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.