Designing parts, how swearing helps.

I hardly ever swear.  Honest; I just don't.  I don't see the need for it and to my mind the first person to use a profanity in an argument automatically loses even if the other person is in the wrong.  Swearing at a person just hands them the moral high ground and all the power.

But what if you swear at a computer?  Well they never swear back.  Even Siri is very polite (go on, try it).  I've observed that an alchemy of talent and profusive swearing results in stunning designs.  Like this for the iPhone 5, developed in CAD from Apple's drawings. 

 

Our designs start with the end user.  What do you want and need?  We have a cycle of feedback during the design process to try to get it right.

Our rally customers want something that will give them minimum fitting time in the service park and workshop; look stylish and do the job. They are looking for minimum weight, maximum function and good looks. 

Our range of Subaru and Mitsubishi parts were originally designed to fit Group N rally cars but also work for Group R.  Group N/R starts with a road car as it comes off the end of a production line.  As far as bodywork goes the rally teams will strip everything they possibly can out to save weight; have to put some things in for safety,  and add some things needed to get the car to the end of the stage in one piece.  FIA regulations define what they can and can't do. Basically they rip out all of the interior, put in a roll cage and add underfloor and sill guards.  OK, there's a bit more to it than that.  There's the small matter of the electrics, braking and suspension systems, and they may tweak the engine a bit if they have time.

Our carbon parts address the weight issue and our epoxy and glass parts help to address the "getting to the end of the stage in one piece" issue.  So we will make things like mirrors and door cards from carbon fibre and things like underfloor guards from Twintex (superb for impact resistance).

The designs for our rally car parts mostly start from 3D scans of cars.  This involved more scary investment in kit and software.  Do you want me to repeat how I look from the stress of this?  No, I thought not.  If you need to see just look backwards in the blog.

Back in 2007 we got some scarily expensive kit (Faro arm with laser scanner; geomagic and solidworks software, plus fearsome spec computers) our team went out to Japan and scanned the Subaru Imprezza before it was launched.  We worked with a rally team in Japan and STI to prepare parts and they revealed a fully prepared rally car on the same day as the road car was released to the showrooms.  And it had our bits on it!  We did more scanning of the Subaru in 2008 at Vermont Sportscar www.vtcar.com and did a complete scan of the EVO X at Van Heuvel Motorsport www.heuvel-motorsport.com in the Netherlands.

When I first heard about this scanner my imagination worked no further forward than a flatbed scanner making 2D images.  I was so wrong.  It is a fabulous bit of german engineering.

The challenge to me was booking flights for it without paying stupid amounts of excess luggage and the challenge to Michael and Matt was to travel with an extra three boxes weighing 95kilos between them. I'm sure there was some swearing, especially when they ended up having to navigate Tokyo on their own.

The Faro laser scanner creates a cloud point image of the thing being scanned.  Imagine something solid being made out of millions of points in the air.  More software is needed and skill (and swearing) to get a surfaced drawing that can be downloaded to CAD software such as SolidWorks.

So now we have the data in SolidWorks.  We know exactly what the surface is we need to match our parts to, now the design can begin and the swearing goes up a notch.  We work to the four fs of design; function, form and fit.  Yes I know there are only 3 listed, you can work out the other one.

Well obviously the part has to fulfil its function and fit.  Our mirrors would be useless if they didn't fit or the driver couldn't see out of them.  Our designers go that extra mile.  Our rally mirrors are vertically oriented and hug the contour of the car.  This means they still supply the driver with enough visual information but are also less prone to be wiped off in that "on the limit" manoeuvre.  Added to that they look curvy and sleek.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like a sales brochure but the thought and time that goes into the design stage just amazes me.

So I (or heaven forbid, a customer) might suggest something at the last minute, it seems simple and obvious to me.  What's wrong with that?  I'm being helpful aren't I?  Swearing goes off the scale and there may be some door slamming.

But somehow we end up with things as beautiful as this.

Incidentally these doorcards and our mirrors were fitted to Ken Block's car.  See him playing with James May on Top Gear here. http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/ken-from-the-block