Pat's Corner
02. November 2012
Pat’s Seven Deadly Sins of FS Design
In my last blog, I mentioned that some ‘beginner errors’ are creeping back into the designs we are seeing from some very experienced teams. I will consider the following list as ‘deadly’ sins because they are likely to lead to a...
08. October 2012
The Summer of 2012
Well, the summer is finished and the FS season is over for another year, so it is time to review the highpoints of the year. FSG was another huge success. In order to reduce the workload on the staff, the night enduro for...
04. August 2012
Pat’s Corner Live
Today we have another first at Formula Student Germany: Pat’s Corner Live. All teams are invited to come by for advice from Pat Clarke. Feel free to bring along parts or a computer. A flat screen is available to display any...
18. April 2012
How the Judges Learn about this stuff
Warning! Historical stuff! I am often asked where I learned about this race car design stuff. Students want to know if they can learn the same way. The simple answer is ‘No’ because times and places have changed and we must...
20. March 2012
Pat's Corner: Understanding what you are trying to achieve
Time for another column. I have been busy over the last few weeks writing my share of a new FS/FSAE book that will hopefully be published in time for FS UK in August. The book is being published by Racecar magazine in the UK and...
16. January 2012
Pat’s Corner
Well, 2011 has passed into history, so we are all a year older and hopefully a year wiser. I wish all teams around the world, the very best wishes for the New Year 2012. Whether you are building a FSC or FSE car, or a hybrid car...
03. June 2011
Testing Times
The first major event of the FSAE/FS season has passed with Oregon State/GFR winning the FSAE event at Michigan International Speedway a couple of weeks ago. From my perspective the Michigan event was the best ever. This was...
13. March 2011
How to make a correct design and layout of your brake system?
It has been brought to our attention by one of our design judges that there is a very useful paper by prof. K.H. Bill on the complete layout and calculation of the brake system of a Formula Student race car. Here we would like to...
26. December 2010
Pat’s final corner for 2010
Well, 2010 is almost finished, cold weather has spread over Europe and hopefully we have all been good little children and Santa Claus has been kind (he brought me a new DSLR and zoom lens) all the better to record ‘Design Error...
02. December 2010
Chassis Stiffness and Compliance
In a recent email exchange with my fellow Chief Design Judge Steve Fox, the subject of ‘compliance’ came up. Steve wrote the following comment and it prompted this latest Tech Column. Compliance is something that… Their CADs...
