of which were very cool. Today I had some things to do on campus before leaving, one of which was shortcircuited by the bus times changing. It is now impossible for me to get to campus before 930, I'm just glad it wasn't like this when I had lectures at 9 most mornings! But either way, very ridiculous, especially considering that the bus serves people working at the Nissan Tech Centre too. We then drove to Oxford and walked around the University for a while. A stop was made at the Turf Tavern - which has a connection to Inspector Morse that Jane liked a lot. She also tried her third real ale of the weekend there - she'd had one other in Bath as well.
I do think I'm slowly selling them on the idea of a GPS too. I did forget my back with toothpaste and contact supplies in my room. Not sure why I didn't just put them in my backpack yesterday, I guess I was trying to avoid bringing them to campus for some reason. Anyway, there is an Asda within a short walk, so I picked up replacements there. The flight tomorrow isn't until 135 now, which isn't quite enough time to get into central London for anything meaningful unfortunately. Maybe I can find some good wifi and do a little bit of project research. Maybe.
Anyway, that's about it for now, hope everything works out tomorrow.
It was a good weekend with them though. Our Saturday was spent checking out Bletchley Park - where one of Jane's neighbors (I think) had actually worked, and then a relaxing pint at the Red Lion where they stayed in Milton Keynes before a nice dinner in Olney. Jane even tried out the real ale! Sunday was Stonehenge and Bath, both of which were very cool. Today I had some things to do on campus before leaving, one of which was shortcircuited by the bus times changing. It is now impossible for me to get to campus before 930, I'm just glad it wasn't like this when I had lectures at 9 most mornings! But either way, very ridiculous, especially considering that the bus serves people working at the Nissan Tech Centre too. We then drove to Oxford and walked around the University for a while. A stop was made at the Turf Tavern - which has a connection to Inspector Morse that Jane liked a lot. She also tried her third real ale of the weekend there - she'd had one other in Bath as well.
I do think I'm slowly selling them on the idea of a GPS too. I did forget my back with toothpaste and contact supplies in my room. Not sure why I didn't just put them in my backpack yesterday, I guess I was trying to avoid bringing them to campus for some reason. Anyway, there is an Asda within a short walk, so I picked up replacements there. The flight tomorrow isn't until 135 now, which isn't quite enough time to get into central London for anything meaningful unfortunately. Maybe I can find some good wifi and do a little bit of project research. Maybe.
Anyway, that's about it for now, hope everything works out tomorrow.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Good Morning
I'm working from home this morning, at least through lunch probably, maybe all day. Still having trouble getting together with my supervisor to discuss some thesis things, so that is nothing new but still frustrating. The most frustrating part is trying to find what software is available for one part of my project. I'd like to go ahead and start learning it even if I wind up having to redo the model in the future! I've also got a nice little routine going in the morning now of watching a replayed baseball game while doing research or whatever on my project. It's quite nice actually.
I made a squash Vindaloo curry last night for dinner that turned out very good. It was using a jar of sauce from the Farmer's Market that I bought a few weeks ago. We did have some quick showers last night, but after they had passed I decided to take a bike ride out to Emberton, through Sherington, which is kind of north east of Newport. It is almost to Olney, which is a small market town. Looks like it will be fun to check out in the future. Ironically, the writer of the hymn Amazing Grace (which was the postlude at Mom's funeral) is from there. Olney is supposedly pronounced to rhyme with pony too, at least according to Wikipedia ;) I did make a pit stop for a few local beers and even a local cider at the Bell and Bear. I overheard the chef talking about the duck and lamb he had served earlier coming from 2-3 miles away. The lamb came from fields that I pass on the way to Cranfield!
Looking forward to being home on Tuesday!
I made a squash Vindaloo curry last night for dinner that turned out very good. It was using a jar of sauce from the Farmer's Market that I bought a few weeks ago. We did have some quick showers last night, but after they had passed I decided to take a bike ride out to Emberton, through Sherington, which is kind of north east of Newport. It is almost to Olney, which is a small market town. Looks like it will be fun to check out in the future. Ironically, the writer of the hymn Amazing Grace (which was the postlude at Mom's funeral) is from there. Olney is supposedly pronounced to rhyme with pony too, at least according to Wikipedia ;) I did make a pit stop for a few local beers and even a local cider at the Bell and Bear. I overheard the chef talking about the duck and lamb he had served earlier coming from 2-3 miles away. The lamb came from fields that I pass on the way to Cranfield!
Looking forward to being home on Tuesday!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Race Weekend 2
It was a long weekend at Snetterton, with lots of mechanical issues on the car, spotty rain all weekend, and the usual biting wind too. The British GT and F3 cars were fun to watch though. One of these times I'll finally remember to bring chapstick too. And maybe get better about bringing the camera as well.
Testing on Friday was slowed down by a broken axle, though we didn't miss any track time. We did avoid having to drive 3ish hours to the factory to pick up a new one though when they finally found a spare one in the truck. That was a straightforward fix, but the uncertainty meant we didn't get to try any different setups on the car.
Qualifying on Saturday was going well, and Jamie was in 4th until the last lap when one of the other drivers was a bit aggressive and t-boned the car going into a hairpin. The other driver had totalled his car during the last race, so I think he might be not the best driver, though he is pretty quick. The same a-frame that failed before was clearly bent this time, along with the Watts link, and the Caterham guys said part of the hub should be replaced too. Another part, the DeDion tube was hopefully straight... So we swapped all of those new parts on, and put the string gauge on and it was obvious that the DeDion was actually bent. Then we took everything back apart and putting the DeDion next to a new one, it was clearly bent as well. All this work made for a late night, but not too bad, we were only working until about 11:30.
The first race on Sunday was going well, but something was clearly not right, as we were 2 seconds off the times set in qualifying. Jamie did well to finish 7th, though he was clearly slower than everyone else around him. We got the car back and started looking into what had changed, and if there was still something bent in the rear. Eventually we found that a rear sway bar link had fallen off at some point on the way to the grid! So the car was understeering massively and that explains what was wrong! We got that sorted out and then spent the afternoon walking around the F3 and GT garages and watching some racing. The crowd was pretty big compared to a lot that I've seen.
But then the last race ended on the first lap when he got t-boned again, this time on the other side! We'll see if all the pieces we replaced are damaged again. He will need another exhaust now, which is not a cheap part, and now has 2 bent rear wheels that are apparently not available at the moment. So a frustrating weekend, but it was enjoyable overall, the time really does fly at the track.
Today I'm doing some background research for my thesis, and hoping to meet with my supervisor too. Other than that I'm starting to make some lists of teams I want to apply for jobs with. Wish me luck with that!
I did hear from Jane that they are on the ferry to the Orkney Islands this morning, and the sun is apparently at least partially out for them too.
Testing on Friday was slowed down by a broken axle, though we didn't miss any track time. We did avoid having to drive 3ish hours to the factory to pick up a new one though when they finally found a spare one in the truck. That was a straightforward fix, but the uncertainty meant we didn't get to try any different setups on the car.
Qualifying on Saturday was going well, and Jamie was in 4th until the last lap when one of the other drivers was a bit aggressive and t-boned the car going into a hairpin. The other driver had totalled his car during the last race, so I think he might be not the best driver, though he is pretty quick. The same a-frame that failed before was clearly bent this time, along with the Watts link, and the Caterham guys said part of the hub should be replaced too. Another part, the DeDion tube was hopefully straight... So we swapped all of those new parts on, and put the string gauge on and it was obvious that the DeDion was actually bent. Then we took everything back apart and putting the DeDion next to a new one, it was clearly bent as well. All this work made for a late night, but not too bad, we were only working until about 11:30.
The first race on Sunday was going well, but something was clearly not right, as we were 2 seconds off the times set in qualifying. Jamie did well to finish 7th, though he was clearly slower than everyone else around him. We got the car back and started looking into what had changed, and if there was still something bent in the rear. Eventually we found that a rear sway bar link had fallen off at some point on the way to the grid! So the car was understeering massively and that explains what was wrong! We got that sorted out and then spent the afternoon walking around the F3 and GT garages and watching some racing. The crowd was pretty big compared to a lot that I've seen.
But then the last race ended on the first lap when he got t-boned again, this time on the other side! We'll see if all the pieces we replaced are damaged again. He will need another exhaust now, which is not a cheap part, and now has 2 bent rear wheels that are apparently not available at the moment. So a frustrating weekend, but it was enjoyable overall, the time really does fly at the track.
Today I'm doing some background research for my thesis, and hoping to meet with my supervisor too. Other than that I'm starting to make some lists of teams I want to apply for jobs with. Wish me luck with that!
I did hear from Jane that they are on the ferry to the Orkney Islands this morning, and the sun is apparently at least partially out for them too.
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