Every fan has in mind a DreamCar of their own, which is a goal, a dream that is willing to work hard for. And build a car by yourself and stage your own "fast and furious", which is the dream of many college automotive students. Thanks to the Formula Collegiate Series, many college students' "car-building dreams" have been realized. In Qingdao, there is such a college formula team, which has been racing in the national competition field for 11 consecutive years, it is the Springfield team of Qingdao Technological University. As the only team in the island city to participate, they won the second prize of the Formula China University Student Automobile Competition in 2012, 2014 and 2015, the third prize in 2020, and the third prize of the Baha Competition of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China at the end of last year.
Watch
It took 5 months to build a car to participate in the race
Recently, a cool formula racing car appeared on the new campus of Qingdao Technological University, attracting many students to watch. The reporter learned that this is the Springfield Formula Racing Team of Qingdao Technological University, a specially built car to participate in the Chinese College Student Formula Racing Competition. What is unexpected is that this car from design to finished product, took 5 months, cost nearly 300,000, the fastest speed of up to 25 meters / s sports car, from the body design to every part assembly and debugging, test drive, painting, all by the average age of about 21 years old college students to complete.
The team members worked day and night to build cars.
"I have loved cars since I was a child, and it is for this reason that I applied for Qingdao Technological University. Springfield team captain Li Xinquan told reporters, but he never thought he could build a formula car. The team that can build their own sports cars is made up of students, from freshmen to graduating and graduate students. For the 20-year-old Li Xinquan, falling in love with sports cars and self-built sports cars is purely because he likes the sparks of mechanical parts colliding, when speed and passion are staged in real life, he can find an outlet for him who is not good at words.
In 2020, after Li Xinquan came into contact with the Formula China University Student Car Race, he made up his mind to participate in this competition. After applying to the school, it received strong support from the school and the college. As a result, the whole team began to make the car, and after more than 5 months of hard work, the team car manufacturing was finally successfully completed at the end of September. It cost about 300,000 yuan to build the car, and in addition to the school's funding, the team members and teachers also invested their own savings. With a displacement of 600cc, in addition to the engine specified by the competition organization, from the design of the body to the assembly, the frame, body, chassis and hundreds of parts are made by themselves. Li Xinquan said, "In order to be able to participate, we soaked in the laboratory almost every day, and everyone did their duty and tried to catch up with the car. "In the 2020 Formula Student China Competition, Springfield Won the Third Prize in the Total Results of Oil Trucks and won the Most Influential Team. In addition, they also won the 7th place in the 2020 Society of Automotive Engineers of China Baja Competition Oil Vehicle Undergraduate Group Control Race, the 10th place in the endurance race, the 12th place in the climbing race, the 10th place in the design report in the static race, and the third prize in the overall results of the 2021 Society of Automotive Engineers of China Baja Competition, and the second place in the overall performance of the backcarfing.
Revelation
What is the superiority of Springfield's "chariot"
On November 14, 2020, the opening ceremony of the Formula China Student Competition was held in Xiangyang, Hubei Province. It is understood that the Formula Student Competition is in the form of building a small single-seater Formula car and participating in the static defense and dynamic test team, with the final total score to determine the winner or loser. Since the organizing committee of the competition stipulates that only cars built during the season are eligible to participate, so every car that participates in Formula Student is a unique "prototype car". "Car inspection is the most laborious and difficult 'ghost gate' for the participating teams." Li Xinquan said that in previous competitions, there have been individual teams that have not been able to pass the car inspection. After all, this is a racing race that only students at the age of 18 can participate in, and any professional racing company is not allowed to participate in it, only to provide technical advice. The size of the front bar, the height of the rear tail and even a small external part do not meet the requirements for the vehicle inspection of the participating vehicles and cannot participate in the race. In this formula student competition, more than 80 teams from Tsinghua University, Jilin University, Zhejiang University, Beijing Institute of Technology and so on participated, which can be described as a gathering of masters. Therefore, in such a huge and fierce competition, the members of the Springfield team must not only build the car tightly, but also show their housekeeping skills to gallop on the field.
What's so special about this small car that Springfield team built that looks a lot like Formula 1? "The grip design of the bullet model and the bottom of the car can make this car achieve steady speed. Its 'personality' is a bit fiery, but it doesn't lose its composure. "When Li Xinquan designed this car, he also added more ergonomics." Racing cars are different from ordinary civilian cars, and pay more attention to the structure of people and cars, that is to say, the driver sits in the car and drives, and must be able to integrate with the car. Li Xinquan said that the racing cars they build have ergonomic applications, and even if the vehicle is manufactured, it will take a lot of debugging work to finally complete. In this way, the driver can not only drive the car in the most comfortable state, but also maximize the speed.
tell
"Rollovers" occur from time to time during races
In racing, although you can experience speed and excitement, you can't avoid unexpected situations. Springfield team member and class of 2020 sophomore Zhu Ning, a baja endurance racing driver, is more keen to experience the "power" of racing than the drivers of the speed challenge.
Before coming to the team, Junin, who was obsessed with racing, was deeply attracted by the multi-curve and obstacle challenge of the Bayinbrook Rally. "When the car climbs over the 'shell crater' and soars, the car can leave the ground about two meters, and the feeling of weightlessness is addictive. After coming to the team, Zhu Ning did not hesitate to choose to join the endurance racing team. "The cars that participate in the endurance race, from the steering wheel to the wheels, and even every part of the car is different from the specifications of a normal car, so it needs to be repeatedly debugged to successfully pass the car inspection and enter the race. In order to be able to participate in the race smoothly, Zhu Ning and his teammates continued to study and improve the details of the car, and before the race, they formulated a number of maintenance plans, picked up the lights and fought at night, and worked all night. The cost accounting report is also one of the contents of the competition assessment, and the introverted Zhu Ning and his friends respond to the examiner's "difficulty" with informative analysis report and astute defense. He smiled and told reporters, "I think our luck is still good, the information and pictures are relatively well prepared, the introduction of the system, how to control the cost, the answer is OK." ”
Although the car is designed by the students themselves, the requirements for the safety part are similar to those of professional Formula racing, and the seat belts, helmets, and gloves used must also comply with FIA standards. In order to prevent the hand from reaching out of the car in an accidental overturn, the driver must also wear a hand strap during the race. Although there are more constraints than professional riders, the riders have only 5 seconds to escape, which is a huge test for drivers and manufacturers.
At the first sight of Zhu Ning, the dark and delicate skin was particularly impressive. Zhu Ning smiled: "Many girls envy my good skin, thanks to racing." After each competition, I became a 'clay man', nourished by mud, which is a natural mask. "Baja endurance race is not like a speed race, it is a test of the car's obstacle crossing and endurance ability. In endurance racing, in order to create an all-round obstacle course, the venue will be set up as a cement track, and the muddy water splashed by the car over the obstacle pit will often splash all over the body. These are all homely, and for endurance racers, it is even more difficult to control the situation of accidental "overturning". If the vehicle is not well deployed, it is very easy to cause overturning when crossing obstacles, and the whole car overturns and forwards when it crosses the shell crater or mound, which will not only affect the course of the race, but also cause serious injuries to the driver. "'Rollover' is very dangerous for drivers, but it happens from time to time during the race, which is both a test of the driver's courage and practical ability, and a test of the ability of the car builder." Zhu Ning said.
Baja endurance racers are often washed in mud.
Behind
Under the epidemic, overtime work is used to build cars
Starting with the first Formula Student Competition in 2010, the Springfield team of Qingdao Technological University began to compete for more than 10 consecutive years as if it had found the entrance to the dream. Time flies, the Springfield team insisted on building a dream car, during which it sent away countless student members who had a passionate dream of building a car, but never missed a race.
In 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, Qingdao Technological University postponed the opening of the school, and the Springfield team insisted on building a car in half the time it took than before to compete. "'Car building' under the epidemic has many more difficulties and challenges than ever before." As the instructor of the team, Li Long, a teacher at the School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering of Qingdao Technological University, said that the Organizing Committee of the Formula Student Competition stipulates that all participating vehicles must be vehicles manufactured during the season to qualify for the competition, and each car participating in the Formula Student Competition is the only "prototype car" in the world. However, "building cars" under the epidemic situation has many more difficulties and challenges than ever before. Due to the delay in the opening of the school, the team probably started preparing for the race from June of that year, but the more difficult work was the post-processing. Li Xinquan said, "Affected by the epidemic, express delivery has stopped, fortunately, there are sister colleges and universities in a timely exchange of information channels, some new students who joined the team do not have a good grasp of the design drawings, and later after getting the parts, they found that they were not right and had to be reassembled, and the cycle was suddenly lengthened a lot." ”
"After nearly half a year of stay-at-home life, the students' emotions are also a little depressed. They need an opportunity and a goal to inspire energy, and we should not extinguish the flame of their hands-on car building. In this way, under the leadership of Li Long, the team took less than 5 months to create a car that could fully withstand the test of the competition. Li Long said that racing not only condenses the efforts and efforts of the team members, but also their dreams.
grow
The team now has nearly 100 members
Recalling the experience of participating in the 2020 China Formula Student Car Competition, Li Long said, "In the team of more than 20 people participating in the competition, in addition to the students majoring in automobile manufacturing, there are students from many other colleges such as the School of Information Control Engineering, the College of Humanities and Foreign Chinese, and even senior students who participate in the competition while reviewing the examination and research, and everyone continues to study and stay up late, and finally completes the car." ”
After an intense race together, the team members have long regarded each other as their closest "family". Formula racing involves dynamic tests such as linear acceleration test, figure-of-eight surround test, high-speed obstacle avoidance test, handling test, durability test, etc., so the driver and the vehicle need to be constantly running in after the race car is created. "When people first joined the team, it was definitely out of interest, but slowly it became a responsibility." Li Long sighed to reporters.
This special "car-making" tour in the special period further exercised the psychological endurance of the members of the Springfield team. Li Long said that for more than 10 years, the demand for talents in the automobile market has been constantly upgrading with the changes in the industry and products, and the Formula Chinese University Student Car Competition has been standing at the forefront to lead students closer to the industry, from only one racing race in 2010, to the later Baha Endurance Race, and then to the current intelligent race, the event project is constantly upgrading. For the Springfield team, from less than 20 people at the beginning to a team of nearly 100 people now, the number of members joining the car-making team is growing exponentially every year.
future
New energy racing cars will gallop on the field
As the best candidate for the next captain of the Springfield Team, Hou Xuehan of Qingdao Technological University in the class of 2020 has not only worked as a driver in the team, but also responsible for the design and manufacture of vehicle steering and braking.
"Joining the Springfield team was one of the most rewarding things in my university life." Hou Xuehan told reporters, "In the team, I learned a lot of things that were not in the classroom, cultivated my sense of teamwork, and improved my communication skills." "Usually, in addition to classes, the most energy-consuming thing is to check the data, engage in research, do design, and even Hou Xuehan who goes home on vacation also takes the computer to check the information." This year, Hou Xuehan plans to take his new energy car to the race.
Recalling the first time he stepped into the campus of Qingdao Technological University, Hou Xuehan was surprised by the racing cars placed in the laboratory. "I didn't expect that students would be able to build cars and compete in national competitions." Hou Xuehan recalled that when he first joined the team, he was excited and curious, and every day he made himself like a fully charged motor, and he worked the road of studying how to build a car. Today, he has gone from being a team member to becoming a team captain. He also understands that in future races, new energy racing will break into the racing world as a new character. In order to build a qualified new energy racing car, the engine must be more stringent and ensure that all the details of the vehicle are in place.
"Through the integration of racing and education, the team has improved the students' comprehensive ability in design, manufacturing, cost control, commercial marketing, communication and coordination, etc., and in the whole process, with scientific and technological innovation as the carrier, explore a new model of cultivating high-quality innovative and entrepreneurial talents." Li Long revealed that in recent years, many members of the team have been favored by many well-known automobile companies and are about to wait for the interview to join.
Although the Formula China University Student Car Race could not be held last year due to the epidemic, The Springfield Team still participated in the Baja Competition of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China and won the third prize in the overall result and the second place in the overall result. Talking about the future, Li Long said, "I hope that more students can 'build cars and build dreams' here and realize the speed and passion in life." ”
link
Formula Student China
Formula Student Racing is a car-building education platform for college students originating in the United States, which uses the form of building a small single-seater Formula car and participating in static defense and dynamic testing, and the total score determines the winner or loser. In 2010, the Society of Automotive Engineering of China (Society of Automotive Engineering) and 21 colleges and universities in China and Yiche jointly founded the Formula Chinese University Students Competition, aiming at the current situation of China's automotive engineering education and automotive industry, absorbing and learning from the experience of formula college students in other countries, in order to create a new platform for public education aimed at cultivating future leaders and engineers in China's automotive industry.
It is understood that the car inspection of the Formula College Student Automobile Competition will carry out a total of nearly 200 small items in ten major items, mainly in the following aspects: driver safety, racing appearance and driver equipment, chassis, steering and braking, cockpit, engine and transmission system, fuel and noise test and brake test. In addition, Formula E adds battery checks and Equation Unmanned Systems checks. Some checks are also unique to Formula College, such as fuel racing cars that have to perform 45- and 60-degree roll checks to see if there is any fluid leakage. Formula E racing (Formula Unmanned is also pure electric) tests the battery box, circuitry and equipment of the electric car a day in advance, and also undergoes a rainforest test to see if there is a leakage of electricity.
SAE-China Baja Competition
The BAHA Competition of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China is a competition for the design, manufacture and testing of off-road vehicles formed by students from colleges and universities, vocational colleges and universities in automobiles and related majors. The competition includes a variety of static projects and dynamic project tests, static items include technical inspection, racing car design, cost and manufacturing, etc., and dynamic items include climbing test, traction test, handling test, endurance test, etc. Following the success of the Formula China University Student Competition, the event is another new skill-based talent training platform launched by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China.
(Reporter: Zhong Shanglei)