Every year the Society of Automotive Engineers Mini Baja team designs and fabricates their own off-road race-car. As a member of the team this year I have joined their suspension design squad, and as a member of that team I have been charged with designing my own rocker that will be used in our suspension setup. Because of the nature of the assignment behind this website instead of talking about the engineering points behind my design, I will instead focus more on the process, and the necessary communication involved.
For this entire project I have been very frustrated by the lack of supervision and lack of guidance given by any of the senior members of the team. I was given very limited instructions on what to design, much less how to go about actually designing it. What direction I was given was in the form of a schematic of the overall suspension structure. I have since learned the limitations that such a drawing, while helpful, has. It could not tell me which dimensions I needed to use in order to calculate the stresses the rocker would have to withstand, nor could it provide any more information on design constraint other than arm lengths and angles. It also did not help my situation to be forced to use a program I had just begun to learn.
©2005 Noah Van Dam. All Rights Reserved.