Hi,

I am working with a college project which is trying to produce prototypes for a new remote controlled racing sport. The sport is just an excuse to have a technology demostration testbed, much like formula one. We are using advanced Unmanned Vehicle technology to drive the cars, and want the cars to be as autonomous as possible. Using sensors and remote control to race the cars for four to six hours.

What does this have to do with carbon fiber?

Well, the prototypes that we are working with are made from something called a tetrix robot kit. http://www.tetrixrobotics.com/
This stuff is Heavy and I wanted to try and make mine as light and strong as feasibliy possible. I have always had an intrest in composites, but never had a chance to really get to work with them. After looking at the costs involved, I think that building the parts ourselves will not be any more expensive than buying the tetrix kits, and I think they will be more durable.

I have no doubt that the body work of the cars will be fine as either pure carbon or carbon-kevlar mixes, but I wonder if I will need to use coring material for the chassis, as these cars are being designed to drudge along at 70 MPH \ 112 KPH. Being autonomous, they will crash, and being remotely controlled, they will be badly driven, then crash.

My basic questions are this,

1.) Just how difficult is it to work with coring material?
2.) Is there a place that explains how to take your coring material and fiber and make a finished piece?
3.) Are cored panels really only ment to be straight, or can you mold them at all?
4.) Is carbon strong enough to handle being a Chassis by itself? Could I skip coring altogeather?
4.) and of course, do you guys think i'm barking up the wrong tree by using carbon fiber? (still interested for other projects, motorcycle repair yada yada.)

Thanks,
James

Thanks guys,

As for the molds, no we do not have any, but I plan on cheating a little bit, buying commercially available remote control car bodies (Plastic) to make molds from, if that doesn't pan out, the Phd whose' pet project this is, is trying to get a 3D scanner and printing machine, which would give us blocks to make the molds from.

The coring is more for the cars that get military technology, one of our professors helped design the control systems in the reaper, and they apparently want to use the same extremely high end (But not classified) control technology into these cars. Of course, those would need ALOT of protection.

I like the Idea of using the body as the chassis, I'm just not sure if I'll get away with it, the prof. wants to have these cars use as much automotive technology as possible on top of all the advanced technology buried in them.