FSAE car with 3D-printed body

Behold:

http://www.materialise.com/cases/the-areion-by-formula-group-t-the-world-s-first-3d-printed-race-car

Holy. Berking. Crap.

Very cool!!

I must be one of the very few to find that not very amazing.

3 weeks for a body? That's a LOOONG time. At what cost? Geez, I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget.... It's become "intro to F1 101."

It's just a matter of time before printers of that size would be around- I would not be surprised to see concept car bodies printed like that.

It doesn't say if they actually took 3 weeks to print the car but I'm sure it would have taken a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the full 3 weeks. Still, it sure beats fiberglass fabrication both in effort and end result.

Some small panels have already been printed for concept cars but this might be the world's biggest 3D printed object at this point.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

Well, having seen some pretty nice FB fabrication, I would say that the lack of work and quality is relative. Something I would do- sure, 3D would come out much better, even in 3 weeks. But there are some gifted fabricators out there that would be able to put out that shape pretty quickly, and just as good or better.

alfadriver wrote: Geez, I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget...

FSAE is about taking classroom-taught engineering skills and applying them to the real world. Keeping to a budget is part of it (just as with real-world engineering), but that doesn't mean every budget is "bailing wire and duct tape." If 3D printing is where technology is headed, and it certainly seems that way for some applications like rapid prototyping, then those students got some great experience in that area.

Oh I know fiberglass can look good, but as a material it's not as good as ABS plastic.

3D printing is already here.

That, and unless they covered it with some kind of fabric, I can't really see that a thin body shell would be all that structurally sound or able to keep it's shape using normal stero lith materials.

but, they did get experience....

GameboyRMH wrote: Oh I know fiberglass can look good, but as a material it's not as good as ABS plastic.

Depends on what you are doing. I would not skin a airplane with ABS plastic. I also would not put it anywhere near heat.

alfadriver wrote: 3D printing is already here.

Clearly. I guess my word choice of "headed" was poor, as I am well-aware of 3D printing being "already here." I've actually been considering building my own. Too bad the MAKE magazine kit is so expensive; that would make it (almost) too easy.

3D printing material is pretty darn cheap. Just a FYI, and as long as you don't have crazy tight tolerances a bigger printer is not exponentially expensive. Its just drive motors and encoders if you are using them.

More then likely cheaper then foam/clay if you factor time and materials.

I don't get it...what's the big deal? Rapid prototype (or whatever you want to call it today) isn't anything new. Give me access to a really huge, expensive rapid prototype tool and I can create really huge, expensive rapid prototypes. Sure, it's cool, but how it is optimized is much more interesting than the actual creation/process part. Considering what the tool is capable of, I was expecting a lot more integrated features when I started reading the article. More fluid passages, overflow/catch can, component attachments, wire routing paths, aerodynamics, etc. should be integrated in CAD if you have the ability to model up such complex structures that would be extremely difficult to manufacture otherwise. Like alfa said, making a body as simple as they did can be done in less time and with less money using "standard" methods. Hopefully they use this experience to bring things to the next level...or go back to the "standard" way of doing things and recognize the time and money savings that can be applied otherwise.

Bryce

"Printed directly onto the nose of the race car is a shark skin texture, similar to that found on high-tech competition swimsuits. As with the swimsuits, the aim of the teeth-like ridges is to reduce drag, increase thrust, and improve performance on race day."

This would be a little tough to do in glass.

I had a 3d printer on my desk ten years ago. It was awesome for modeling and as a sales tool; but unless it has come along way since then I wouldn't want it as a body.

I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget....

Wait, what?! You most have grown up differently than me. My experience growing up was that FSAE was about relatively well to do kids going to well to do schools and playing with other people's money and getting extremely poor value from the finished product. Every race event i've attended where an FSAE team was present should have had an award for 'doing the least with the most'.

I mean, im sure there's a lot more to it, but the idea that kids go into FSAE to learn how to be thrifty racers sure sounds like something Mitt Romney would say. oh snap.

Haha I thought the same, I've never seen anything that said "budget" in FSAE.

Vigo wrote:

I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget....

Wait, what?! You most have grown up differently than me. My experience growing up was that FSAE was about relatively well to do kids going to well to do schools and playing with other people's money and getting extremely poor value from the finished product. Every race event i've attended where an FSAE team was present should have had an award for 'doing the least with the most'.

Seriously... I'll just keep my mouth shut about how retarded this statement is.

carguy123 wrote: "Printed directly onto the nose of the race car is a shark skin texture, similar to that found on high-tech competition swimsuits. As with the swimsuits, the aim of the teeth-like ridges is to reduce drag, increase thrust, and improve performance on race day." This would be a little tough to do in glass.

Not really. Acquire nose cone without texture. Get a swimsuit. Glue swimsuit to the plug. What's a nosecone worth of swimsuit and glue weigh, about 4 ounces? Cost...$100?

...snicker....increase thrust?...snicker...

Bryce

Vigo wrote:

I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget....

Wait, what?! You most have grown up differently than me. My experience growing up was that FSAE was about relatively well to do kids going to well to do schools and playing with other people's money and getting extremely poor value from the finished product. Every race event i've attended where an FSAE team was present should have had an award for 'doing the least with the most'. I mean, im sure there's a lot more to it, but the idea that kids go into FSAE to learn how to be thrifty racers sure sounds like something Mitt Romney would say. oh snap.

I'd argue that your experience is way outside the norm of FSAE based on my personal experience and most others that I know who were at other schools.

Bryce

93EXCivic wrote:

Vigo wrote:

I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget....

Wait, what?! You most have grown up differently than me. My experience growing up was that FSAE was about relatively well to do kids going to well to do schools and playing with other people's money and getting extremely poor value from the finished product. Every race event i've attended where an FSAE team was present should have had an award for 'doing the least with the most'.

Seriously... I'll just keep my mouth shut about how retarded this statement is.

So what you are saying is that you didn't read the rules. Back in 1990, the rules were pretty clear that the intention was to be able to build a small production run that would cost $6000. So budget was a significant part of the procedure.

If the rules changed, that's pretty sad, but would explain a lot of the stuff that gets big attention.

carguy123 wrote: "Printed directly onto the nose of the race car is a shark skin texture, similar to that found on high-tech competition swimsuits. As with the swimsuits, the aim of the teeth-like ridges is to reduce drag, increase thrust, and improve performance on race day." This would be a little tough to do in glass.

First of all, putting it on doesn't mean that it's actually useful. It's not as if it's a wing- which is a question at these speeds (since you see it on some, but not others).

Second, you assume that you can't do something similar, maybe even like a golf ball, w/o stereo lith- which bryce covered.

Some of this is doing for the sake of doing it.

alfadriver wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

Vigo wrote:

I thought that FSAE was about keeping a budget....

Wait, what?! You most have grown up differently than me. My experience growing up was that FSAE was about relatively well to do kids going to well to do schools and playing with other people's money and getting extremely poor value from the finished product. Every race event i've attended where an FSAE team was present should have had an award for 'doing the least with the most'.

Seriously... I'll just keep my mouth shut about how retarded this statement is.

So what you are saying is that you didn't read the rules. Back in 1990, the rules were pretty clear that the intention was to be able to build a small production run that would cost $6000. So budget was a significant part of the procedure. If the rules changed, that's pretty sad, but would explain a lot of the stuff that gets big attention.

I wasn't talking about your statement. I was talking about the one commenting on yours. IIRC it is $25k now.

In reply to 93EXCivic:

Ah. $25k does make sense for 2010's budgets.

In reply to Vigo:

You must not have seen the Aggies, then. We've got a pretty large budget, but a lot of it goes on consumables (tires, engines, fuel) and travel. You oughta see some of our tools - a 35-year-old tire machine that I had to diagnose and improvise parts for because they haven't existed in decades, a thousand completely dull drill bits that have been sharpened so many times that they're on their last flute, completely worn-out files and hacksaw blades with an Alabaman's worth of teeth left.

The -12 car has a few thousand miles on it already.