Waterloo Formula Hybrid

2015

In the 2015 season, Waterloo Formula Hybrid placed first overall at the Formula Hybrid SAE competition in New Hampshire. In the 2015 season, I was responsible for designing and manufacturing the brake pedal assembly. FEA was conducted in Solidworks to ensure the system met the Formula SAE specifications. The brake pedal must not yield when 2000N of force is applied to the pedal face at the bottomed out position. The design was kept simple so that the majority of the components could be manufactured easily on a manual 3-axis milling machine.

Waterloo Formula Hybrid

2016

For the 2016 season, there were many areas to improve on. Namely, reducing weight and complexity of many vehicle systems. I took on the task of designing a custom lightweight steering rack. It was designed to be machined and assembled in-house at Waterloo’s student machine shop. This design focused on removing excess material to reduce weight, and simplicity by reducing the overall part count.

The pinion has a cutout because the steering system did not require a full 360 degree rotation. The off the shelf U-joint also had a large amount of material removed. All of the other components were machined from 6061 T6 aluminum to reduce weight further.

During this season, I was also the manufacturing team lead. I was responsible for creating timelines, coordinating with internal and external manufacturers to ensure the mechanical systems of the vehicle would be manufactured and assembled on time. I created gantt charts, standard processes, and project tasks in Asana. Additionally, I managed two co-op students while working at NCR for my own co-op term. I also performed design and drawing reviews and static structural FEA to further support the team.

To accelerate the manufacturing process, I took initiative to learn MasterCAM to gain access to the student shops 3 axis CNC milling machine. I programmed multiple components for manufacturing including the pinion housings and suspension mounts.