well at least in my mind:

Which compeition is the best to participate in?

With the ever increaseing number of competitions worldwide and in the US, is any one better than the other? judging, competing?

the reason i ask is that the school i plan to transfer to only participates (for the time being) in Formula SAE (East). I know that cost can be prohibitive to the number of comps a school can attend, but is any one comp better than the others?

my reason for asking is that i am basing my decision on transferring on a college's participation and excellence. This is truly only one factor but an important one in my mind.

thanx for any help you can give.

apparently it's the not so burning question!!!

A bit on the long side...

U Washington went to West this year and plans to attended West for 2007. Budget and time precludes us from attending more than one competition under our current circumstances. East occurs during our midterms, while West occurs the week after finals(we're on a quarter system).

Logistically, each on has its own challenges; East having most of the team fly, but West having all the graduating seniors on the team tied up with family the weekend before we ship out.

I have not been to the Ford Proving Grounds, but I understand site access was a PITA, and weather spelled disaster for many teams. On the positive side, it is the largest FSAE event with probably the greatest depth of teams.

The West competition was fantastic IMO. Site access was a breeze, and it was sunny and warm(or hot) for the duration. Teams did have to push the cars rather far to reach the dynamic events and there was a small issue with the first trucks in line on Wednesday being stuck in Paddock areas that were actually the farthest from everything. Spectator areas were close to the dynamic events. We missed some top competitors like UWA(registered but did not show) and UTA(showed but had engine/fuel troubles). However we did see teams who competed in East. Our advisor counted 15 teams that competed in East and West. On average they improved their placing from 25th to 6th. 7 of the 15 finished in the Top 10. These teams had 1 month between the competitions to improve their dynamic and static scores having been through East(and Australasia teams having 6 months on top of that and two comps under their belt). And the East winner, RMIT, did not win either Design, Endurance, or the Overall. Like East, all static events were in-doors.

This is all to say that West is a very competitive field. And could be argued allows teams the fairest chance to show what they can do. Weather is great, tires get hotter, and the track surface is not actually designed to be flooded like the proving grounds.

Of course you and your team will have to get together and decide what will work best for your program; logistically, financially, competitively, and educationally.

After going through FSAE, that's not a real important point. If you get to the point where which competition you go to makes a difference in your educational experience, then you have most definitely climbed the hierarchy in the team where you can decide which competition the team goes to (ie you're the team leader).

So, my point is, don't worry about it. You'd be better off worrying about how you can help whatever team you join do their best.

Good luck.

After attending both competitions this year (East and West) I came across some stark differences. The east competiton is the big Daddy. Almost double the number of cars competed, as well as more sponsors and spectators. The event was well run, but the weather sucked, and has sucked pretty much every year. On a positive note, the judges are veterans, so they know the way around the rules, and all the different interpritations.
West was a blast though. Nice weather, Nice facility, nice competition, but rookie judges.

So really, it depends on what your team is good at, statics or dynamics. Your car will perform better in California, But your presentation will do better in Detroit.

Are peoples memories that short. 2005 Detroit. Sunny and warm. I remember the sunburn from watching Endurance. 2004 Detroit. Lightning strike 40 feet away caused a blue flash in our tent. Weather is unpredictable so basing the merits of the competitions on that fact is useless, if it rains it rains, thats racing. If your team can only drive competitively in the hot sun, the car's not that good in the first place. With the high level of competition now, being good in either dynamics or statics and not both means you're not going to win anyways and you should be more worried about improving your car then picking your comp..

And what about the comps in Australia, England, Germany, Italy, Japan.

Its not the competition that makes it best, its the cars that compete within it. You can have the best organized event but if none of the teams are at a high level that competition is not as good. Having a lot of competitive teams just pushes everyone that much more to step up their game.

As for joining a school based on their FSAE success. Are you a fortune teller. How do you know that team will still be successful by your senior or even second year? How many teams have some good years and then drop off the face of the earth. A team with a set structure might not be able to adapt to the increased competition. Is it better to join a team controlled by Faculty or one with no Faculty involvement whatsoever? And who says East will be better then West or vice versa two, three or four years from now.

Its funny that the two replies about which competition is best come from people who have been to only East and the single West. Wow, what a wealth of combined knowledge. Based upon my overwhelming FSAE experience of attending only 2 comps I am more than qualified to weigh in on which competition is best and grace everyone with my witty banter.

Here's an idea, maybe someone from RMIT or Oxford Brookes should give a comparison. At least they compete internationally at more than one comp and have an excellent car.

The top teams aren't even American anymore as American teams are too afraid to leave their own borders. And any fool who says it's a money issue, tell me how 7 Canadian teams made it to FS last year. I have the utmost respect for any team that competes internationally. Not many teams understand how logistically difficult it is to organize the trip or to even compete.

So "someguy" maybe the best team to join is one that is adaptive, does more than just race at one comp in their own country and one in which you can contribute to and advance rather then be lost in its juggernaught size.

I think the west was a better location, weather, and facilities. I think the west will open to more teams in the future because the paddocks could handle alot more teams. I did not like the facilities in romeo, michigan. the weather in romeo was horrible and viewing the dynamic events was dissapointing. getting on and off site was a pain. good things about romeo was that the awards seremony was excellent, oficials were better, and its the flagship compitition for fsae.

the west facility had several very competitive teams there, not as much as detroit but i think after this year more will attend, maybe cornell will come too. i loved the weather and facilities (almost the ideal situation). The track was great and spectator viewing was good too. site access was easy and parking was very close. paddocks were excellent. road and track was there and now they have two tropies, one for east and one for west. R&T retired the trophy that the passed on to the new winner each year with the 2005 a&M win and now they have 2 seperate tropies for east and west that the winner keeps indefinatly. On the negative side the officals were not as good as the east and the awards seremony was not near as good as in MI.

my personal choice is the west, but not everyone agrees with me. each place has its good and bad but IMHO the west had very little bad.

For those that are harping on the Romeo FPG being a bad location, I would agree with you. But also be aware that holding the event there was a last minute move when no other site materialized after the Silverdome was no longer an option. I chatted with some people who said Ford was not totally keen on having us there for the obvious logistical reasons and the same ones that caused limitations that bothered all of us.

I have no idea what other locations they are looking at using next year but I at least know that they are trying to find something better suited to hosting us. So lets reserve judgement about the '07 East competition until we know the details.

I competed in FSAE for 3 years, and we competed in both East and West this past year. Like everyone has said...pros and cons of each.

West had better access than East, West pits had some more room and all were in a central location. Both required a bit of walking to fueling/dynamic areas. Some people griped about this but at least the lines didnt snake all over the place THROUGH the pits they way they did at East when it used to be at the Silverdome. Spectator viewing was probably better at West. From a drivers perspective, I thought East was awesome. The tarmac was as good as you are gonna get. West's tarmac was nice in sections but had some track-to-access road transitions that were not as smooth, and even went through sections that normally would be considered run-off or the "dirty line." West coast was harder on the car cuz bumps and heat. But i cant say it was bad cuz our car finished endurance at both East and West.

I agree that the judging had more depth at East.

East is still the premier competition since so many more teams attend. I would say it is a little more well respected. Only 50 some teams actually competed at West vs 120ish at East. However, having placed top 10 at both, I think the level of top 10 teams was similar from one to another. I think there are a lot more 'middle of the road teams' at East.

Obviously, the Cali sun was nice vs the unpredictable nature of East. The competition gets tougher and tougher each year. Just as someone else mentioned, if your team is serious about strong success, you have to be good in both static and dynamic events.

-2cents

Like "answer" said to compaire comps one must travel to other than one. Cost shouldn't be a limiting factor. We (Auckland NZ) must travel by air to our nearest comp (FSAE-A) and this year traveling to Germany (I think you can't get any further away than that), so we budget it and then find cash for it. I think it's a fair comment about US teams not traveling, (none at FSAE-A '05 and FSG '06), if you want to claim world class standards you must leave the world of the USA.

PS FSG looks like the bussiness, but I'll let know in 18days.

Some of the North American teams do travel though. Toronto has been going to FS UK for years now, and we, Windsor, are going to be at FSG in a couple weeks. I can't remember how many North American teams were at FS UK last year but there was a few. I'm going to reserve judgement on competitions until after FSG.

Bret
Windsor FSAE

Bret, your comments are valid, but I don't think its fair to the Canadians (youself included) to group their efforts in the same category as the Americans. It appears support for Canadian teams is quite low from your schools and companies considering the number of teams your country has put forward.

Brent, some American teams do travel. Dartmouth finished 7th at FS and UTA used to travel around a lot as well as Georgia Tech.

So what are the best Competitions:
FSAE East
Australia
FS
Note that Australia and FS may surpass FSAE East in the next year as the Australian teams are very good and the European ones are quickly advancing. Also the Canadians introduce an interesting dynamic every year. Send ETS, Waterloo and Toronto to FS, FSG or Australia and you start to have a real amazing competition on your hands if TUG, Helsinki, Oxford Brookes RMIT, Western Australia and Wollongong are there too. Throw in Cornell, Texas A&M and UTA and you have the best competition ever.
Next Level:
FSG
Japan
The FSG organizers really put in a lot of effort and were smart to do a 1st year trial run. I think this would be an excellent competition to go to I just want to wait and see how this year goes. Japan only suffers because of the lack of international flavour but they seem to have a large field for this year and are stepping up.
Next
Italy
Italy suffers from low attendance which hurts it, however I see FS, FSG and Italy becoming a Triple Crown affair where teams compete in all three. A very excellent option for the Europeans.
Next
FSAE West
West was introduced, not because of the large fields in FSAE East (considering the number of no-shows, half-assed throw togethers and the number of teams that ran both comps means there would be enough room for 140 teams at East) but to give a chance to their own American teams to run 2 comps without having to leave the country. Note that other than UTA and Georgia Tech (going back to 2004 and later), American teams have been uncompetitive around the world.

So theres the list of the best.

Wow. Care to share your name or university affiliation, Answerforsomeguy? I'm going to guess that you are from somehwere in Europe or Canada based on your ranking of the competitions. Can it not be left at the fact that you cannot really compare event to event?

I'm curious if you attended the FSAE West competition and would like to know what you are basing your comments about US teams not being competitive upon? Knowing that teams like Toronto, RMIT, UWA, etc. are the top teams at the non US and US events, the winning margin in points from the remaining 9 teams of the top 10 from one competition to another are not drastically different. I'd say that you can get a much better idea of the relative merits of the competitions and how competitive the participating teams are by looking at this distribution of scores than you can based on you personal impressions alone. In fact, I'll even venture to say that based on how the endurance and autocross/sprint scores of the top 10 teams are spread and Toronto's scores in the UK and US that the East event is definitely the most competitive dynamically and the West event even compares with FS.

Even so, all of this is useless banter since no one competition will ever truly be the 'world championship'. Each competition will have a top tier of teams, and chances are that top tier will be close to equally competitive, wherever the competing teams are from. Unless the team you are considering joining is a top team, the choice of competition should come down to which makes the most sense considering their location and available resources.

Mike Trumbore
University of Washington '03-'06

i was beginning to think no one would weigh in with their observations.

answerforme- no im not a furtuneteller, but i can compile statistics and also talk to schools to see how much importance they place on this program. top tier schools will contiune to draw students interested in their program because of thier past success. this will help perpetuate the program.

im not looking at teams with good years, but rather teams with consistent participation and top finishes.

in 2-3 years from now japan may have the best comp. but im only asking for today's opinion.

i dont think american teams are afraid to leave thier own borders. why should they when the world comes to play in their backyard. east and west coast. (this may only be for the time being as other comps may overshadow east)

moke-"if you want to claim world class standards you must leave the world of the USA." very true.

mike t- my number one choice is a top team. they are one of the smaller teams with more of a limited budget but have been consistent over the last 10 years with top 10 and 5 finishes. thier team is destined for big things. (i'll leave it at that)

i have considered my local colleges but i want to be at the top. if im going to do this for a living anything less then exceptional is not worth it.

but then again i am still a student and you all are more experienced than i. any comments?

quote:

Originally posted by someguy:
i have considered my local colleges but i want to be at the top. if im going to do this for a living anything less then exceptional is not worth it.

any comments?

Joining a solid team will definitely help to put you at the top, but along the same lines I posted above...

YOU are the one that has to make the difference if you want nothing less than exceptional. You can't just join the best team out there and go along for the ride- then you'll just be a follower.

If you take charge at a team that's always been at the top and put in another solid finish, that's great. But, it would be better if you took a so-so team and put them at the top- that is a bigger accomplishment that you will learn more from.

As long as you go to a school that has a team with enough support so your effort is put into beating the competition and not the school's red tape, you'll be fine. The greatness is then left up to you.

Mike, really, why must you use flawed reasoning to make an argument.

"I'd say that you can get a much better idea of the relative merits of the competitions and how competitive the participating teams are by looking at this distribution of scores than you can based on you personal impressions alone. In fact, I'll even venture to say that based on how the endurance and autocross/sprint scores of the top 10 teams are spread" (note: this is based on the top ten so that this quote is not taken out of context)

One of the major factors controlling point distribution is the number of vehicles entered in the event. If you have 120 teams at a competition compared to 50 there will be smaller point differences between positions due to the way points are given at the competition. To equate this to the level of competition is flawed. If you held an event with only the top 15 teams you'll still have a large points spread even though the teams are all very competitive. But then any engineer could easily determine this fact.

As to what University I'm affiliated with, what does it matter and who says I'm even in a University. I could be a judge, official, student, faculty advisor or someone who just follows the series. Do you think I'm European or Canadian because of my criticisms of the American teams. Sorry to tell you this but its a world-wide sentiment.

All the comps can't be directly compared which is why I gave levels and thoughts about their direction. Its obvious to state great weather in West and Australia and to say the design judging is at a higher level then the other comps at East. The levels were given to show if I had unlimited resources which comps in which order I would attend.

Someguy - Its good to see you did some research and are going to one of the smaller teams, hopefully you'll rise in their ranks and do well. I wish you luck, but be mindful of the future and be ready to adapt. Joining a FSAE team can set you on a path you never expected and after your 3-5 years you'll be a totally new person - in a better way of course.

It's not just myself who think the Americans teams are losing their reputation. The competition has grown. Top teams in the world are only considered top because they compete in more then their home event, they travel and compete well in multiple events. Teams who can travel half a world away and still win show truly are at the top of the field.

Lets look at an interesting case that has been brought up numerous times around the world.
Helsinki vs Toronto.
Since 2003 Helsinki and Toronto have competed in East and FS. Helsinki beats Toronto at East every single year. 2 months later Toronto beats Helsinki in FS every single year. A fact that has annoyed Helsinki and Toronto. Both teams seem to have the same schedule, get the cars done early, and test before and between the comps. Does this mean FS is not as good as East or vice versa? No it doesn't. It means each comp is different and that is the benefit of having so many competition is so many different countries. The variety: of tracks, judging and philosophies. Both these teams do well in both comps which are extremely different. That is why they are premiere teams, because they are competitive in such a diverse range. Same goes for RMIT, TUG, Western Australia, Oxford Brookes and in the past UTA and Georgia Tech. American teams are only competitive in American events showing their teams are one dimensional and can only compete well under certain conditions.

Answerforsomeguy:

"One of the major factors controlling point distribution is the number of vehicles entered in the event..."

Why must you make such statements without examining the actual results or the rules that describe how the events are scored? Dynamic events are scored based on how far a given team's time is from the quickest time, so scores for these events do not depend at all upon the number of competing teams. The cost score is mostly based on the overall cost of a given car, and is a function of the cost and the least cost alone. Again, the number of competing teams does not come into play. Depending upon how the judges score the presentation event, the scores may or may not reflect the number of competing teams. However, as the rules are written, presentations are to be judged on a 50 point scale, and assuming the same criteria for all teams the number of teams should not have an impact. Design scores are solely at the judges' discretion, though if you look at the scores given for the semifinals/finals range of teams are similar. Considering all of this, I still stand by my previous statements about using scores as a better way of equating the level of competition than impressions of them alone. Of course we will all have some kind of bias based on preconceived notions of other countries or cultures that will affect our impressions of the different events, but looking at things based on scores is a way of eliminating this and getting a more accurate comparison of the level of competition between events. For these reasons, I also disagree with what you stated about the scores being more spread out for a compeition of only the top 15 teams from around the world. If this could happen, and be governed by the same rules every other event are, I think we would actually see much closer scores reflecting the higher level of competition.

As for who you are, it lends to your credibility. I assumed you are not from america based on your descriptions of the different levels of competition, and that to you it seems a perfectly reasonable sentiment that we should go abroad to prove our competitiveness when we have what even you consider the most competitive event right in our backyard. If the trend of increasing competitiveness of other events continues until it surpasses the US event, then I'm sure the top american teams will travel wherever they need to to compete at the highest level, just as Oxford Brookes, RMIT, UWA, etc. have in coming to the US.

Someguy:

Having been a member of the UW team for the past 4 years, during a time of relative success for our university (2 consecutive 5th place finishes, 3 design semifinals, and 4th at West this year), I would encourage your choice to go to a small team that does well with limited resources. As 'Answerforsomeguy' said, and from my experience, you will learn a ton and be much better off for it.

I'll also add something else that has not been mentioned yet. Make sure that you approach the team without being particularily set on working on one particular system of the car unless you are already experienced and exceptionally skilled at it. You will be valuable to the team if you are dedicated and work hard, and must be willing to do so doing whatever it is your team needs you to. Also, make sure that you take in any knowledge about the different systems of the car you can, it will help you in your design tasks with the car in the future if you are well rounded about all systems and how they integrate with each other. I began with a limited knowledge of powertrain systems, and though I didn't particularily want to work on the suspension, that was where I was needed. Now, 4 years later, I've designed two chassis/suspension systems and many components, and have come to find vehicle dynamics much more interesting than I'd have ever imagined. In short, be very open to learning and applying new things.

Mike Trumbore
University of Washington '03-'06

Mike - From a purely mathematical standpoint you are correct. But you need to consider the subjectivity and human nature involved in the static events. As stated before a team needs to be strong in both statics and dynamics to win and place well. A poor static performance can easily drop a team 10 positions.

Consider Design: Its based on a relative scale of where your car is compared to the best. However if in a competition of 15 teams in which they all are excellent in design not all 15 will get 100 points or more. They will be distributed amoung the range. The worst will get low points of 50's and 70's while the top team will get the 150. All others fall in this range. The number of teams determines the ranges by which they are separated.
Same for Presentation: Yes its based off of your 50 point score, but what determines that score. Its based on your performance against the other teams. Once again the range will be used to its full extent regardless if all the teams competing are at the same level, that's human nature. This can be seen in other sports where the judging style (only in the case of Presentation) is similar.
Cost is the Same: The scoring of the actual report and presentation of manufacturing processes is in the same category as presentation and design. Once again bringing a variability due to the number of reports submitted and quality.
So yes, number of teams will have an effect and a particularly large effect if all the teams are few and very close in level.
Also remember presentation scores are adjusted after the fact to try to bring all the judging groups onto the same level.

The point differences generated by these three events can have a substantial effect on the final score. Looking at dynamic scores can tell you how close cars are dynamically. Looking at a teams accleration scores relative to skidpad and autocroos can give an idea who team is strong in a straight line and which can take a corner. Unfortunately Endurance stint times aren't posted, which helps to identify the capabilities of a team's drivers.

As design presentation and cost will always be subjective you must always be aware of the human element in the scores.

On the other point:
Even if the other comps grow in status I don't see many American teams travelling outside their country. This seems more an American cultural aspect as seen in other sports and events.

I'll leave off with this little tidbit from a British show.
"So the US won the World Series" - British Actor
"Yes" - American accented actor
"And what country did they beat again?" - British Actor
...Silence
End of skit.

Wouldn't the points be closer when there are more teams. The way it is explained above, it's almost assured. If you have 100 teams compete, you will get a fairly full distribution of speeds and a 'average' point spread. Now if you have 200 teams they will be dispersed among the initial 100 teams. The avg. point spread will get tighter over the entire bell curve.

Now, IMHO, the East comp still is, and will for the forseable future be the 'big daddy' of the comps. The most cars, most of the best teams statistically, with the most overseas competitors. The big three, which are the main sponsors will always be at the east event, and most companies outside of FSAE count it as 'the' competition for most of the reasons above plus maybe some others.

But, after saying all that, is it the best competition....maybe not. Each team has it's own goals to set, and it's a case by case basis for each team to decide the best comp for them. Obviously if a Japanese team wants to compete, there are a lot of pros to going to the Japanese event, and in Japan they may get more recognition getting 3rd in the Japanese event then finishing 15th in the US event.
For Cornell, going to the east event will always be the primary event, due to timing and location to us. I'm sure the guys would love to go to the west event but it's almost a month after finals and almost none of the team stays in Ithaca over the summer. If the the events switched dates, we may be forced to make the cross country track.

With all due respect, why would us American teams want to leave the U.S. to compete? If we can compete against 50 to 75 other american cars here, as well as have multiple sponsors at the event ( such as P.E.) why would we leave? Other top notch international teams obviously feel that the trip to the U.S is worth it, so why shouldnt we feel the same. I am not trying to add to the anti-American sentiment, but what we have going withtin our borders works plenty well for us.