Built for 20 metres

Every gram, millimetre and surface on the car has one job: to cover the track faster. This is how we engineer it.

The car from four angles

[Car name] · [Season] race car

Where the time goes

The rules fix the thrust. Everything else is engineering.

Forces on a STEM Racing car Side view of a car facing right. CO2 from the cartridge pushes it forward. Drag at the nose and friction at the wheels push back, and the car's mass resists every change of speed. THRUST DRAG FRICTION MASS
Forces on a STEM Racing car during a run. Schematic, not to scale.
Thrust
Every car is powered by a single 8-gram CO2 cartridge, so no team can simply add more power.
Drag
Air resistance grows with the square of speed. Frontal area, surface finish and how cleanly the air leaves the body all count.
Friction
Wheels, axles, bearings and the tether line guides all take energy out of the run.
Mass
The same thrust accelerates a lighter car harder, down to the minimum mass the regulations allow.

From sketch to start line

Six stages, repeated for every iteration of the car.

  1. 01

    Regulations

    Every design starts from the technical regulations: dimensions, mass, wheels and the cartridge chamber.

  2. 02

    Concept

    Sketches and quick studies explore how the body could manage the air around it.

  3. 03

    CAD

    The car is modelled in 3D, ready for simulation, drawings and machining.

  4. 04

    Simulation

    Computational fluid dynamics compares designs before any material is cut.

  5. 05

    Manufacture

    The body is machined, finished and assembled with wheels, axles and tether line guides.

  6. 06

    Test

    Track runs and measurements show what works. The results feed the next iteration.

Introducing the fleet

Test vehicles

P1-A

P1-A is Hyperfluid's first draft vehicle. [What it was built to test and what the team learned]

Production vehicles

[Race car name]

[What changed from P1-A, and why]

The numbers

Measured values for the current race car.

Length
[000] mm
Mass without cartridge
[00.0] g
Width
[00] mm
Body material
[Material]
Height
[00] mm
Manufacturing method
[Method]
Wheels and axles
[Material, bearing type]
Best recorded run
[0.000] s over 20 m

Making and testing

From raw block to finished car, and onto the track.

[Caption: what is happening, and when]
[Caption]
[Caption]