During the 6th and 8th of July, we were participating in the well known Formula Student Spain competition, which challenges teams of university students to conceive, design, manufacture, develop and race small formula style vehicles.
We arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya after an overnight bus journey from Bilbao, arriving early allowed us enough time to set up our camp, plus the "Social Area" and prepare the circuit box by splitting into groups, we managed to complete these first tasks we had upon arrival at the competition and the remaining time was used to tune the car, practice static presentations and make the necessary purchases.
In the first days of the competition, we did the static tests of Costs, Business and Design. In Cost, we justify the costs of the car parts through documents developed throughout the season. In Business, we defined a fictitious business model related to the sale of the car, covering areas such as business definition, marketing, logistics and company economics, in which we received valuable feedback and were satisfied with the work. In Desing we once again justify the reason for our designs.
In addition, we also underwent technical inspections, so-called mechanical and electrical scrutineering. In these inspections we checked the safety of the vehicle and its compliance with the competition regulations. We made the adjustments required by the judges and maintained direct contact with the competition officials to ensure proper compliance with the rules.
After passing the Scruts we moved on to the dynamic tests such as Skidpad, Acceleration and Autocross. We overcame these challenges despite facing minor electrical and mechanical problems along the way.
The highlight of the test was Endurance, where we drove 20 laps of the circuit to evaluate the endurance and efficiency of the vehicle. Despite previous problems with battery charging, we managed to complete the test, which was a great satisfaction for the team. To see all the work we had done over the previous months pay off. This car is the second iteration of a technological leap that was made last year, moving from rear-wheel drive with two motors on the rear wheels to AWD, with one motor per wheel. Last year we didn't get to see it run in either competition and watching our FSB2023 finish an enduros was impressive.
Finally, we broke camp and returned home by bus. Overall, we experienced a challenging competition that allowed us to face technical obstacles and overcome them.