2021 was my first year as Composites Lead! I needed to make a new body and other parts to fit the new frame, the SDX 

As composites lead, I also had to come up with a list of all the materials I would need for the upcoming year. To do this, I found the area of all the old parts on the car and converted that into how much carbon fiber I needed, plus a yard or two for safety.

Doing all of this was a huge task due to me being responsible for everything. Doing it all from start to finish gave me a strong understanding of how to design for ease of manufacturing, and what features were easy to add and which were more difficult. 

The side panels and the nose cone were the most challenging molds. 

I made a mistake machining the side panels and they had a strange pattern that I had to cut off by hand and then sand smooth so the molds would be usable. 

The side panels also had odd geometry that made it hard to line up, and I ended up misaligning them, but later assembled them against the frame to ensure that the shape would be correct.

The front part of the nose ended up being a 6 piece mold!

 Despite these challenges, these parts ended up being the ones I was most proud of in the end. The molds released the parts nicely, and had a nice surface finish!

Photos of these molds and parts below

I further developed my surfacing skills by making complex parts and making changes to the car based on what we needed. For example, we decided to split the nose into 4 sections rather than one large piece like the previous year's car. We did this so we could access the pedal box without removing the whole nosecone, which was a complex process.

 This season, I was met with lots of speed bumps, but I found solutions and got 8 finished pieces onto the car. I had some trouble with everything fitting due to the last-minute changes to the nosecone but noted what changes needed to be made for the upcoming year

An additional project I worked on was making a 3D-printed mold for the cars intake. Due to printer restrictions, I had to make the mold in 2 parts that fit together. 

After the carbon was already cured on the mold did I realize that the pins holding the parts together were keeping the molds from separating, so I ended up melting the mold out of the carbon fiber