It’s trade show season, and we’re in the middle of it. So far we’ve gone to PRI in Indianapolis, and Autosport in Birmingham, UK. We had fun discussions about data logging, analysis, and racing in general at both shows. I hope that in a few months we can show the fruits of those contacts publicly. In the meantime, here are some pictures of some really cool kit.
Under the hood of a Ford GT. I think there is a lesson to be learned here in that I don’t remember what the product was at this stand, only that they had a pretty car there.
The show being in America, this car was relegated to the sidelines, but I found it refreshing that their steering wheel wasn’t just a cardboard cutout, like they are most of the time. It was at the stand of Sony America, where we had good discussions about using the data coming from their cameras to do entry-level data logging.
We argued for a long time about the merits of this suspension layout, and I like to think we all learned something in the process.
The same car from the front. Apparently the University of Bolton prefers MoTeC.
Foolishly, I neglected to take pictures of the most exciting find of the two shows: Strain gauges that can be used to take real-time measurements of a kart’s frame. It would be quite exciting if we could use that to develop a vehicle dynamics model of a kart, and apply all the fancy simulation and prediction tools we have for big cars to karts.