The Numerator 2.0

This blog will follow the design, manufacturing and competition of world's fastest calculator.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

She Rolls like a Charm

Wheels.......check
Brakes.......check
Seat.........check (kinda)

Well folks "The Numerator 2.0" is approaching race-readiness. We machined and welding the steering system earlier in the week and started testing. The brakes were installed this morning and after some tuning, The numerator took some speed checks behind school. She handles well and lives to fly. Enjoy the pictures.




Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Frame Construction


The frame is almost rolling. Thanks to some members of the Baja team, the frame is starting to take shape. All of the lower members were tig welded up in the CAT Lab last night. The front axles will be turned either this evening or tomorrow morning. The Numerator 2.0 should be rolling by Friday!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Update: The Frame

Yesterday was the beginning of frame construction. I bought the steel from Ace Steel and Recycling here in Rapid City. I used my trusty snowboard rack to carry the precious cargo back to the Lab. Craig Grunfelder and myself spend some quality time with the chop saw last night and got all the miter cuts made for the main frame members. I need to add a few more members into the solidworks model to stiffen the frame up a little bit. My solidworks model shows that the frame and wheels should weigh in at about 52lbs.

My Brother Rusty brought up a cool idea for the wheel covers. He thinks we should write Pi out to a bizzillion places on the wheel covers. Starting on the outer most ring by the rim and spiral the numbers to the center. I think it would look pretty sweet when The Numerator is cruising down the track.

Any thoughts?

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The Foam-ula for success



The construction of the fiberglass shell for The Numerator 2.0 is moving alone quite well. We started with 7 sheets of Polystyrene foam and masterfully craved them using a new hot wire cutting tool. The packaging of this tool said it would cut through foam "like a hot knife through butter!" One we cut all of the individual pieces of foam, we glued them together and we had ourselves a mold.
We performed a wet lay-up over the foam with fiberglass mat and epoxy resin. Once all the shell is covered with the desired amount of fiberglass, we will break out the foam and dissolve the rest with Acetone. Thanks to Brett, Matt, John, and Brian for their help on the lay up. Here are some pictures of the fruits of our labor.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

The Final Concept




The final concept has been created and the manufacturing process went into full swing yesterday. The image above shows "The Numerator 2.0"

Manufacturing of the body shell mold began yesterday and could be completed by tonight or tomorrow. Thanks to Mid-Dakota Deisel and Anthony's Dad, we now have the polystrene foam needed to create the mold for the fiberglass layup. I bought a sweet foam hot wire saw yesterday at Who's Hobby. This will help to cut out all of the 15 inidividual pieces of foam that will be glued togeter to create the body.

Check back for an update on the progress and pictures from along the way.

Just remember...The Numerator is always on top!