Week 7

Time is of the essence and as competition is just around the corner the major emphasis was put on testing the car and finishing the new chassis. This week Nassim and I were assigned the task of removing the old foot box and making a new one for the competition chassis and car. The job of the foot box is to protect the driver's feet from being hit by an rocks that might get kicked up and to provide support for the drivers feet. To create the foot box we took the old one off and measured it on a piece of metal sheeting. Then we cut the metal using the shearing machine and used sheet cutters to cut out the inside of it. Then we had to use the metal bender to bend the notches into the foot box. It was a tedious and time consuming process and once we were finished we had to use the press so it would fit nicely in the role cage. After we had to drill holes where the rivets would be later placed in. This week the new chassis was supposed to be completed so it could be powder coated for the competition. The team took the car to the dessert for testing to see how the car would handle in the off road terrain. During testing the car performance was excellent and was considerably improved from last years, but there were still improvements that needed to be made. The team was falling behind their deadlines and had to work constantly throughout the nights just to keep up.