APEX BUGGY PROJECT "PHOENIX 2.0" / "FIREFLY"

See "Buggy". During my tenure as Assistant Head Mechanic, I designed the body mold for Project Phoenix 2.0, which eventually became the buggy Firefly.

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Several key innovations were made to the design and the design process that year, and older processes were codified. These innovations include:

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• Use of a square aluminum bar to mount foam slices to. This allows more accurate placement of a foam slice and provides much greater structural integrity to the mold as it is being worked on. It also reduces the phenomenon of "banana-panning" which occurs during the high-pressure carbon fiber epoxy curing process, where air pressure forces both ends of the mold to curl toward the pressure suction point. This leaves the final shell bowed in the center, a very undesired outcome.

• Use of latches to secure hatches. Previously, Apex had used quarter-turn screws that needed a screwdriver to be rotated into locked position. These quarter-turns were also notorious for slowly rotating out of their locked position and popping out, as well as being very inconvenient to install. Latches were an easy to use, easy to install, and very reliable.

• Use of purchased carbon-fiber pushbar. Previously, the pushbar had been made in-house using the same carbon-fiber epoxy wrapping techniques as the mold. However, shaping the long and thing pushbar mold was tedious and difficult, and the final result was often slightly misshapen. To our fortune, carbon fiber bars of desired shape, length, and thickness were available for our purchase online.

• New back hatch assembly. Using materials from a simple frame-hanging kit, we constructed two swinging hinges and and a lock-tab that a bolt could be dropped through to serve as a bolt-lock. This provided easy access to the back wheel while securing the top hatch during movement, without need for excessive tape.