Irvine, California, United States
• Used Solidworks to design, package, and verify a 60% Ackerman steering system reducing bump steer by 50%, turning radius by 21%, improving maneuverability performance from a DNF in the previous year to 17th out of 61 teams and overall performance from 56th out of 86 to 36th out of 61.
• Profiling, angle grinding, tapping, plasma cutting, manual milling and lathing and sheet bending to fabricate 24 control arms, 6 tie rods and toe links, 4 custom designed clevis joints, 32 custom delrin bushings, and steering mounting parts. Used a jig to prepare manufacturing.
• Designed front upright machined with 5 axis CNC. Utilized CAD, FEA, DFM, and engineering drawings and worked with machining professionals. Weight reduction of 66% and packaged for 2” smaller diameter rim, eliminate welding point of failure from previous design: survived competition and further testing.