quote:

Originally posted by SR-Mike:
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.

http://www.imeche.org.uk/formulastudent/rules.asp section 8.1 it's even helpfully highlighted in yellow as it's a significant change since 2005.

As to why a word count, and why the rules take considerable care to specify precisely the format of the written submissions, I can offer the following:

1) The word count maximum of 2500 and the 4 page text limit are there to encourage concise, relevant design reports with the minimum of padding. Those limits are entirely adequate for the task.

2) The Design Report and Design Spec Sheet common formatting / units are there for the convenience of the judges who have to read up to 60 reports in a short space of time. If anyone wishes to argue that the volunteer judges should be more inconvenienced than absolutely necessary, we will take that argument private and you may even learn some new vocabulary...

3) The technical rules and by extension the FStudent event rules, have been likened many times to those written requirements that form a large part of real-world engineering. Think legal regulations, quality procedures such as ISO9000, health and safety requirements, the list is endless. In the real world ignorance is no defence legally and as an engineering education scheme at least in FStudent no-one takes you to court if you get it wrong!

Regards, Ian Murphy
Formula Student 2006 Design Judging Team Leader

Sam - Geoff's helpfully answered your question in much the same way I would "How do they compete?" Well they assess their resources and build a car that maximises performance within those constraints along with those laid down in the rules.

I'm sick of mediocre teams looking at people like TUG and saying the reason they were beaten was a lack of carbon fibre or telemetry, when the real reason is, more often than not, a lack of a coherent design concept and decent team management.

You can win these comps with a simple car like Cornell, Toronto et al build. If you accept that this is the type of car you must build, then build it to the highest level you can win.

Ben

Ian

Thanks for the clarification. It really is important to read ALL the rules, not just the FSAE document.

Cheers

Mike

I'm still annoyed that the IMechE always feel the need to modify the rules seemingly just for the sake of having some influence over it.

The page limit is fine and was all I needed to make my reports concise.

However, despite that, it was in the rules and if you don't read the rules you'll lose points.

Ben

quote:

Originally posted by ben:
I'm sick of mediocre teams looking at people like TUG and saying the reason they were beaten was a lack of carbon fibre or telemetry, when the real reason is, more often than not, a lack of a coherent design concept and decent team management.

You can win these comps with a simple car like Cornell, Toronto et al build. If you accept that this is the type of car you must build, then build it to the highest level you can win.

Ben

Well said Ben! Personally I was sick this year of teams who set uncompetitive weight targets then missed even those by a country mile. I agree you may not reach 125kg without a serious budget and some high technology, but did the 125kg car win? Or even the 180kg car? 200kg for a conventional spaceframe 4 cylinder is entirely possible, relatively cheap and given a coherent design concept and decent team management easily realisable.

Regards, Ian

quote:

Originally posted by ben:
I'm still annoyed that the IMechE always feel the need to modify the rules seemingly just for the sake of having some influence over it.

I think these changes were made at the request of the Chief Judges, rather than the IMechE, since they are the ones who actually have to read all the reports.

From my point of view, standard 12pt fonts and <2500 words made it very easy to read all my groups' reports on a Ryanair plane...

Also one problem fixed this year was the Design Spec Sheets. By using a common layout and standard units I was able to confirm in a few seconds that the teams had actually entered new data in all the fields and not just carried over (or copied) the examples. IMO the supplied sheet should actually be blank, but I guess there are enough old sheets out there by now for a team to copy from that it makes little difference. Surprising how many teams thought a 600cc 4-cylinder would have a 95.0mm bore though...

Regards, Ian

Congrats to all the teams at FS.

The level of competition was very stiff this year. All the teams stepped it up a notch and were more organized, focused and had better cars.
Our team took home the win thanks to our great leaders (Maggie and Nadia) and the excellent teamwork of all our members both in FS and back home in Toronto.

As to some of the previous comments.
A large budget is only beneficial if used effectively. You can't use another teams' access to resources as an excuse. You have to make due with what you have and if you want more you need to go out and get it for yourself. Our team has worked 10 hard years to get the resource base we have and it must constantly be maintained. You need the resources to build the car. You need proper marketing to get the resources. You need the car in order to effectively market.

Thanks to the organizers for putting on such a great event. And thanks to all the other teams. It’s the teams that make this event so great and fun to go to. Also a special thanks to the on track announcers. It’s really fun to go to the edge of the track and watch the other teams and be entertained by the announcers with the over the top comments and team member interviews.

quote:

Originally posted by murpia:

I think these changes were made at the request of the Chief Judges, rather than the IMechE, since they are the ones who actually have to read all the reports.

Fair point - was never a problem for me, but I appreciate that it was for others.

Having said that I did not have the opportunity to read any of the reports because I wasn't sent them prior to the event...

Ben

Hmm maybe I'm wrong about Graz then.

Just a heads up to the USA students - there is a cheaper limited time offer on the racecar website offering a subscription for $70.99 - slightly cheaper than the 40% student rate. Check that first

quote:

Originally posted by ss_collins:
Hmm maybe I'm wrong about Graz then.

Just a heads up to the USA students - there is a cheaper limited time offer on the racecar website offering a subscription for $70.99 - slightly cheaper than the 40% student rate. Check that first

So you poms are trying to sell stuff now?

Where are the bloody pics of the event? ive seen only 1 link!!! Get your act together

quote:

Originally posted by ss_collins:
Hmm maybe I'm wrong about Graz then.

Just a heads up to the USA students - there is a cheaper limited time offer on the racecar website offering a subscription for $70.99 - slightly cheaper than the 40% student rate. Check that first

Bloody Aussies...I think you have had one to many VB's! I advise you look at the very first post in this topic and I think you might find what you are looking for

Nice pics mark...this all of them, or a selected few?

Way to go guys! Wish we (the ones back home) were there to be part of the victory. However, we did have quite some fun at the Grand Prix of Toronto (Champ Car) this past weekend and here's a sneak peek . Enjoy the time off in Barcelona and a safe trip home.

Congrats to the Toronto team! It was a solid performance.
I think the level of competition is getting higher and higher every year in FS. From my point of view we did quite the same leveled performance in FSAE and FS and finished 5th and 4th. Eagerly waiting what FSG will bring? Three of top four FS teams will be face to face again. Helsinki&Oxford for the third time this year, wins 1-1.
Here are some pictures from Bruntingthorpe. They would've been here sooner but I got hold of them just few hours ago.

http://www.formula.stadia.fi/

I probably will put some videos there too. At least some on-board footage. But I'll inform you when I get that done.

First of all really well done to Toronto and UoT Graz, you guys both did an awesome job. We had a fantastic weekend really, and a week of "If's" as the Helsinki guys say. To the Stadia guys, you were awesome competitors as always! We yet again were so close on points, its great. If you take into account FSAE and FS last year its now 2-2 in wins over each other!

Well done to Hert's, you guys are great rivals and its great competing against you, well done to both of your cars.

Thanks to all the organisers, everyone at the IMechE, and the SAE guys and gals, its so good having you at our comp.

Germany should be great, we're really looking forward to getting out there, Frank and his team look like they have done an amazing job of organising it. Hopefully we should have some pics up soon.

Oh, and thanks Kimmo for that lovely photo of me!

You're welcome Craig. If you want the full version to make e.g. fan-posters, give me a shout.
Now I added an on-board video of our 1st sprint, enjoy.

http://www.formula.stadia.fi/

Have you got the sprint and the endurance official time?

Here are pictures from Chalmers fotographer.

Chalmers photos

As you can se on the pictures, we never had a problem with the clutch during endurance, instead it was a carbon fibre driveshaft that broke in the glued spline insert.

We also had problems with the TPS sensor, therefore we lost alot in accelleration, skidpad and sprint.

/Per
CNC responsible CFS

I must agree another great comp, Well done to Toronto again, some time soon a uni from europe will beat you, i must admit after Friday i thought it was this year. Oxford Brooks guys my hat goes off to you all, you guys deserved a good finish after all the problems you had in America and hopefully you'll do better in Germany. Finally well done to my boys at Hertfordshire, to the class 1 team, at Christmas we all thought you would'nt make it to the comp so 5th is a great result and to the Class 200 team, you guys put in so much hard work and were so professional at all times no mater what was thrown at you, winning class 200 was the icing on the cake.
Also alot of you have been asking for pics of Brooks rather second hand tyres during the second half of the enduro and Craig's full on driving style winning them the enduro, here's some pics.





James Waters
University of Hertfordshire 2005 FS, 2006 FSAE

And here's the (really crummy quality) video to go with those tyres. (1) is the first driver; (2) is a 'warmup' lap for craig, (3) is craig in full swing.

Video Clips (please save to disk/don't stream)

And they did that /every/ lap near enough - the most consistnet 'nucking futters' I've seen in a while! It's not even just the big slide either - slowmo the video down to ~1/10th speed and you can see the car sliding on almost every manoeuvre.

Some photos of the event taken by the Strathclyde team are up on our website.

www.formulastudent.strath.ac.uk



enjoy

mike