“The last 5% of the work takes 95% of the time.”
-Unknown
These words ring true to CalSol as we approach FSGP. We have nine days until competition starts with the time flying by. Zephyr has been in great shape since early 2015, but going through extensive road testing, debugging sessions, and minor hardware upgrades these past few months. This testing time has proved to be incredibly fruitful for CalSol.
Zephyr’s Fairing Doors has been one project absorbing a lot of attention. The design for Zephyr included fairings around each wheel to improve our drag; however, aerodynamics and maneuverability must be optimized for functionality. Fairing door structures are covers for gaps and spaces between parts of the exterior to reduce form drag and interference drag, in addition to improving appearance. Our design allows for the doors to be “shut” completely over the wheel-well while driving straight, but swing “open” as the driver turns the steering wheel and the wheels and tires turn. We trust that this design and hardware content will greatly improve performance. We are excited to unveil full functionality at FSGP.
Check out the pictures below of Zephyr’s fairing doors!
CalSol members Stephen Lu, Ian Fisher, James McCay, and Danial Gay have put countless hours into this project- the whole team would like to commend them for their hard work!