This module sucks and I'm sorry, but it is the most important step in the process. The fun stuff will come soon I promise 😊. Please make a new section in your document entitled Brake Pedal Research. This marks the beginning of your Introductory Project!
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When designing the car, we always need to think about the objectives for our designs. As mentioned before, your first project is to design a brake pedal. Before you design the brake pedal, you need to think about exactly what a brake pedal does functionally, and why we have one.
Project Deliverable: Write down what you think the brake pedal is and why it is important. This may seem like a simple exercise, but try to think about the mechanics of a brake pedal, and what alternatives could exist but aren’t used. This will inform your thoughts on what the function of the pedal is. (Hint: Google how hydraulic braking systems work)
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To find rules that pertain to your system, the first step is to check the table of contents for anything that may relate to your system. For the Brake Pedal, we are going to look for the section labeled brakes.
Project Deliverable: Search for rules regarding the Brake Pedal Design and Location. Write down the force value that the pedal needs to withstand without failure from both FSAE and FORMULA HYBRID
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There are other rules that don't directly mention the Brake Pedal or Pedal Box, as is the case with many other systems on the car, however we will not worry about those for the sake of this project. Please feel free to explore the rules more to get yourselves comfortable, as you will need to use them again quite soon.
Concepting
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Inspiration Sources
To help you in the process is to explore what other teams have done for their cars design, and more specifically in this case, brake pedals. This is a key step in understanding how to build the lightest car possible. Teams will come up with many other concepting process, we want to search for places where we can find inspiration. The best places to start are other FSAE teams, but other sources can include professional racing teams and consumer automobiles.
Other FSAE teams will come up with ideas that we may not have thought of, and while copying a design bolt for bolt is not in the spirit of the competition, gaining inspiration from other designs is a great way to inform our process.
Project Deliverable
Concepting
The next step in the process is to start coming up with concepts for what the brake pedal might look like. The initial process of concepting consists of sketching with notes explaining what the concept is trying to portray. This is the part in the process where you are
When you are doing research for any given project, it is imperative to check with multiple people to ensure that no rule is being missed or misinterpreted. Not only this, but you may be missing concepting ideas that you may not have thought of.
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