University of Tononto:
Design: 5th
Accel: 4th
Skidpad: 21st
Autocross: 4th
Enduro: 2nd

1st place overall

Another solid performance from the UofT team, Congrats team wish I could be there to celebrate, we'll hold it down back home until you guys return. Prepare for the worst and the best usually happens, all the hard work pays off. Congrats to all the teams and thanks to all the Formula Student Organisers and volunteers.

Congrats to the lads for winning Formula Toronto once again. That's a damn impressive track record - and a triumph for sensible engineering management. Well done.

Congrats too to the OB lads, glad that the disappointment of Detroit is now behind you all.

Well done to all teams, and I look forward to seeing some photos of the event posted.

Cheers

Congratulations to the Toronto team.

Once again they are the best at FS.

Congrats to all the teams that competed in UK, we are waiting for the pics....

Congratulations to the Toronto team and to all the other teams.
The overall results in all classes are available here.

Please, could someone tell us the news about 2007 rules?

If something new was highlighted.

Thanx

So? Best event yet, weather excepted… (the ¾” rivers running through the pits on Wednesday morning were something else…) Fair play to the folks queuing for scrutineering under the tarps in spite of the pissing rain and lightning!

Site layout was excellent - the three-pronged pit setup with central “anybody with a left-handed screwdriver please see the army boys on the main gate” information and announcements was much tighter than the FSAE-West pits but far more social. (and a welcome refuge from the driving rain) Maybe the Calgary folks can comment on how nice it was to push a car 200 yards in 15C weather as compared to dragging it 1500 yards in 40C weather at FSAE West… Thursday and most teams seemed to be done with scrutineering. No real grumblings about unfairness the year either, although it’s evident that they’re far pickier (or take longer and prod more things/ask more questions) the better the car is turned out. Delft’s workshop – quality! Tool manufacturers should take note – nothing to prevent there being more than just a welding tent (is canvas fireproof?!?) on the site for all to make use of.

Friday it never really dried out and this showed in performance this year versus last. Nothing as spectacular as the Leeds car fire of ’05, though TU Graz deserve a mention for breaking the 4 second accel time, even with the poor weather and cold track. (wonder what that’ll do in the dry?) Many more teams on the practice area than in ’05, perhaps because the marshals were more relaxed about allowing folks access to the area and teams could get close enough to watch/advise/tune the cars there rather than observing from a great distance and tweaking them back in the pits? Noticed a few spectators had come prepared with picnic and cold beers or bottles of bubbly

Saturday! Hats off to the endurance finishers – especially the (7th?) placed 1st year Stuttgart team, the tiny 1st year Zagreb team and the lads from Liverpool. (some very happy faces there!) “Blonde moment of the event” award must go to the Ulster lad who stepped off the start-line and promptly started heading the wrong way around the endurance track… More finished this year than I think any other, probably helped by the weather being mild and those who were never going to finish endurance never completing enough dynamic events to start it? The Brookes car finally showed what it’s made of after some disappointing accel/skidpad events, dominating the endurance with drivers as much fun to watch as the Helsinki boys as far as driving at 11/10ths goes! Their Avons were absolutely totalled by the end of endurance mind! (anybody have any pictures?) Atmosphere in the grandstand (amongst half the Austrian population…) was great – to the point even our self-confessed ‘control-freak’ of an economist was enjoying herself – and we weren’t even racing! The cheers and applause for ALL teams as they finished (or retired) was grand – even the disappointed drivers wheeling their cars off the track and past the stand couldn’t help but raise a smile there. Shell BBQ was much better, with enough capacity such that the queues didn’t stretch for miles and teams sat, chatted and milled about until the results came. (I wish airlines/banks/government offices would take note and feed people waiting, doesn’t half make the time go quicker/shut us up!) Presentation ceremony in the evening was really long and the time to be Austrian! Trumped in the points-scoring events by the understated and eminently capable Toronto, then in raw pace by top performances by Brookes/Leeds, I don’t think there was any question who’s overall package earned the spotlight that evening!

I was going to do a “special thanks to” section for everybody who allowed us to pour over their designs; offered advice and assistance from places to visit or old cars to borrow for fresher’s fayres; allowed themselves to be interviewed in a spectacularly cheesy style or otherwise went the extra mile – but it’d have to have at least 500 names on it! You know who you are folks - Julia, JV, Bob, Barney and I really appreciate your going out on a limb and are looking forward to competing with you/working with you/entering your competition (delete as appropriate…) in FS2007!

Feedback for the event organisers? Great event that ran smoothly (from the outside at least) and remarkably to time! Might be worth trying to move the VIP tent next year – replacing it with a grandstand/video vantage point that it’s easier to cover accel/skidpad/endurance from? Marshalling appeared better than last year but still an issue – the Aston car was on the track for THREE LAPS after it broke down, car sent out onto the AutoX track RIGHT in front of another car about to finish, several instances of no yellow or blue flags where the there definitely should have been etc. (mistakes are inevitable, though these seemed excessive)

As a side-note I cried on the Saturday: £70 for 73 litres (only 460 miles – bloody XJ40!) of fuel… What made me cry wasn’t the cost, rather the fact that it’s STILL cheaper (also quicker and more practical), to drive even a thirsty old boat of a car than it is to take public transport.

Photos and videos (inc 2007 rules spiel, very shaky presentation ceremony) will be up here in due course: (one lung internet connection only) http://www.cosic.org.uk/galleryv2/main.php?g2_itemId=451

If anybody happens to find they’ve acquired a black umbrella (about 70cm long, with a curly cane handle) could you let me know please? I’ve left it in somebodies pits whilst looking over a car and it turns out it’s an heirloom of sorts and has sentimental value to my grandmother – I’ll gladly pay for it to be posted back and the beers/favours owed!

Cheers,

I thought hard about the “24hr rule” and this one but figure that even after a decent night’s sleep, lie-in and afternoon chilling-out in the sunshine I’m still feeling/thinking the same way…

[Big Bird] “There is a chance you might all interpret my comments above as an unqualified bagging. I truly hope not, I am only offering my observations on something that I thought was a bit of a cultural difference between events, and I'd love to hear feedback from those "at the coalface" so to speak.”

[Ben] “The biggest problem for me is academics in the UK looking down their noses at the competition as if it's not scientific enough. Student who don't have the backing of a good faculty advisor will struggle. This applies to most of the FS teams in the UK from what I can see.”

<tar brush>

The UK suffers with what others have termed “bureaucracy.” I’d call it institutions that are so far up themselves that not only do they not “support” would-be Formula SAE participants but actively go out of their way to “prevent” the formation of Formula SAE teams.

</tar brush>

<cynic mode>

Money comes from research. Academics are there to do research. Undergraduates are a necessary evil – for producing research students. They should not be seen or heard, they should learn only what we need them to know and should consume as few material/faculty resources as possible. Anything that makes them visible, equips them with transferable skills or occupies time that could be used to learn what we’d like them to know or consumes material/faculty resources is to be stomped on.

There /are/ academics (and businesses) out there that recognise the value of a team-based, applied style of learning when it comes to engineering and business. Most have long since got fed up and moved to continental Europe, the United States or Australia – but some still remain. The sad thing is that their hands are tied by the “old guard” that remain in power.

Historically this never really mattered – the pace of change was slow enough and life expectancy was short enough that the “old guard” died before they became a problem. It still works great for teaching English, History or Latin as they tend not to change too much. With an ever-increasing pace of change in the engineering and (slightly less so) sciences area - and ever-increasing life expectancies - waiting for the “old guard” to die off isn’t really an option any more, and they’ve yet to come up with an alternative.

</cynic mode>

An exaggeration of the truth? Possibly. It’s certainly the way it appears on the coal-face…

<tar brush>

What you get at the competition reflects this – the students may as well be a pub quiz team with members working in Tesco, McDonalds or the Post Office for all the education and support they receive from institutions. With a couple of exceptions, teams doing well and the motorsports industry in the UK are probably entirely down to the sheer bloody-mindedness, enthusiasm or we shall not be defeated attitude of the people…

</tar brush>

The US appears to have addressed this by making its trend-setting institutions private – if you don’t change with the times you’re out of research funding and a job, if the undergraduates don’t rate you as a teacher you’re out of a job etc. This (and the country in general) isn’t without its problems either mind. Whilst over there I sure as hell wasn’t comfortable with the proportion of Department of Defence/related industries funding versus funding for teaching and research that benefits mankind. Nor was I comfortable with the unproductive and unpleasant way that unless your parents had money you won’t get an education. (or a hospital bed…) Richer institutions are slowly becoming able to tell government and corporates exactly what they will and won’t do as well as ensuring that anybody can study there regardless of family/economic background, but other’s don’t have that option.

From speaking to RMIT’s faculty advisor at FSAE West, Australia seems to be moving from a UK style system to a US style system as far as course structure goes, don’t know how the funding/organisation works but you still pick up on “everybody builds stuff/invents stuff/we’re all capable of doing everything ourselves” with most Aussies/Kiwis, presumably due to the history of the place? Not sure how continental Europe runs things yet – look forward to trying to work this out whilst spending time with the teams from the mainland!

Mixed feelings at the moment from me. Need to leave a little more time before i trully decide how i feel.

An amazing weekend (ish) none the less, formula student truly changes you as a person, and builds friendships that will never be lost.

Thanks to all the cool people and teams we spoke to, and the encouraging and kind words of many people.

Big thanks especially go to Delhi for giving us some steel to make a push bar!!!! hah hah, cheers guys.

Congrats to Toronto. A fine win for a well sorted, conventional (and that's a compliment) car. For the people who whine about budgets as a reason for losing to the likes of TUG you can't say the same about Toronto. An object lesson for all on how to run a fundraising effort and a team.

BTW Toronto were also kind enough to fit my company's 2D Datarecording GPS logger to their car for the autocross on Friday. I should have a GPS map of the track (x, y and z) available for all teams at some point this week. Cheers guys :-)

Ben

Congratulations to Toronto and Graz.

My first year at Formula Student, with the UH Racing Class 1-200 team).

Good to see other universities take on producing an FS car.

Our car wen't well the whole weekend, putting in good results across the board. Shame the weather took a turn for the worse, hurting our times in the dymamic events. In testing the car was much faster (Sub 4 second accelleration times).

Was a shame to see our competitors drop out through mechanical failures, good luck for next year.

Will be back in a couple of years with the Class 1 team.

Chris

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

well done to everyone who competed, was good to see all the other teams had just as much desire to win as us, was a good spirit between the teams. I was really impressed with my first FS event.

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

One question about the results:
the Design results are limited to 138points instead of 150 as happens in USA.

Do you know why?

Daniele

quote:

Originally posted by V2 - Italy:
One question about the results:
the Design results are limited to 138points instead of 150 as happens in USA.

Do you know why?

Daniele

Design Report and Design Spec Sheet penalties, as specified in the Formula Student rules.

Regards, Ian Murphy
Formula Student 2006 Design Judging Team Leader

Congrats to all teams who competed in the Formula Student event. From my point of view the standard was by far the highest I’ve seen in the 4 years I’ve been at the event. This was illustrated perfectly by the number who finished the endurance.

At Strathclyde we were delighted with our 16th place finish overall. It was great to see all the time and effort that the team has put in over the last 12 months finally paying off. The car and the team ran without a hitch (almost), mainly due to our (to quote the judges) "no frills" concept and 2 months of testing. The only thing lacking was a couple of pro drivers, as I had never quite fully appreciated the role of the driver until faced with my 1st sprint run, or was it when I was watching one of the faster UK teams performance before and after the driver change.

All this does however leave us with some clear aims for the German event in August.

I personally thought the design penalties were extremely harsh, 2 points lost for not including a word count! I can’t remember reading that one anywhere although please correct me if I’m wrong, and while I mention it what use is a word count in the design report anyway.

And a big thanks to Toronto for letting us borrow a starter relay. Cheers and well done guys

Mike

University of Strathclyde Motorsport, 02-06
www.formulastudent.strath.ac.uk

I have to give a lot of respect to the Slovenians for the red thing that Lewis Beales rather unfairly nicknamed the 'Forklift' I thought it was a most interesting car.

It really was close at the top however - could of gone three ways.

TU Graz - is that car really in the spirit of the competition, certainly its a lovely piece of work but can the smaller unis or ones from less wealthy nations really compete with that?

You can see my report in the September issue of racecar engineering (and no doubt Ben's rebuke to me about it will be in the following issue - Ben feel free it sparked a great debate last year!)

Meanwhile in the next few weeks I'll get some pics up on the racecar site (notebook section) including of the mashed brookes tyres.

AND!! after initially poor response, we had a strong run on subscriptions at Bruntingthorpe so the money pople have decreed that the 40% student discount can continue... e-mail me to get the discount form. Sam_collins@ipcmedia.com

quote:

Originally posted by murpia:

quote:

Originally posted by V2 - Italy:
One question about the results:
the Design results are limited to 138points instead of 150 as happens in USA.

Do you know why?

Daniele

Design Report and Design Spec Sheet penalties, as specified in the Formula Student rules.

Regards, Ian Murphy
Formula Student 2006 Design Judging Team Leader

Thanx

Hi!
Congrats to Toronto, Graz, Oxford Brookes & all others,...

SSColins, I'm interested in your statement about the Slovenians. What did impress you so much? (Except of their team spirit and the huge amount of work from every member of the small team.) As a former team member I must say, the car is geting better in every year! But the steps we make, are way to small to catch our competitors.

Talking about the spirit of the competition... It's quite simple: To learn something! And I'm sure the Graz guys learned a lot! And the most important lecture was, how to manage a team to be succesfull!!

Uhm, since I can't read German, anybody care to fill me in more about the Graz team?

Sam,

Firstly, thanks for your continued support of these competitions. Convincing sponsors to support us is an ongoing problem for all teams, and being able to show competition reports in magazines such as Racecar Eng really aids our credibility. Cheers for that.

We couldn't make it to the comp this year, but from what I have seen the overall standard has taken a giant leap forward compared to when we were there in 2004. And it is great to see all the top 10 scoring more than 700 points, that is a sign of a good competition.

I've also just taken a look at the Graz website, and I agree that is one mighty spectacular piece of engineering. But I don't necessarily agree with your assessment of other teams not being able to compete with their budget. The first point of proof is the team who finished above them, and who have also won three out of the last four FStudent comps. Toronto have a quite simple and very well executed car - and prove year after year that "trickness" doesn't necessarily win the event.

Once all the management processes are in place, a score of 800 points or more is easily achievable on a reasonable budget. It just takes a bit of wisdom as to where you chase those points. Most teams look at acceleration times as a benchmark, and unfortunately this is one area where expensive development programs can help. (Although not necessarily - U Queensland here in Oz always do well in acceleration - and they are not a big budget team). But if you give a little on the acceleration fixation, you can settle for economy points, for instance.

Take a look at Graz vs Dartmouth, and sum the points from Accel + Sprint + Endurance + Economy. These are all the events where forward acceleration play a role (and therefore where your engine development program gives points returns). The sum total is 492.63 vs 493.04 points in Dartmouth's favour. Dartmouth are a lower budget team just using a different strategy. It is easy to look at the Graz car and say "that's not fair, we can't compete" - but with due respect I doubt people would be saying the same about the Dartmouth car.

The organizers of these events are quite wise - and it is not in theirs, or anyone else's best interests to run a comp where your results are determined by how big your cheques are. The points allocation reflects that, and the smart teams work with it.

Another thesis on my behalf, sorry about that folks! Keep up the good work Sam.

Cheers,

quote:

Originally posted by Alex Kwan:
Uhm, since I can't read German, anybody care to fill me in more about the Graz team?

There is a little flag up in the top right hand corner of their website, click it and the whole thing pops out in English.

Us English speaking people sure get spoilt, eh?

Cheers