Ackermann Steering
One of the first things we noticed about the beginnings of our chassis was that the steering seemed faulty. To test this, we created a solidworks simulation of the steering system, and found that the steering was indeed far from optimized. In order to fix this, we began analyzing what parts of the system could be changed to make the steering as close to the ideal Ackermann steering as possible, and decided to focus our efforts on the central steering column, and designed a replacement part that will hopefully help to optimize our system.
Racing karts such as this use a particular type of steering called Ackermann steering, which turns the wheels at different rates in order to form a circular path with the origin resting along the same line around which the back axle rotates. Our simulation of the original steering placed the origin of this circle far above the line, and showed how, when turning at severe angles, the system fails completely. In order to solve this, we are changing the dimensions of the main steering triangle, and are planning on fabricating a new steering column.