Entries for the 2006 Australian Competition to be held in December are now closed.
For those interested, the entry list is as follows:

Australian Teams

Curtin University of Technology Perth Western Australia
University of Western Australia Perth Western Australia

University of New South Wales Sydney New South Wales
University of Sydney Sydney New South Wales
University of Newcastle Newcastle Regional New South Wales
University of Wollongong Wollongong Regional New South Wales

UNSW @ ADFA Canberra Australian Capital Territory
Australian National University Canberra Australian Capital Territory

Monash University Melbourne Victoria
RMIT University Melbourne Victoria
Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne Victoria
University of Melbourne Melbourne Victoria
Victoria University Melbourne Victoria
Deakin University Geelong Regional Victoria
University of Ballarat Ballarat Regional Victoria

University of Adelaide Adelaide South Australia
University of South Australia Adelaide South Australia

Queensland University of Technology Brisbane Queensland
University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland
James Cook University Townsville Regional Queensland
University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba Regional Queensland


International Teams

Aalborg University Aalborg Denmark
Berufsakademie Ravensburg Ravensberg Germany
Technical University of Munich Munich Germany
R V College of Engineering Bangalore India
Tokyo Denki University Tokyo Japan
Universiti Teknologi Petronas Perak Malaysia
University of Auckland Auckland New Zealand
University of Waikato Waikato New Zealand
University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Puerto Rico

Regards to all
Pat Clarke

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PatClarke,

quote:

Universiti Teknologi Petronas Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

So proud to see a team from Malaysia is going to Australia . I guess i have to make a trip down there to give moral support.

p/s: pat, it's Univ. Teknologi Petronas, Perak, Malaysia, not Kuala Lumpur (i had to )

He he

How cool is that? Biggest Oz event yet by my reckoning. Great to see the big list of internationals, we'll have to show them all some good old fashioned Melbourne hospitality. Well, except for the bit where Deano strips off to his underpants and chases farm animals around Bundoora. That might be a bit too much of a culture shock to some.

Cheers to all, and if we can offer any assistance to the travellers please let us know.

Geoff, thats a good point!
Why don't the more established Aussie teams each adopt a visiting team? That would help the visitors immensely, especially as some are coming from non English speaking countries (And even those who do might be baffled by our fractured 'Strine').
The spin off would be we would learn about foreign cultures. For instance, who knows anything much about Puerto Rico, Bangalore or Aalborg?
Anyone have any workable ideas?
Pat

PS, there is no truth in the rumour that our Danish visitors have sponsorship from Princess Mary

Wow!!

Great to see diversity in the countries going to Australia. India and Malaysia ... woo hoo!

I have no idea how many Australian Universities with Engineering degrees that are left to compete ... I know with UWA and Curtin thats WA exhausted.

Now all we need is coverage of the event like in Germany ...

Kev

This is as good a place as it gets, where abouts is everyone with their cars?

I see Adelaide is on the road, anyone else too?

Pictures?

we're still waiting for our car to arrive back from Germany! Should get our hands on it next week if we're lucky. Waikato's car is coming along quite nicely too

Shipping eh :P

Are you guys bringing that car to AUS?

any links to waikato's team? or pictures?

Cant wait to see you guys again.

yep, we've got a new, improved monocoque waiting to be fitted to the car when it returns, along with stronger driveshafts, redesigned sidepods, and possibly a new colour scheme.

I don't know if Waikato have a website, I have some pictures of their car in the build from a trip down there last week but I don't want to be posting up other team's pictures without their consent.

This'll be my first comp, I'm really looking forward to it

Hi guys
I'm from the University of Puerto Rico FSAE team. As you already know we are registered for the 2006 Australasia Competition. We've never been to Australia before and to tell you the truth we need a lot of help with our travel logistics. How do the Australian teams ship their cars to the states? (any particular company that does it?), and what hotels are there close to the competition site? Any help that you can give us will be greatly appreciated.

Also I think that Suddenlee's idea of 'adopting' international teams is a great one. We would really like to learn about the Australian culture and at the same time you could learned from ours.

Hi, this will be the first Formula SAE Australasia for us (University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez). We have been participating in the Detroit competition. As some of you mentioned earlier we need some help. We have some questions that if some of you could answer will help us a lot!


1. When the teams stay overnight? At Victoria University or some nearby hotels?

2. I saw from Google Earth that there is a train station at the VU campus, can I get from the Melbourne, Victoria airport trough train to the V.U. campus?

3. What companies do you use to ship your cars to USA?

4. What are the gas prices there?

5. Is it cheap to rent cars or take taxi?



Ok to have a little bit of cultural exchange, Puerto Rico is a Country in the Caribbean this is in Central America. We are an island, we speak Spanish but we learned English at school and because of the university most of our team members had studied some other language (French, Italian, and German). Politically we have a commonwealth with U.S.A. but explaining our political status is to long. Our university went many years ago to the solar competition in Australia.

Well that's all for now, I bet that we will get more questions along the way. Thanks in advance.


Cheers,


José E. Lugo
FSAE Project Manager
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

Greetings Jose and sr16ve,

Thanks for your posts, and we've got to say we are all pretty pleased to be hosting all these international teams at the Australian event. I'll try to answer some of your questions.

* Shipping companies - I'll find out. We used Bechtrans International to get to Formula Student UK two years ago, they were good. Not sure who we have used for the last two US trips. You'll need to get yourself sorted soon, ideally you want to plan for your car to get here at least 2-3 weeks before the event, to allow for any holdups in shipping or customs. By sea you are looking at around 6 weeks, (??), airfreight is quicker but much more expensive. Our freight bill to the US is usually around the AUS$10,000 mark, but that includes a bit of transporting within the US too.
* Hotels and stuff - Anyone got any ideas on that front? Anyone willing to offer couch space / floor space / camping space? (Jose and sr16ve, how many team members are you bringing?).
* Rental cars - I've got a cheap and dodgy rent-a-car place down the end of my street that does cheap little 4 cylinder two doors (Festivas, Excels) for around $45 (AUS) a day, fully insured. The also do vans for around $70 a day. Most of the "big name" rentals are around 30-50% dearer - you get shinier cars but you pay for it.
* Petrol - around $1.20-$1.50 a litre (it is varying a bit at the moment, those figures should cover the range though).
* Taxis are a pretty expensive way to get around. I'd suggest cheap rental cars.
* There is a railway station next to the VU campus (Hoppers Crossing). Rail is only feasible if you are really scratching for money - service out to Hoppers Crossing on weekends isn't too regular, and you'll need at least one car / van or the like to cart all your gear around anyway.

Does Vic Uni have any student accommodation anyone? I'm afraid RMIT doesn't. Although out our way at Bundoora there is student accomodation at Latrobe Uni, (half hour from track), and I think there is some at Deakin Uni in Geelong as well, (half hour from track in opposite direction). We usually stay in student accommodation when we travel OS, it is the cheapest way to do it.

As for RMIT, we already have two travelling teams using our workshop at our uni, and I'm afraid our faculty has put a limit on that. Sorry we can't offer any space to anyone else on that front. Any other local teams willing to offer a bit of working space for the visitors?

Thats all for the time being, I must get back to work. Cheers all, and we look forward to meeting you all in December.

Hi Geoff and all,
Aalborg from Denmark are in a similar position. Is there a Melbourne Uni who can put this small team up as a base? I think there will only be 5 or 6 team members. I need someone to look after them so they don't drink all our beer and race off all our sheilas ...In other words, they are good guys to be with.
Thanks
Pat

thanks for the advice guys, we'll certainly take them into consideration.
Big Bird, we will bring somewhere between 5 to 10 members to Australia depending on the final budget.

Hi,
I'm trying to contact the University of Ballarat FSAE team. If you are on the team, can you contact me, please?

Hi, I'm searching for a place to ship our Car the closer to the event site the better since we are coming from Puerto Rico our knowledge of the area is very limited. Can someone from Victoria University contact me or anyone that is willing to help? My email is: jose.formel.eins@gmail.com or the team email uprmformulasae@yahoo.com

Cheers

José E. Lugo
Team Leader
Colegio Racing Engineering

wow Munich is going to Australia....Wish them good luck, that was one amazing car....

I'll second that... beautiful car and very trick uprights. Good luck to the Munich guys

The lazy amongst us (read me and the other graduated member of the team) used the train from Flinders Street to Hopper's Crossing the other year. But yes the weekend schedule wasn't great :-)

Good luck to all the teams. The Aus event has by far the best atmosphere (I haven't been to Germany yet) of the comps I did. The entry list looks good this year as well.

Ben