Frank,

I agree with that assessment 100%. As of right now, the European teams seem to be pushing design the hardest. BUT, my point was that they are not definitively faster, yet.

And of course everybody knows it, but i like to repeat, that the driver is the most important factor, that makes a car fast. And i do not like it ;o)

Well a great driver helps, but enough testing can make a good driver score quite close to the great driver. It requires a good race engineer to do so and a very well defined testing period. I am not claiming that this gets you the fastest times yet, but if you can train a good driver very well, than he will come close. However this also means your car has to be very driveable. So I do beleive it still comes down to the car for this competition and that is the way it should be!

Congrats, UWA for the win in difficult conditions!

Cheers all

Once again i agree, design is unequal to fast, as long as you have not the same driver.

So we need to have a standard driver.... ME!

But FS(AE)(G) is a design event. So i talk design and a lot project management. And the european teams pushing hard on that. My personal design highlight this year: The Braunschweig ABS system. That feature makes you really faster. I was able to drive their car after the Hockenheim event. When normal FSAE cars starts to break, this team shift up once more.

But the topic was: FSAE-A

Any final Scores, pictures and stories?

Frank

While the teams are probably getting spent on the party, I'm looking forward to the official result posting.

Frank: There are much easier ways to get a carbon-fiber coffin.

hey guys
just recovering from the after party. a top night all round and all i can say is those kiwis are as loose as the come and a bunch of top blokes.
now for some results (or the ones i can remember)
endevour award ADFA

fuel economy 1st rmit 2nd deakin ( cant believe it we were a bit worried about our fuel consumption and didnt figure we would be any where near it) 3 Uwa

Acceleration 1st munich

presentation 1st swinburne 2nd auckland

autocross 1st uwa 2nd rmit ( i think that is right)

unfortunatley i didnt here the skidpan or enduro results because of the noise.

just a quick question to Pat why did us and auckland get marked down so bad in design?
I know that we didnt fit percy in the car. ( even though he didnt sit in our seat correctly)
so we lost points there. I know that i will be a bit biased but surely our car was one of the better designed cars there and the kiwis car was also a great design.

finally congratulaions to UWA. there car was amazing to watch on the road.also congartulations to monash on third (even though 1/2 way through the enduro they were able to cut there drag co-efficent lol). apparently the rest of the order wont be released till tuesday. surely the result are known allready and what harm would there be in releasing them on the night.
i hope that fills in some info for those waiting

Just for anyone who may be in town and looking for something to do:

Tomorrow (Tues) night, we are arranging with the lads from Tokyo Denki Uni to go minimoto riding and / or karting at a track up here near RMIT (Bundoora). We'll be following that up with a barbeque at RMIT for the TDU lads, and the crew who are here for the Claude Rouelle course. If any of you are interested in either, drop me a line at geoff.pearson_at_rmit.edu.au.

We'll need to know numbers by mid tomorrow morning.

Arrive at RMIT Bundoora by:
5:00pm for karting &/or minimoto (around $50-$60 per head depending on numbers - minimoto for experienced bike riders only)
7:30pm for barbeque (BYO meat and drinks - alcohol a bit of a no-no on campus unfortunately)

Cheers all,

Hi everyone, long time listener first time poster. Just thought I'd throw in my 2c.

quote:

Originally posted by benny41:
...also congartulations to monash on third (even though 1/2 way through the enduro they were able to cut there drag co-efficent lol)...

Actually, the lap times went up 2-4 seconds after the wing self-destructed. The car was tuned with the wings and didn't drive so well without them. The completely trashed set of brand new avons we fitted for the enduro is testament to this.

Congratulations to all the teams that competed - even showing up with a car at all is no mean feat!

Congrats to UWA, RMIT & Monash for their performances. Commiserations to Swinburne who were looking really good all weekend but were unable to finish the endurance. Also would of liked to see the Auckland boys do a bit better, they had a great car and were a great bunch of guys.

At VU we were pretty happy with the weekend, finished all events including both endurance runs. Second run was looking a lot quicker then first, then lost shifting and was stuck in third so times were down a fair bit. Managed to finish 12th overall, best performance for us. Overall happy with everything and had a great weekend.

Heres a pic of one our guys getting a bit loose out of a corner.


Also for those interested links to the other results of design and endurance.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y112/serka/DSC01479.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y112/serka/DSC01478.jpg

--------------
VU Motorsports

Congratulations to all the teams involved!

I have to agree with Frank about management.. but a discussion for another thread perhaps.

I would really like to read some blog like posts of the weekend from all the teams involved. Your experiences, what went wrong etc. If someone could put down a bit of a play by play of the enduro would be great as well. Don't be afraid to say what went wrong either... getting a few different teams perspectives on the event would be really interesting - don't hold back.

Hi again,
The comment edited was on the forum for just minutes. I was hopping mad at being misquoted and having words put in my mouth. Two separate Swinburne members confronted me with "You said the only reason we performed was because Tim Blanchard was driving" I never stated that!! And I loathe when people put words in my mouth.
I edited and withdrew some of the ripe language when I realised the poster wasn't a current team member.

As for why teams did poorly in Design despite having supposedly a 'Good Design'.
In the preliminary competition where I was only involved on the periphery, a team may not score well if they cannot successfully defend their design. The judges don't want to know WHAT you have done, they can see that. They want to know WHY you did it and what other options you canvassed. Statements like 'It worked last year so we did it again' don't cut it!

Incidentally, I do not disagree that the Deakin and Auckland cars were well designed cars. But that's only half the battle in Design. If you think the Design Judges might be getting a bit tougher, especially with cars that do not meet both the letter of the rules as well as the intent of the rules, then you might well be right! There was a significant faction in the Judging group that wanted to DQ cars that didn't fit Percy. Beware next year!

The decision by the judges this year to put only 4 teams in the finals left everyone else stranded somewhere below 100 points. When a 10 point Percy penalty is applied, then it hurts doubly bad. A car can never reach the Design Finals if it does not comply with the rules!

It is not the job of the Judges to smile and pat you on the back and say what a wonderful job you have done. It is their job to probe your defense of your design decisions. You may not like it, but thats how it is in real life (only worse!)

Anyway, I have spoken enough on this thread. I might get labelled a 'Keyboard Warrior' ..Oops, too late!

Pat

Congrats to WA and RMIT for strong results again. However i feel that the final order of these two teams may have been different if WA were not allowed access to skidpad event 25mins after the official closing of the event. Everyone could see that they had the superior vehicle but a competition is a competition and deadlines should apply to all teams no matter what color shirt they are wearing. Cost event still baffels me and should be dumped all together. It seems that every year the honest teams are made to suffer.

I agree with charger... some things were baffling. I watched RMIT start there car on an external battery inside an event - yet no official complaints were made. Perhaps the points penalty on a failed complaint should be dropped to remove the fear associated with calling someone out.

quote:

Originally posted by Charger:
Cost event still baffels me and should be dumped all together. It seems that every year the honest teams are made to suffer.

I half agree with you there...

The SAE car is meant to be a budget weekend car for a recreational driver. It therefore follows that the car made for the lowest cost should get some merit in the form of points. Dumping the cost event will reduce the 'accessibility' of the event to teams on a tighter budget, and allow the richer teams to splurge cash on everything.

That said, there is no way in hell some of these cars could be made for their claimed cost. Something HAS to be done to bring everyone back in line.

As with any kind of competition, there will always be conflicts, debates and ppl who simply wanted to sulk.

I have been there and done my fair share of FSAE and I know the feeling to walk away disappointed, sulking at the team who won the event.

However, as with any motorsport, luck plays a huge part! How many teams have came so close but no cigar? Acknowledge you've done your abs best and try harder next year!

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Claffey:
I would really like to read some blog like posts of the weekend from all the teams involved. Your experiences, what went wrong etc. If someone could put down a bit of a play by play of the enduro would be great as well. Don't be afraid to say what went wrong either... getting a few different teams perspectives on the event would be really interesting - don't hold back.

Here's my $0.02...

MUR had a pretty eventful weekend. Static events went ok but we had the scare of our lives when we were almost not allowed to compete. A few team members got about an hour (or none at all!) of sleep and sorted it out for the following morning... along with a spaceframe that was ready to be slapped on for Sunday. Even after fixing the problem the delays threw off all of our preparation for accel and skid pad.

Then we had a "freak valve incident" while in line for the autocross, which forced us to run our wets on a very drying track. That slowed us down a lot I believe. But again, that was sorted out on Saturday night thanks to some kind help and we were back on drys for enduro.

Given the dramas we're all pretty happy with our results. Big congrats to the top 3, well deserved. The UWA car was jaw dropping as always

Strange weekend though. Very small field with some strong teams running very late cars as well as unfortunate issues attacking those that were capable of a very strong showing.

Ah well, c'est la FSAE.

Pat's articulated the biggest thing people miss when assessing design event scores - the performance of the team under questioning from the judges - you can't tell this by looking at the car.

UWA fell foul of this in the States I believe last year and even in the design final at FSG there was a reasonable spread of knowledge within what everyone would call "good teams" purely by looking at the car.

To reiterate Pat's point - you need to tell us WHY you did what you did and if you can't, you won't score well.

BTW, having the template fit is like being able to write you name on an exam paper. If you can't do that what do you expect?

Ben

quote:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by benny41:
...also congartulations to monash on third (even though 1/2 way through the enduro they were able to cut there drag co-efficent lol)...

Actually, the lap times went up 2-4 seconds after the wing self-destructed. The car was tuned with the wings and didn't drive so well without them. The completely trashed set of brand new avons we fitted for the enduro is testament to this.
[QUOTE]

Sorry mate it wasnt a dig at the wings or the fact they came off just a bit of a joke.
point taken about the design we will ensure we prepare better next year.

Hi all! Huge congrats to UWA, RMIT and Monash, all three were well deserved and either one deserved the win, no matter how close it was. A very mixed event from the Adelaide side of the fence, at one stage it was looking very bleak... It just goes to show that no matter how much testing you have, things can still go horribly wrong.

Anyways, I spose best place to start is Thursday. We were quite lucky being in the 4 or so teams selected for Thursday scrutineering, and getting through with only minor issues was a great relief. A few niggling problems that we found hard to diagnose and fix (rain didn't help) kept us in the pits for all of Friday and Saturday.

Since we missed Autocross with problems, Sunday morning was spent on the practice track to scrub tyres and check everything. The bad luck continued however, with the clutch cable breaking on the practice track (my bad this time). We managed to get a new one soldered together and in the car, pushing the limits of enduro closing time to get out in heat 1. Timmy and Samoo were in for the first heat, and they both pulled off a bloody awesome drive, at the massive relief to not only myself but the whole team. Both the boys were lapping 47's in a slower field, which was quite a joy to watch. There were a few little splutters at the end of the run which we still have no answer for, but we made it!

Back to the Fuel queue, we were hit with another awesome piece of news - 5th in design! Bit unlucky not to make the finals, but we were absolutely ecstatic. You couldn't wipe the smile off my face! Filling up with much less fuel than we ever used in testing was also a great surprise.

We chucked young Luke Betros on the practice track after lunch. After poor Danny dislocated his shoulder last weekend, Betty was a last minute replacement for the final enduro with myself. After never completing an enduro before, he drove to the letter and racked up almost no cones (1 or 2 at the most!). After the driver change I got to see what this thing could do, and it was such an experience driving this thing around this year's track (which was a great layout, I might add). Similar spluttering as the first enduro saw the car die with 2 or 3 laps to go, we still have no idea of the cause.

So anyways, that's our story. We'd like to heartily thank Bill Rakis, Bill West, Geoff Pearson and all the crew at RMIT for their awesome hospitality and generosity. At one stage late Saturday arvo, Geoff offered to camp out at Bundoora all night if he had to so we could get our problems sorted - thanks heaps mate. Also big thanks go out to Deakin for their epoxy tips, UQ for filter oil, the welding tent for the clutch cable and UTS for their cool little wheelie bin boom box to keep us entertained next door (nice work boys!).

Finally, a few other observations:
- A surprising amount of so-called "legacy" cars at this year's comp, some performing VERY well but getting hampered in design. I won't mention names to prevent being flamed, but there were some cars that looked very similar to 2006 (forgive me if I'm misunderstood, I didn't have time to look at them closely).
- RMIT were on the back foot after the intake clearance in Tech and a brake problem on Friday, but damn you guys bounced back hard winning Design and Enduro! Well done gents!
- Drivers play a huge part in this game. Unfortunately all of our drivers were brand new to either FSAE or racing in general, we really wonder how our car would perform on that track in the hands of a Formula Ford driver or Karting champion... That being said, Timmy, Samoo and Betty were awesome this weekend!
- Management is also a huge factor in being competitive. We were lucky in getting the car out on track early thanks to the huge amount of work from our MD, Costa (thanks heaps buddy!). Each comp I've witnessed shows just how organised and well managed winning teams like UWA, RMIT and Wollongong are over the rest of the field.
- I was surprised that parts flying off cars didn't result in DQ's, it's quite dangerous should another car be hit with flying car parts.

Anyways, that's all from me for now. Even though we had our problems over the weekend, it was still such an amazing experience. Well done to all the teams who competed (we know just how hard this stuff can be) and we'll see you all again next year!

quote:

That said, there is no way in hell some of these cars could be made for their claimed cost. Something HAS to be done to bring everyone back in line.

Why? Formula SAE is no different from any other motorsport in this respect. It prepares us for the real world.

The job of a racing team is to gain every possible competitive advantage without getting caught breaking any rules. Teams with 'expensive' cars just happen to do this better than others.