Design Report

[Phil1988]

Hey,

I'm the chief engineer from Racing Pforzheim. We are a completly new team. The Hockenheim event this year is our first competition. It's very difficult for us...

Does anyone know where i can get an example of a design report? I didn't find anything in the web.
If someone has a exhample please send to philipp.bolay@rennschmiede-pforzheim.de

You can help me a lot,

Thanks

Phil

[Phil1988]

Hey,

I'm the chief engineer from Racing Pforzheim. We are a completly new team. The Hockenheim event this year is our first competition. It's very difficult for us...

Does anyone know where i can get an example of a design report? I didn't find anything in the web.
If someone has a exhample please send to philipp.bolay@rennschmiede-pforzheim.de

You can help me a lot,

Thanks

Phil

[mech5496]

Hello Phil,

I'm quite sure ADFA has a copy of an old design report of theirs on their website. Also Pat Clarke (design judge) has written a "design report guide" for first year teams a while ago; you can find it on the FSG website. Hope this helps!

[Phil1988]

Hey,

so did i understand it right...

The design report should give an overall information about the design of the vehicle as a technical summary. And then i can pick out some design highlights as an exhample the throttle body oder a cfk-suspension and the anlysis method like cfd and so on.. Is this correct?

Greetings from Germany

Phil

[JulianH]

Hey Phil,

yes, that's how it works.

Basically, you have to outline the overall concept of the car (what are the goals, who did you plan to achieve them, have you met your goals?).

Split up into sub-packages (chassis, suspension, drivetrain,...) and outline the most important details.

Use engineering style (numbers, no useless fill-words, etc...)


Best of luck and see you in Hockenheim. It's great to see that more and more BaWü-teams are coming to the competition!

Greetings,

Julian

[PatClarke]

Phil,

Last week I was PM'd a similar request from a team in Egypt.
Interestingly, they have not even acknowledges reciept of a reply, so in case they didn't get it, I will cut and Paste here.



Firstly, you must obey the rules. They differ slightly between competitions, especially regarding the 3 view drawings for the UK comp.

Next, understand what you are trying to do. The DR is not a promotional document. It is a briefing document from one group of engineers (the team) to another group of engineers (the judges)

You have 4 pages of text, so don't waste them! Write out your design aims and how you were going to address them. Then write how you actually addressed them and what changes you were forced to make along the way.
Explain the reasons behind your choices (not necessarily technical choices)and how you justify that reasoning.
The judges are really interested in what you are doing, so don't bull to them =]

The 3 view drawings are critical. Use only black line drawings on white, not solid modelling screen dumps. Make the drawings as clear and concise as possible and at a pretty high resolution, no rastering or jpeg artefacts.
One drawing per page, big as you can get it!
Front elevation, side elevation and plan view.

These are not just pictures of your car but a technical illustration so the judges can see what you have done. We don't want to see the body or driver. You can use cut-outs or pop-ups in the drawing to highlight stuff and there should be enough dimensioning that we can see the scale. Don't clutter the drawing with excess detail or dimensioning! Dont be afraid to remove or cut away part of stuff like wheels to give the judge a better view. Make sure the drawing is complete (I mean, we don't want to see components hovering in space with no means of support!)

On the free page, I would recommend a really really good isometric drawing of the car! Graphs and non related stuff is really a waste of time in the DR. If you wan't to show stuff like torsional testing, then include a picture (real, not generated). We don't need to see pictures of the car in action, the team members, the stuff at your university etc.

Do not waste a page on a fancy cover or contents page. Don't make columns in the report (hard to read on a laptop or iPad).

So, to finish.
8 pages, no more!!!
Put the team name and car number on the head of the first page.
Remember, when arranging the layout, that the page sizes differ between the US (letter size) and Euro events (A4 page size).

You should have no trouble filling the report with stuff the judges want to read. Most likely you will have to cut some stuff out!

We judges aren't getting any younger, so a nice open font is nice. Try Arial in 11 point.

Okay, now off to work, you have a report to write :-)

Cheers

Pat