I spent some time with my camcorder, and got lap times from our car as it emerged past the timing van on the start/finish straight.

I was our first driver, averaged 65.4, had one cone, and a fast lap of 64.2 (lap 3). I also had a 67.7 that was almost a spin, I got chalk but no cones I was all alone, no traffic.

Mike T was our second driver, 66.8 average, 65.3 fast lap, no cones, passed two cars.

Our cumulative time from the camcorder method came within 0.3 seconds of the official time, so I'm happy enough with that.

Michael, your 1447 official time before cones works out to a 65.77 second average lap.

I don't know where the announcer got his 61.8 for Mike T, maybe he had a great "rolling lap" right where the announcer's people were timing...

Here are some accel event videos. Please right-click and save target:

RMIT and UWA

Cornell

Texas A&M

And heres a zip file of the 370 pictures i took. Some of them suck and some of them are upside down. Enjoy

Detroit05

Wow! Nice pics!

That pic of UTA looks fantastic.

Great work

Kev

Has anyone recorded the design review? I was in the design tent, but when the microphones stopped working, I couldn't hear anything and I'd really like to know what the judges said about the 4 cars I missed.

I'd be interested in any design review/judging videos/photos/recordings too.

Well I would hate to disappoint so here you go:

MP3 of the Design Final Comments (about 20MB)

The sound quality isn’t that great but I think you should be able to make out pretty much all of it. The UWA part is on there twice because two of my guys got it so maybe one of them is better.

I have video too but it is mostly the back of heads. You don’t really miss much with just the audio. Just pull up a picture of each car as you listen and you’ll be ahead of the game. I may put the video up tomorrow anyway. It’s about 385MB and that would take forever to upload from home. I wish my neighbor would pay more for his internet so I could upload faster over his unsecured Wi-Fi network.

I also had a request to consolidate the pictures I had up in the galleries.

Here is a zip file of most of the pictures we took in Detroit.

It is about 1350 pictures – some bad ones and a lot of repeatish ones. (I left out the pictures of IttyBitty at Big Bucks) If you want a higher resolution copy of one send me an email and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks a lot James! I don,t think a video would be very useful, a mp3 is just perfect!

Thanks for the MP3 James!

Still waiting for a certain video...hint hint ;-)

Spencer
UBC

Geez, James, is there anything you didn't capture for posterity? Super impressive work as usual.

I'm going to add "ability to document the hell out of everything" to the list of things I wished Cornell would do better but doesn't.

(Mea culpa on that for myself - brand new camera for Xmas, and how many pics did I take? Two. One's of the truck, near empty. The closer I get to my PhD, the more people should do as I say, not as I do. I'm in danger of becoming a total dumbass here.)

Happy to help guys. Maybe someone can try to get some of the same for Formula Student coming up.

Spencer,
Jovan should have a link to it.

Thanks James!

What you you guys think to a "Media Dump" station of sorts?

I'm thinking a few of PCs (with 400+Gb external disk drives, USB2/Firewire, CD/DVD drives and Card-Readers) and a folder for each and every team/company/group of guests in existence.

At the end of each day, or at the end of the event, somebody from each team downloads all their photographs, movie clips and sound recordings onto the 'Media Dump' computer.

Somebody then takes these computers and builds a web-gallery type affair of the pictures, with a page of thumbnails for each team folder, click to enlarge to 800x600 or so, click to enlarge to full original size, and the option for each team to 'login' afterward and caption/annotate their photographs?

Not sure how to go about sound/video previews - but even if you just got photos workign it'd be useful, no?

Would you all use it if it were there? How much storage space do you think would be required? What's security at the events like with regards to unattended computers being five finger discounted?

Marko, thats a good idea, I would think that either the event organizers or a specific team/ppl would have to be in charge of computers, just for orginization and security. Would be an excelent way to view designs. I dont know what the gallery capactities are on this sight but it has gone untouched for as long as I've been here.

I've asked the UK organisers if they think its a good idea and if so - whether we can do it or not.

Assuming they think yes/we are allowed; we've scored a 20'x30' marquee to stop the kit getting rained on/melting in the sun and can probably bring together the relevant computer gear.

Will speak to university computing service about webspace/bandwidth for hosting it - propose using the 'gallery' software:

http://gallery.menalto.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index

Unless there are better ones out there?

Anybody know if there's power on site or generators available? Other than setting it up/making sure there's always somebody about to look after it (I've some yuonger cousins in mind already, LOL!)/asking the organisers if they can remind everybody about it before they leave is there anything I've missed?

Using the 'gallery' software each team could manage their own gallery/caption their own photographs/add the ones they forgot to put up.

I guess (unless the copyright owner says otherwise) you limit the availability of the 'full size' images to the person who uploaded them - so you can charge that $10 for permission to get a $20 20"x30" poster print of the photo made up?

You could add a "summary" gallery of "the best of endurance", "the best of design" etc?

"Winners gallery" of the car + team + cheesy grins?

"Competitors gallery" with a photo of ech car and a photo of each team?

"Design" gallery that goes live when most teams have published their pretty 3D CAD renderings?

Wow, impressive idea! Unfortunately you may find yourself treading on some people's toes... last year a professional photography company had about 3 people with DSLRs at the comp and was selling 10x8" pictures at about a fiver a shot. Nothing useful if you were doing technical research, but I doubt they'd see the difference.

quote:

Unfortunately you may find yourself treading on some people's toes... last year a professional photography company had about 3 people with DSLRs at the comp and was selling 10x8" pictures at about a fiver a shot.

Do you know if they they were paid for by FS, or did they turn up of their own accord hoping to earn some money?

If the former then FS may not let it happen. It wouldn't appear to be the case as FS don't have that many photos of previous competitions on their wepage?

If the latter then they're fair game as far as I'm concerned - an unfortunate turn of events for them, but nothing they can complain about?

Then again, the $10 affair would be to the person who took the photograph, not the people hosting them.

This can happen even now - nothing to stop one competitor who snapped another whilst they were in their car from charging a token fee for the copyright on the photo? Nothing to stop them from ordering prints of those displayed on the web either.

Displaying 'previews' on a gallery wouldn't change the situation much, other than making it easier for you to find the photo that you want and have it printed?

If the professionals are unhappy that nobody is buying their photographs they'll just have to take better ones or drop their charges - neither of which will hurt FS or the comeptitiors?

I agree it'd end up as more of a design/technical reference than a photo shop.

I think it's a pretty good idea, Marko. Perhaps prosective photographers can run all their images through a watermarking program to identify which images were shot by them.

I can imagine that any pros there looking to earn money might be miffed, but I say if they want to earn their keep, they had better produce better images. If you're losing business to a kid standing 20 meters away behind a fence, well, you sort of had it coming to you.

In the four days that I was at FSAE in the States, I shot 1.81GB worth of data (1,945 images at 8.2MP, ISO100 on a Canon 20D), if that's any additional indicator of what storage requirements may be needed. It was my first comp, so undoubtedly next year I would shoot more, if I can attend.

Mexellent, you have some great shots. Looks like you shot on film (am I right? How many rolls did you burn?). What kind of camera and lens were you using?

Edit: I just looked some more of your images from endurance and your vantage is almost identical to mine. You wouldn't happen to be the dude with the blue t-shirt with the Canon 100-400L and the 1-series film body, would you?

The official list of awards winners is up now.

Thanks savant. Your shots are pretty good as well.

I wasnt the big dude in the blue shirt, i was the dude next to him.

I was using a Nikon N80 with a nikon ED 70-300mm lense. I shot 16 rolls. For some reason my camera kept screwing up and it would display an error message with the little DX symbol flashing. There were times when i had to rewind the film without finishing the roll.

I was pissed. AND THEN DEVELOPING COSTS! That was my fault cause i took em to walgreens, but still! I really wish i had an DSLR.