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Also the last event of the 2020/2021 season is now over.
From Saturday to Wednesday, eight team members of us were in Varano de' Melegari and competed with the eace07.d, our Rita, on the FSATA.
Since the year is already relatively far advanced, there is no camping at the event site this year and also no campsites could be found in the area, we stayed overnight together with KA-RaceIng from Karlsruhe in a vacation home, so that nevertheless still some event atmosphere arose.
On Sunday we went early in the morning to the track to register and start with the scrutineering. Since we were there early, we could register as one of the first teams, unload Rita and then start with the electrical scrutineering. We were able to complete this without any major problems, as well as the mechanical scrutineering in the afternoon. So after a few hours we were at the pleasant point that we had already completed most of the technical scrutineering.
However, the dynamic scrutis were not scheduled until Monday and since at FSATA the autonomous scruti may only be completed after the rain and tilt test, the scrutineering program was complete for that day. We were one of the first teams to set up our pit and could go back to the cottage with a clear conscience and prepare for the next day.
On Monday morning, we first went to the tilt test, which we were the first team to master. After that we went to the weighing, where Rita weighed 222kg. After short problems with the following rain test, this could also be completed successfully. Directly after that we moved on to the Brake-Test, which we were able to master on the first try, just like the autonomous Inspection and the EBS-Test shortly after.
Thus, the entire scrutineering was already completed at noon on the second day of the event and Rita was ready for the dynamic disciplines. Due to small problems with the cable of the energymeter we unfortunately could not go on the test track in the afternoon as planned, but we could fix this problem and were now ready for the dynamic disciplines on Tuesday and Wednesday.
After we had mastered all the scrutines quickly and confidently on Sunday and Monday, we started with the dynamic disciplines on Tuesday. As it turned out, it was a neck-and-neck race between us and StarkStrom, the team from Augsburg.
We started with the Acceleration in the morning, where Rita immediately drove reliably and we were able to achieve the best time in our first three runs before the lunch break. Since not many teams had raced yet, FSATA decided to extend the Acceleration into the afternoon, so we postponed our fourth run to be able to react again in case of doubt.
In the end, our best time of 3.557 seconds was enough for the win and we were able to relegate Augsburg to second place.
In the afternoon Rita went to the Skidpad, where we unfortunately couldn't finish the first run and in the second one some cones were cleared. After we fixed some small things in the code, we had a strong time of 4.999 seconds in the end. Our first autonomous skidpad time under five seconds, constantly at the vehicle limit and again faster than Augsburg. Thus we could also decide the second dynamic discipline for us.
That was it in driving action for Tuesday and we pushed back into the pits to prepare for the autocross and trackdrive on Wednesday.
The last competition day started on Wednesday morning with the autocross. In the first run we had some small problems again, because the planning module closed the lap too early and so Rita took course timing equipment and we had to release the EBS.
After we had changed again small things in the software, the runs two to four ran very sovereign and at the end a time of 22,716 seconds stood for us on the board. Which was a bit slower than Augsburg's lap, but without taking any cones. So we were able to beat Augsburg in the autocross as well and took first place.
The final discipline was the Trackdrive in the afternoon. There we had the closest battle with StarkStrom, changing some parameters from run to run to squeeze the last tenths of a second out of Rita.
The first three runs went very well again, but unfortunately we still lacked some speed to be able to stand at the top of the track drive in the end.
After we had some problems with the compressed air system before the last run, we were able to do our fourth trackdrive run shortly before the end and put our fastest time so far on the timing board with times just over 19.5 seconds. Augsburg's times were slightly faster, but since Rita managed without cones and Augsburg took a cone on her fastest run, we were 0.3 seconds faster including penalties and thus won the fourth of the dynamic disciplines.
There are also the results for the static disciplines, which took place virtually two weeks ago. Thereby we could reach the fourth place in the Engineering Design Event and the fifth place in the Cost Report. In the Business Plan we are among the top 3 teams and will only find out the result at the Award Ceremony on Wednesday.
At the final award ceremony last night we were able to celebrate the victory in each dynamic discipline. A sign of how far we have come as a team with our autonomous vehicle and what Rita is now capable of. In addition, we can be happy about the second place in the Business Plan, where we are only 0.426 points short of victory. In the Engineering Design Event we reached the fourth place and in the Cost Report the fifth place.
Unfortunately, we did not quite manage to win the overall competition due to these statics, in which, apart from the Business Plan, we did not do so well.
Nevertheless, the second place overall is a very strong result, especially if you look at the total score of 907,177 out of 1000 possible points.
A huge thanks to the event crew, all team members who supported from Aachen, all partners, friends and supporters of Ecurie Aix and of course to the whole team and the teams of the last years who laid the foundation for this success with their tireless work.
Now it is time to take this momentum with us, to continue to develop, manufacture and finally test next year's vehicle, in order to be able to continue the successes of this and the last years next summer.
Your Team Ecurie Aix
Results FSATA 2021
Overall: 2nd place
Trackdrive: 1st place
Autocross: 1st place
Skidpad: 1st place
Acceleration: 1st place
Business Plan: 2nd place
Cost Report: 5th place
Engineering Design Event: 4th place