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Meet the Arrabona Racing Team sponsored by Craftbot
Who are they? A bunch of very talented university students representing Hungary for the 4th time in “Formula Student”.
A Car race for geniuses
Formula Student’ is an international student engineering competition for undergraduates, where student teams from around the world design, build, test, and race their racing cars. The task of the teams is to design and produce a racing car, then race with it. To reach their goals, they need to organize their working processes the same way as if they were employees in a real company.
The Arrabona team basically has two main departments: They not only need a department which is responsible for designing, manufacturing, building, testing and preparing the car for the races but it is also necessary to have a management department, which deals with money, sponsors, advertisements and does all the background work.
Car parts out of thin air
Craftbot started to cooperate with Arrabona Racing Team in 2015 by offering a free Craftbot printer to help their R&D projects. In a short time they could implement the plug & play Craftbot printer into their workflow.
In the next 2 years they also started to use Craftbot XL and Craftbot 3 to maximize their printing capacity. Craftbots easily became an essential part of the team. The printers are often brought to the racings as well to produce and replace any necessary broken parts of the cars.
The Arrabona Racing Team used the Craftbot XL to print many parts for their car called ART_04: steering wheel cover; box for holding electronics; template for welding the frame etc.
Perfect for trying out ideas
The team is very satisfied with the printers, they mentioned that Craftbots are very easy-to-use, reliable and effective workhorses. They could not imagine the developing part of the project without these printers, as they print every prototypes with these machines.
To continuously improve their cars, the team also printed a scale model of ART_04 with Craftbot XL for wind tunnel testing.
God is in the detail
“The best thing about Craftbot XL is that you can use all kinds of materials as it is compatible with most filament types.” – said the Arrabone Racing Team
Even a multi-award-winning 3D printer needs high-quality filament. The next generation of ABS named ABS-X is much easier to handle: no warping, no cracking, excellent interlayer adhesion, reliable bed adhesion and the result is more aesthetic.
To smooth printing with ABS even more, you can equip your Craftbot XL with some useful accessories: plexiglass door keeps the heat inside along with a PETG dome which also filters out harmful fumes. Using a perforated build plate ensures a stronger adhesion to the printing surface in the base layer.
It is not only useful in this the Formula student project to learn how to design in 3D and how to use a 3D printer effectively in manufacturing and in R&D projects, but it also gives a futureproof knowledge to the participant students to use these experiences in the future as engineers.
In 2014 the Arrabona racing team became the only Hungarian team who has ever won an international Formula Student competition, which remained unchanged ever since. They have been through six successful seasons. In 2019 they participated in three of the most prestigious races in the world. The first race was the Formula Student East, organized in Zalaegerszeg. The second competition was the Formula Student Germany, the world's most prestigious Formula Student event. Meanwhile, their last race was the Formula Student Czech Republic, where they achieved an outstanding overall 8th place, as well as the 1st place in fuel-efficiency.
