quote:

Originally posted by saegirl:

quote:

Originally posted by Denny Trimble:
Next year, there will be 7 SAE events:

1 USA East
2 USA West
3 England
4 Australasia
5 Japan
6 Italy
7 Brazil

Yes, it will be hard to pick a "world champion". But I don't think that's the point.

Actually though there will technically be 7 events, only those affiliated in the Formula SAE rules are SAE International sanctioned events. Just an FYI...

Isn't there an "FSAE Germany" event now, too, bringing the total of unofficial events to eight?

Another question, for anyone who knows: What will happen to the Neil Schilke Foundation Cup? Will it still be awarded at one of the competitions, or will it no longer be given out?

Just a heads up to those who will be going FSAE west. The west coast practice is slated for may 6-7. Also, our region is also slated to host a practice/championship weekend the weekend directly before the west comp. If there are enough FSAE cars we can have a shootout on saturday and sunday.

Dave M - Cal Poly Pomona

Colorado's lookin for East.

Too bad State is goin West.

East eh? I would have figured CU to go West as well. Any particular reason?

Bout the same distance either way, with more competition at East with twice the number of entrants... its at the Ford Proving Grounds which should be sweet... and who doesn't love Detroit???

Also its close to Canada (Windsor!)

And personally I want to see Rutgers' car. I assume Alan and John are still on the team this year.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike "Dunken Canuck" Jones:

quote:

Yes, it will be hard to pick a "world champion". But I don't think that's the point.

Detroit will still be the mainstay for a while, given it will still be set at around 140 teams whereas others will be half that... The "world championship" moniker is already rather confusing to determine and will only get more so.

I took a look at which competition former FSAE winners are going to. Teams that have asterisks are going to both. (Before you start bitching, I know that the list of past winners is not the same as the list of all strong teams, but it's what I had to go from.) This is based on the "Registered Teams" pages at the SAE website.

Formula SAE West (CA)
---------------------
*Akron
*Maryland
Stevens
*Texas A&M
*UT Arlington
Wollongong

Formula SAE (MI)
----------------
*Akron
Cornell
*Maryland
Michigan
*Texas A&M
*UT Arlington
UT Austin
Virgina Tech

At least naming a National Champion will be easy: somebody's just gotta win both!

There are good teams at both comps. However, Detroit will, at least for now, be the one people will defer to as the world championship.

That said some good teams are at FSAE West: Texas A&M, UTA, Auburn, UW, Georgia Tech, Akron, Wollongong, have all been recent top 5 teams. So the West will definitely be a competition with prestige.

Why not set a world championship? The organizer could invite the top five or ten teams from all of the global fsae competitions. A kind of best of the best thing. By restricting the number fsae events a school could attend more teams would be able to place high enough in their "home" event to go the championship competition. It would allow a select set of schools to compete an extra time, and also allow them to compete directly with the best. This is not to say that the rest of us mid pack teams should just be swept aside, what I am saying is that teams that have a large budget, and can travel to multiple fsae competitions have a advantage that others do not. This may be considered fair or unfair, depending on your point of view. I am just trying to suggest a solution to two problems. Who is the actual champ, and why should some schools get to compete as many times in a year as they like, and other teams not.

Any one think a world champ competition will ever happen?

quote:

Originally posted by Wright D:
Any one think a world champ competition will ever happen?

As long as this remains an educational engineering competition, no.

How would the fsae contest being educational have any thing to do with it?

There are a lot of educational contests that have national champs. The best known might be the spelling bee.

How is our contest any different? If we can crown a third grader national champ, and send him/her on the talk show circuit in the name of education, then why can't there be a world fsae champ?
call me crazy, but think it sounds awsome.

I spend enough time doing this stuff as is. If this competition goes to a national championship, that's one more competition to prepare for and pay for. The more of them you have, the more you're going to need dedicated people who do this for a job.

And then of course if it is a "World Championship" - what part of the world do you have it in? Do you rotate around different countries? I trust that we don't just assume a "world championship" gets held in the US?

Without wishing to cry poor, it costs a bucket load of money to fly a team and a car around the world - not to mention the huge extra load in manpower and organization. We are just students on this side of the globe as well, and our time commitments to our studies is just as great.

With the premise of this competition being hold an affordable engineering design competition, I don't think the concept of wanting "world champions" really works. Too high stakes. Nah, let's just leave it a bunch of national comps.

I did not say top teams would be required to attend, they would merely be invited. A team could always elect to not attend.
The championship event could rotate between all of the locations that national fsae events are held at now. So the travel expenses would be spread evenly. Having the championship event in the same locations as current fsae competitions would mean that the same trained personal could run both, and the same venue to host both.

And since the competition to crown a world champ would be rather small compared to the one in Detroit; less man power would be needed to run it as well. Let’s say that the world championship event is capped at 35 teams, which would be ¼ of the teams in Detroit. That is a lot smaller event.

quote:

Originally posted by Wright D:
Having the championship event in the same locations as current fsae competitions would mean that the same trained personal could run both, and the same venue to host both.

You don't get it do you? The venue costs money and has to be scheduled. Volunteers are very appreciated for thier efforts, but just because they are willing to do it once a year doesn't mean they are automatic for twice a year.

It's not easy doing an event, it's a LOT of work. I don't care if you have 10 cars or 140. Do you really propose that dozens of volunteers get together and a smaller number work all year to prepare for an event, just so you can say you have a world champ? You expect more sponsors to step up and make the event possible, just so you can say you have a world champ? Surely you're joking. And even then, if one of the schools can't or doesn't attend, it's not really a world champ, anyway. Yea, it's a nice thought, but it's not that important.

Here's an easy solution. Just call the Michigan event the world championship. Yeah, I like that idea (says the guy from Detroit).

Seriously though, the only reason that the event has grown to separate venues across the globe is to allow more teams to enter and give distant teams a closer/cheaper place to race.

So trying to reconsolidate the competition back into some kind of championship is opposite of the direction its going. For the time being, the MI event will continue to be the featured event.

What I'd like to see would be a SAE (or event supporter) sponsored travel package for the top few cars from FSAE-AUS and FStudent to attend the following year's FSAE-MI event. Not all inclusive or anything, but make it much easier for the international teams to make the trip across the ponds. I'm thinking the package could cover vehicle transport (bulk ship the cars at the same time) and hotel rooms, the teams would still have to fund their own plane tickets and other travel expenses.

Taking a team/car across the ocean seems like an incredible expense, I don't know how you guys manage it. Sometimes I take for granted the fact that our "voyage" to competition is only about an hour by car and we can sleep at home if we choose. You international travelers have to contend with a huge amount of logistics that we've never even tasted.

I think there could be a world championship

To be effective it would depend on competition sponsors (worldwide) covering the cost of travel.

If something like that was run it should be advertised and televised, scrutinized and immortalised. I'm sure with some work it could be marketed well to be a strong drawcard for the automotive manufacturers and provide even more incentive to the local comps.

It would also have to be done in a way that does not overly advantage one country. A traveling world comp like the Olympics or the World Cup would be great. Get the Automotive companies to host it (like Australia used to be) one after another in different locations.

Gather great judges and companies. It could be a great event.

This sort of approach does have the dangers of increased commercialisation and a widening budget gap between winning and non-winning teams. However the gap is already widening and companies are seeing advantages to aligning themselves with certain teams already. FSAE is exploding in size and support at the moment. Trying to stop it will be near on impossible.

I think it should be welcomed and the competition should adapt. A world comp raises the stakes and raises the chance for student burn-out and over-commercialisation. However it also raises the profile of the immense amount of work that is going in to build these cars.

Kev

I think the world championship should be where the weather is nicest and there are the most hot women, so that probably goes to either Austrailia or SAE West.

And somebody should pay for me to go there.

edit: beer quality is also a factor, but that debate could get ugly.

quote:

Originally posted by Garlic:
You don't get it do you? The venue costs money and has to be scheduled. Volunteers are very appreciated for thier efforts, but just because they are willing to do it once a year doesn't mean they are automatic for twice a year.

What if the championship competition were to be held immediately after a regularly scheduled event; much like the brief Road and Track competition in Detroit, then some teams would not have to travel to a location twice. That way the venue is only used once, and the volunteers don’t have to come back a second time.

I do realize that this whole world champ thing will probably never happen, but I think it is fun to think about it.

I don't know about the US competitions but I whave wanted to tell everyone that we are trying to sit for formula student class 3.
I think this is the first team from Iran...
It's maybe become releated by someones to Iran's Nuclear programms!!!
what is you all ideas?!

isn't the world championship in germany this year?