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LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY RACING TEAM

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A New Year A New ManagerBefore introducing our new manager we would like to thank Dan Withers for managing the team over the last year and ensuring that both the team and car made it to Silverstone and Hockenheim.

LJMU Racing Team’s new manager David Pettit launched preparations for the 2013-14 Formula Student competition with a series of meetings with team members and a round-up of the previous season’s achievements.

David said:"I am really excited about this year. We have a good team and fantastic car and we are really looking forward to competing. We are still recruiting though, and need more

students studying web-Design, Media, Business, and Computing as well as Engineering.”

"Last season’s car was the most advanced the team has produced to date. It featured many new developments including: a more fuel efficient powertrain; a lighter chassis with carbon fibre reinforcing bars; and specially designed uprights and wheel hubs. It proved to be extremely capable in competition producing successes in the dynamic events including the fastest UK finish in the skid pad, and scoring highly in static events, notably second place in the special costing task. This year, the team was joined by a group of graduate students from USST, one of

our partner universities in Shanghai. They worked with the team as preparation for their own university’s entry into FS China in 2014.”

LJMU graduates from the team have also had a very successful year securing jobs with leading employers including Aston Martin, Bentley, Mercedes, McLaren, Jaguar Land Rover and Sellafield.

The design and build of LJMU 2014 is currently underway, the team is hoping to be racing at Silverstone in July and Hockenheimring in August. In addition, the team hopes to have an electric vehicle design ready for a Class 2 entry at Silverstone.!

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We have a new partnership! By David Petit

LJMU Racing Manager !LJMU Racing Team is proud to announce a new partnership with Pensby Young Engineers. This Team of high school pupils competes in the Greenpower challenge. In this competition teams must design and build a vehicle powered by an electric motor and compete to travel the furthest distance in the gruelling 4 hour endurance event. LJMU Racing Team hopes to provide the young engineers with knowledge from our own car and to grow their enthusiasm so that they can hopefully develop towards formula student in the future.

Updates to our electronics system By Christopher Jones

3rd Year Electrical !This year a number of components and systems are going to be overhauled for LJMU 14. The most significant is a working partnership with National Instruments, providing us with the technology to produce our own ECU and data logger. In LJMU 14 the driver information display will be manufactured in house, as part of our own custom steering wheel, providing the driver with reliable information such as rpm, current gear, general warnings and most

importantly, when to shift. The wheel will no longer have a coiled cable connected in order to connect electronically to the car, instead the splined steering connector supplied by Lifeline has an eight pin electrical connector embedded within it, meaning that the wheel will effectively be wireless. The ECU will be moved from underneath the driver to a new side pod on the right of the car, to make way for a lower seating position for the driver and curved firewall. Further additions to the wheel will be a PTT (push to talk) button, allowing the driver to communicate with the race engineer / pit wall over radio, and a paddle shift system for the gears, rather than buttons. Position sensors will be used to measure suspension travel, pedal use and steering angle with thermal sensors being used to monitor brake temperature. Overall the new electronics system will be a lot more technologically advanced than the previous years, and will provide us with with the information required to improve the car further.

!So what is going on with the statics?!By Stephanie Hines !

2nd Year Mechanical !The year has got off to a busy start in

all of the statics disciplines; Design,

Costing and Business. We have

made good progress in improving on

our business concept and are

already ahead of schedule. As more

designs are being finalised for LJMU

14, the progress from drawing to

being a fully tested and implemented

part is being closely documented for

the design report and presentation.

Following much thought and

feedback about previous years cost

reports, we have established new

organisation plans which are due to

be fully implemented in the very near

future. !This year we have taken an approach

to the statics that focuses greatly

what we want as our end outcome,

be it a complete and accurate cost

report, or, a business presentation

worthy of any professional

presentation in industry. !We have a busy year ahead, but if we

have the same commitment to statics

as last year, then it could be the most

successful yet.

Lets Weld… By Sarah Edgar!

2nd Year Mechanical !Having always been interested in learning how to weld Sarah Edgar recently enrolled on a TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) Welding course at St Helens College. An 18 week, part-time course which emphasises on the practical applications of welding as well as understanding the function of the equipment including the health and safety aspects of welding. A range of welded joints in various

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materials and thicknesses are required to pass the course and aid the student to a better understanding of TIG welding.

Having enjoyed the course immensely Sarah continued to practise her newly found welding skills in the Formula Student workshop and was finally persuaded to assist with welding the 2013’s chassis along with the wishbones and anti-roll bars. Compared to the test pieces required for the course, welding around small and awkward areas on the car was a particular challenge for our team member but she thoroughly enjoyed the experience and continued to learn further techniques and applications of welding.

Sarah hopes to continue to help with the welding on this years race car to improve on the skills gained from the course.

BBC Radio Merseyside says hello to two of our team! By Morgan Marren-Arnull!

3rd Year Mechanical !On Monday November 4th Stephanie Hines and Morgan Marren-Arnull arrived early at the BBC Radio Merseyside studios to be interviewed on their breakfast show about women in engineering. The interview went well and the girls enjoyed their five minutes of

fame, whilst mentioning LJMU racing of course! !Morgan also recently spoke at a conference in Cardiff about women in engineering and whats happening in Liverpool at the moment, once again she mentioned LJMU racing! !LJMU Racing says thank you !By Morgan Marren-Arnull!

3rd Year Mechanical !LJMU Racing would like to say thank you to all of our sponsors for your continual support in making sure we remain competitive. We would like to say a big thank you to TeXtreme for supplying us with new carbon fibre for this years car, to National Instruments for all their help with the ECU, to Varley Red Top for the batteries, to Graham Engineering for agreeing to cut our chassis jigs, to WEC for agreeing to cut our chassis tubes, to Spontex for new team t-shirts, to Aintree for once again letting us use their track for testing, to Fuchs for the supply of Lubricants, to Sanctuary students for the summer accommodation, to ABC for their continual support, to Aspect Construction and Hightown Construction for the monetary donations and to Lotus F1 for giving some of us a tour of their facilities. A massive thank you goes to Duncan Stock and Taylor Fox for their

continuing help and support with our business case. Finally we would like to thank Diane Meehan (Dean, Faculty of Technology and Environment) for all of her support over the years. !LJMU Racing has been busy, but what have we been up to? By Morgan Marren-Arnull!

3rd Year Mechanical !Since the start of the new year the whole team has been very busy both in the workshop and working on the static events, but we have also been visiting and attending events around the UK. Our first visit of the year was to the graduate fair in Derby, which was quickly followed by a visit to Formula Students Learn to win event in London where we picked up some helpful tips for this years competition.

!More recently we enjoyed some friendly competition with University of Liverpool at Hooton Park Circuit for an afternoon of racing go-karts and quickly followed it up by a factory tour at Lotus F1.

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