Cristobal Lowery: For my Masters project in Imperial College London’s department of Mechanical Engineering, I have undertaken the task of programming an open-source Suspension Calculator. This is a work in progress, and I am looking for feedback on the programme of any sort. Thus, please feel free to mention the project to others, to comment on the forums or to even edit the source code!

The idea for this project stems from my experience with the Imperial Racing Green organisation in the third year, in which my team had the task to design, make and test the suspension system for a zero-emissions fuel cell race car. Each year members of the Racing Green project must perform similar suspension calculations as part of such projects. In some years this task has been carried out using Microsoft Excel, and in others using Matlab and C++. However, there is no standardised platform for calculating the forces on the suspension system, so each team ends up repeating the work of previous years. The principal aim of this project is to create an open-source calculator program that standardises this system, and combines the visual benefits of Excel with the programming aspect of Matlab and C++, using Microsoft Visual C# Express Edition. The language of Microsoft Visual C# has been chosen, as it is free, easily accessible, and widely familiar.

The program not only eases suspension calculations, but also provides a teaching platform with diagrams and written explanations, to increase the understanding of the processes behind the results. Expect the diagrams and explanations to be available around the end of March.

Some additional project related documents are linked below:

Read the Project Plan Report

Read the Project Progress Report