Big changes to point the scoring for FSAE-A 2011 [Archive]

Scott Wordley

06-15-2011, 12:40 AM

Hi everyone,

In a "back-to-the-drawing-board-moment" SAE Australia have just released (or we have just become aware of) the addendum for our 2011 competition, and in it there are a number of significant changes to the point scoring.

Static Events: Presentation 50 (down from 75)
Engineering Design 200 (up from 150)
Cost Analysis 100 (unchanged)
Total 350

Dynamic Events:
Acceleration 50 (down from 75)
Skid-Pad 75 (up from 50)
Autocross 100 (down from 150)
Fuel Economy 125 (up from 100)
Endurance 300 (unchanged)
Total 650

Points: 1,000

Can someone from SAE-A or Pat Clarke please explain the reasoning behind these changes?
I remember a group of team advisors discussing these proposals at comp (and the ones for FStudent), with the consensus being most of us were against them?

In spite of the fact that these rule changes favor our current design direction (massively winged, DRS enabled, single) I personally don't see why we need to tweak the rules and scoring locally and fear that if it continues the competition with splinter to the point where an Australian FSAE car wont be able to compete with one from the US, the UK or vice versa?

It certainly won't help lift numbers at the local event, if anything will deter people.

Can someone explain what the benefits are.. for anyone involved?

Are any other competitions looking to make similar changes?

Geoff P, care to repeat your email comments regarding these proposed changes from earlier in the year?

Thanks,

Scott

Scott Wordley

06-15-2011, 12:40 AM

Kevin Hayward

06-15-2011, 01:51 AM

Can we confirm when they were released?

The last change date on the page is the 15th of June. If that is true it is far too late to release information that fundamentally affects design changes. Even if not the magnitude of these changes would indicate that an email should have been sent to each university when they were released.

I strongly disagree with different scoring mechanisms between the competitions. While I am open to a change in the scoring formula it should be done internationally and given to teams at least 12 months before competition.

Kev

PatClarke

06-15-2011, 03:30 AM

Well, Pat Clarke can't!

Remember, I am simply a design judge and a member of the local 'Rules committee', adjudicating on stuff that is already in the rules rather than writing them.

I convened the meeting you are talking about Scott, but frankly, I was disappointed in the after meeting feedback. I had no ammunition to fight with.

I think you need to address your questions to the organisers via the SAE-A office

Personally, I support the Design points increase. After all, the event is an engineering design competition.

carbon_black

06-15-2011, 04:02 AM

> Can we confirm when they were released?

I first saw them on the website sometime around the 20/5/2011. Pretty sure that date is accurate, but you'd have to clarify with SAEA.

> It certainly won't help lift numbers at the local event, if anything will deter people.

The stiff Aussie dollar and the steep entrance fee will probably take care of that anyway.

Our teams strategy lines up nicely with the new points distribution, but it could have gone the other way too - I'm with Kev, more notice and consistency across the international comps scoring should be the aim, but then again - Australia does serve as an ideal guinea pig.

Pending how the comp points go this year in Australia, are there plans to role the changes out to other comps?

--
Pete Ringwood
UTS Motorsports
Sydney, Australia

Kevin Hayward

06-15-2011, 04:22 AM

Word is that it may be a switch to proposed international rules in the future. While I don't think it is a great idea to change the current balance of the rules, given time teams can adopt their designs to suit.

I suggest that the Australian teams should form a consensus (at the very least) to delay the introduction of this new points scoring formula until 2012. They have a marked effect on conceptual design and teams should not be disadvantaged by the late introduction of the rules.

I would hope that all Australian teams will contribute to this forum to voice their opinion.

Kev

StevenWebb

06-15-2011, 04:57 AM

"Formula SAE-Australasia will not offer the Alternative Frame Rules for
local submission in 2011."

hopefully nobody went too far down that road before reading this (our chassis was already finished before we read this- imagine if we'd used the new rules?)

Mike Cook

06-15-2011, 06:10 AM

Scott, I'm not sure your current design direction is really favored by the rules. Basically in my mind, increasing fuel economy any more than it already is, hugely favors single cylinders which your good on, but it also massively penalizes drag. So maybe all of the wings are going to hurt you?

Search back to a post by Bob Pasch -- Before the rules changed fuel economy from 50 points to 100 a few years ago, it was about a break even between the 4 cylinder cars and the singles. With fuel economy at 100 points it massively favored singles (i.e. look at Oregon, winning endurance (lap times) by a huge amount and pretty much winning fuel this year at MIS). The best cars in the world were at that competition, both 4 cylinders and singles, and the 4 cylinders had really nothing on GFR. They were slower, and they burned more fuel. OF course I'm not really implying that GFR is only winning because of their car layout---I'm sure they worked their ass off on it and it is highly refined - but so for instance is Stuggart's car. Look at the scores.

If you want to win competition, you need to look at the events which offer the most points over your opponents. From the recent MIS scores, the point spread over the top 5 teams for each event are:

Endurance: 40
Fuel 26.5
Design: 25
Autox: 24
Cost: 6
Accel: 6
Presentation: 5
Skidpad: 2

Clearly, accel and skidpad don't really matter. If you bring a good car you will do fine in those events and not lose many points. The scaling of the scoring in those events is way off and doesn't reward optimization.

The biggest spread currently are in endurance, fuel, design, and autocross. As all teams switch to a lighter weight single engine, the top scores in fuel will cluster and the spread will probably only be about 8 points (diminishing returns).

With this new rules set, autocross gets less points, so the spread in that event will get reduced by about 33%, so instead of a 25point spread it will be around 16.

Finally everything will come down to design. It depends also on the way they structure the new points scaling. If design is 200 points, and everyone who doesn't get into design semi finals gets 150 points (i.e. 50 point offset to current scoring) there won't be a damn bit of difference. But, if the max a team can get is 100 points without going to the semis (as it is currently), there will be about a 100 point spread over 10 cars. Given the diminishing spread in all of the other events, the winning team in design will probably win the whole event most of the time.

Anyways, back to the points change. How in the world can you change the point system with less than 6 months to competition? Are these guys on crack? Maybe they don't realize that point restructure totally affects optimal design? Do they realize how many teams have already put a huge amount of effort into their current cars - and perhaps the new point system really eliminates any chance at winning for them? I can perhaps understand last minute safety changes if something terrible happened at another event and we as a group needed to prevent it from ever happening again. But there is really no reason to change a point system last minute. At this time, teams are so far along in design, the points restructure won't really drive the students design. So what does SAE expect to get out of this? They should have just implemented it for 2012. I know most teams have probably moved from 1 year design cylces to 1.5 or 2 year design cycles, and in general the rules really need to be released earlier.

Tech Guy

06-15-2011, 06:35 AM

Mike,
Excellent analysis. Looking at the points spread puts things in perspective.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Finally everything will come down to design. It depends also on the way they structure the new points scaling. If design is 200 points, and everyone who doesn't get into design semi finals gets 150 points (i.e. 50 point offset to current scoring) there won't be a damn bit of difference. But, if the max a team can get is 100 points without going to the semis (as it is currently), there will be about a 100 point spread over 10 cars. Given the diminishing spread in all of the other events, the winning team in design will probably win the whole event most of the time. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So if this new points system is adopted, you are suggesting that no matter how good your car is on the track in autocross (for which it is supposedly designed) or Endurance (which everyone knows you have to finish), if it does not make Design Semis it has no chance whatsoever of winning, or even making the top 5 or 10!

Mike Cook

06-15-2011, 07:47 AM

Tech Guy,

Of course their are cavets...My analysis was assuming you were already a pretty good team, finishing in the top 5 or even 10 in all events. The difference between 10th place in skid pad and even 1st place is very much at all. Lets just say for instance, you finished first in every event except design, in which you finished just out of the semis. You lose 100 points in design. The team that won design, finishes 5th in every other event.

They would lose:
Presentation ~ 5points (Presentation being 50 points)
Cost ~ 6 points
Accel ~ 4 (accel total being 50 points)
skid pad ~ 3
autocross ~ 16 points
Endurance ~ 40
Fuel ~ 26
----------
100 points

My point is, it is not very hard to finish 5th in a single event. It is very difficult to finish first. If it were me, I would spend a lot more time preparing for design, and if you have a great design your car should be good enough to finish top five in dynamic events. You win.

Pete Marsh

06-15-2011, 07:58 AM

So do we get a German style efficiency score for fuel? Or just the regular formula?

I guess this is pretty similar to the chassis rules concept, they just keep tweaking them until everybody builds the car they like to see. No body wants to see different concepts being competitive with each other, what could you ever learn from that!

What a laugh design event will be with everybody soooo convincing how their awesome deign makes the most from a points structure that didn't exist when the car should have been designed.

Thrainer

06-15-2011, 03:59 PM

Interesting analyses, Mike. I first thought you took the top five (overall score) and then looked up their points in the single events. That could be interesting as well. If I remember correctly, top 3 overall are normally not very good in Cost... .

Here are the event points for FSAE and FS from 2011 and 2012: http://www.formulastudent.com/...FS2012/Proposal.aspx (http://www.formulastudent.com/events/FS2012/Proposal.aspx)
At FSG, it's 75 Pts for Skidpad and Acceleration, 100 Pts for Autocross and Efficiency, and 325 Pts for Endurance.

So, there are five different scoring systems at the moment: FSAE, FS Class 1, FS Class 1A, FSG and FSAE-A.

At the four events we are attending this year, we are facing three different scoring systems (four if you count the conversion of electricity -> petrol at FSA). Did anyone mention multi-target optimization? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> no matter how good your car is on the track ..., if it does not make Design Semis it has no chance whatsoever of winning </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
As Pat said, FSAE is an engineering design competition. So, the point you're stating is totally fine with me. If the fastest car won, it would be a race.

Regards
Thomas

StevenWebb

06-15-2011, 05:17 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> no matter how good your car is on the track ..., if it does not make Design Semis it has no chance whatsoever of winning </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
As Pat said, FSAE is an engineering design competition. So, the point you're stating is totally fine with me. If the fastest car won, it would be a race.

Regards
Thomas </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

yes its an engineering competition, but arent we trying to engineer the fastest car, not the "best designed" one?

imagine "we went to xxx engine because it would help in fuel even though it hurt our acceleration event, because fuel economy is worth more" is to be replaced with "we put this fragile fancy piece of engineering on our car to help in design even though it hurt the time we had to prepare for acceleration and skidpad because design is worth more"

Kevin Hayward

06-15-2011, 06:02 PM

I think the larger problem here is not the implications to strategy or design that the new points score will have.

Rather it is the fact that it was introduced well into the year after most teams had made their conceptual decisions (as well as a lot of detailed design and some construction).

Kev

Big Bird

06-15-2011, 06:43 PM

Just thought I'd offer my 2c AU worth.

Firstly, I havent had time to digest Mike's analysis - but I'm impressed. Well worth a read.

Secondly, I'm with Kev. I have a soft spot for the old rules, as they were nicely matched such that a range of different concepts could compete (the old timers will fondly remember the Oz 04 comp). For a learning exercise in engineering design, that is a great outcome - one problem, multiple solutions. I fear too much points tampering will tend to favour a certain type of vehicle concept, and we'll gravitate towards a universal solution.

On the other hand, as long as the points breakdown is known, then a good engineering team will design to that rules set. (And this competition is about establishing who is the best engineering team, not who can build the fastest car).

The problem is, as Kev stated, that the new pointscoring system has been imposed long after conceptual designs should have been completed. Those who have laboured through my design thread would understand where I coming from with top-down design. I'm afraid if the rule set is not confidently known at the start of design, then one of the key learning outcomes is lost. Participation then sinks to "lets just build whatever we think is cool, and see what happens". That is not engineering.

Cheers all,

Scott Wordley

06-16-2011, 03:51 AM

We would also support a delay in implementing these new rules... its way too late in the year to drop this on teams now. We really need at least 12 months notice, and preferably more. The competition (and the design judges) demand a top down design approach which is impossible with changes of this magnitude coming this late in the year. We are already rolling!

Also, like Pete had mentioned if fuel MUST go to 125 points, then the German efficiency scoring system is a much better model, and one that we would support. This model rewards fast cars enough to actually make it worthwhile for teams to drive as fast as the car can go, rather than short shifting everywhere and running longer gears in order to save fuel. Last year we tested a range of drivers for endurance, and measured average lap time as well as fuel usage. We ended up putting drivers in the car who were actually slower than others because their fuel (point) saving outweighed the extra speed others were capable of. This will only get worse if the current system is increased to 125 points, we will have to train our drivers to coast around as much as possible, whilst backing off the wings massively to save on drag, and sending the car out stone cold. Endurance will become a super mileage event, with the fastest teams punished for their track speed. Not much of a spectacle either. How do you explain to people that you are driving slow and letting other teams pass you so that you can win?

I am also concerned by the design points increase to 200. As the analysis above has pointed out, at the pointy end of competition it is next to impossible to pull a 100 gap on everyone else, which means that regardless of how fast your car is, and how well prepared you are as a team and how good your drivers are, the judges will have the power to decide if you win or not. We see this preparation and adherence to a timeline and testing schedule as evidence of good design and project management, we have focused on what is important to deliver the best performing car, but I don't think the judges appreciate it as much as flawless integration, carbon everything, reams of FEA, and super light weight.

We have won design in the past but have also been on the end of some pretty punishing results. This is particularly bad in comps where judges admittedly take no notice of on track performance. It is a huge chunk of points to allocate in a manner which seems semi-arbitrary at times, and can reward shiny cars with no testing and trick bits that often don't perform as advertised.

Like Geoff I had a soft spot for the old rules. They stood for 20 odd years and allowed a variety of different concepts to compete on near equal footing. The investment to reward ratio was fair going in most directions (increased power, increased grip, increased fuel economy, reduced weight) and from a variety of different starting points (single, twin or 4 cylinder). Thats a pretty amazing thing. The shift to 100 points for fuel was basically the nail in the coffin of the 4 cylinders. No offense, but anyone who can't see that now has got their head in the sand.

Plus the increased wing size rules and the local shift to 75 points for Skidpan will basically mandate wings for everyone. As the only winged team in the UK last year we gaped the competition by 0.3 of a second, or 10 points out of 50. In Australia it was 13 points. With a lighter car, double the downforce and 75 points available, the gap in 2011 could be 25 points. Potentially good for us in the short term but do we want a competition where every car is a winged single? I think that would be a real shame.

Charlie

06-16-2011, 07:33 AM

I have two points:

First off, this rule change occurred without sufficient explanation, and the timing is far from reasonable. It should be delayed until 2012, at the minimum.

Secondly, I am strongly opposed to the increase in design points. I have been part of the design event as both a student and a judge, and it is a great event. It is also highly subjective. Depending on the judges at hand and their experience, points can swing easily. Due to the volunteer nature of the event, and the busy schedules of many professionals, adequate feedback on scores cannot always be provided. Teams often feel that the design event is a 'black box' that they don't fully understand.

Compared the the effort students put into these cars over the season, the design event cannot ever be executed with complete fairness, in a one hour period. Therefore, this event should not affect the outcome of the event more than car performance.

Don't get me wrong, the design event is a terrific event. Students likely learn a lot more in this event than any other. Professional critique is a great example of why FSAE is great. Additionally, teams typically take the design event seriously and it has a very high level of prestige. Therefore I don't expect teams to work harder at design with the new points spread, only to be more frustrated and unhappy when it has a greater effect on their overall finish.

Finally, the statement that FSAE is 'an engineering design event after all' is not true. The phrase is used to describe the event, but it is a major simplification. Taking that to mean design should be most important is patently false. If that were the case, we would just submit our designs via computer and race them on iRacing. FSAE is a competition specifically oriented to real-world results. It is not an event that is meant to focus solely on design. The rulebook states the goal of the FSAE competition best.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The Formula SAE ® Series competitions challenge teams of university undergraduate and graduate students to conceive, design, fabricate and compete with small, formula style, vehicles.

The challenge to teams is to develop a vehicle that can successfully compete in all the events described in the FSAE Rules. The competitions themselves give teams the chance to demonstrate and prove both their creativity and their engineering skills in comparison to teams from other universities around the world. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kevin Hayward

06-16-2011, 07:33 AM

The addendum does not completely explain the change to the points score. In each dynamic event there is not a single number in the formula that is replacable (i.e 75 in accel to the 50) due to the small amount of points given to times above Tmax. Are we to assume a straight-forward scaling of the equations? It is not completely explained. It appears if we go ahead we will at least need an addendum to the addendum http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Kev

Rex Chan

06-16-2011, 10:27 AM

Just a quick note: the rules state that these changes were meant to put more focus on the vehicle, rather than the drivers. This makes sense, and is reflected in the 150 to 100 points for AutoX. However, maybe they should have put those points somewhere else (maybe Enduro, so that the main event is actually the main event?)

From a Melbourne Uni point of view, AutoX losing 50 points will be good for us, as we traditionally don't have very quick drivers (FSAE being a final year project only). Maybe it was a response to Swinburne having a V8 Supercar driver? One would also think an academic uni like ours would do well in Design, but the last 2 years haven't been great.

All in all, I don't think it would have changed our designs much (I wonder what that says about us), and hopefully we'll go alright. Maybe the focus on fuel would make us focus more on tuning for economy, but we try to do that anyway with E85. A good, reliable, quick car will do pretty well; only those fighting for the top 2-3 spots at the Australian comp would be affected greatly.

MalcolmG

06-16-2011, 04:54 PM

I thoroughly agree with a lot of points made so far, it's completely ridiculous to bring in a new points system so late in the year, and I will also add that while it sounds like some of the teams from Melbourne were involved in some sort of consultation earlier in the year, from asking around it seems none of the Auckland team or its faculty advisors have any knowledge of any such proposal. Nice work on keeping everyone informed, SAE-A.

As for the actual effect of the new points, I'm not convinced it's a complete game changer. The effect of the change in skidpad and accel points isn't huge - I checked how it would affect our score from 2008 when we won accel and decent but not great in skidpad (38.5/50, 5th place) - our score only decreased by 6 points, which wouldn't be something to spark back to the drawing board design changes to me (in isolation).

I would also suggest that it's unlikely that they're only going to allow design finalists to score over 100, so would suggest withholding speculation that two front running teams are suddenly going to be severed by a 100 point chasm because one was on the wrong end of unfair judging. I do agree to an extent that the subjective nature of the design event makes me nervous about it being worth so much (if it was the mysterious business or cost events they'd made worth 200 points, you'd might as well give up trying)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Scott Wordley:

Plus the increased wing size rules and the local shift to 75 points for Skidpan will basically mandate wings for everyone. As the only winged team in the UK last year we gaped the competition by 0.3 of a second, or 10 points out of 50. In Australia it was 13 points. With a lighter car, double the downforce and 75 points available, the gap in 2011 could be 25 points. Potentially good for us in the short term but do we want a competition where every car is a winged single? I think that would be a real shame. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Scott, do you have any numbers you'd be willing to share on the effect of your wings on your skidpad times? I would've thought a large part of your success in skidpad was down to having a very well sorted chassis - i.e. I suspect you probably would've still won without the wings (by a smaller margin of course). Point being that while you may have won by 10 or so points, I'd be interested to know whether that's 10 points from the wings or 5 points from the wings and 5 points from getting everything else right.

Also I think your results in fuel from last year, where the top teams were all 4 cylinder cars, possibly show there's a high cost (set to get higher) of carrying those wings around for an endurance. I would also think that when you add that drag to a lower output single car, it's probably going to have an even greater effect on fuel use. So I'm not convinced it's going to force teams into a standard single and wings design concept - although I guess we'll have to see how much quicker you are with the new aero rules to get an idea of just how much advantage wings will give in autox and enduro.

Scott Wordley

06-16-2011, 05:38 PM

Malcom, if I remember correctly, in our SAE paper I think we measured a 0.2-0.3 sec improvement with the wings for skidpan, which is basically our margin on the best 4 cylinder teams.

Remember also our car had no diff and is not overly light nor did it have a super low cg. Maybe carrying the inside rear wheel in the air for most of skidpan is the secret? Perhaps our Avons helped, we have yet to compare skidpan times on Goodyears, but I doubt there will be much difference.

Will be interesting to see how Maryland, Sooner and GFR do this week in Cali...

Also none of us were officially informed by SAE that anything would be changing. I think Pat Clarke was just trying to let as many teams as possible know that there might be something happening on that front. I think they tried to get as many team representative to the informal chat as possible, and by no means was anyone excluded. We had no idea it was coming this soon.

Wings definitely allow you to use your engine more, and consequently use more fuel. But having no dyno for a year and no spare engines to develop makes it hard to do well in fuel also. Will have to hope we get the DRS system working well enough to help out in enduro, otherwise we just turn out the flaps permanently.

MartyB

06-16-2011, 06:19 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MalcolmG:
Also I think your results in fuel from last year, where the top teams were all 4 cylinder cars, possibly show there's a high cost (set to get higher) of carrying those wings around for an endurance. I would also think that when you add that drag to a lower output single car, it's probably going to have an even greater effect on fuel use. So I'm not convinced it's going to force teams into a standard single and wings design concept - although I guess we'll have to see how much quicker you are with the new aero rules to get an idea of just how much advantage wings will give in autox and enduro. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting enough, our sims are telling us that only 33% of the increased fuel cost for wings arises due to drag. The rest is attributed to the higher velocities through corners, shorter braking distances (means longer straights), that arises from the down force component.

An efficiency score like in FSG would be better for wings, as the higher fuel usage correlates to a quicker lap time, and you would only lose points for drag, not downforce.

MalcolmG

06-16-2011, 08:11 PM

That is interesting, although I have a question: when you say you have extra fuel use due to higher cornering speeds, do you mean the extra engine power required to overcome the greater slip angle induced drag due to the higher lateral force from the tyres? If so that would surely be the same as a car achieving similar lap times but without wings. Presumably you don't mean the extra power to overcome the additional aerodynamic drag due to the higher speed.

You could also argue that later braking is in part due to not reaching as high a speed on the straight due to the drag, and that some percentage of the improved braking performance is due to the additional drag from the wings http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

My point is that if 66% of your extra fuel use comes spending more time accelerating and overcoming slip angle induced drag, then you'd expect cars running similar lap times without wings should see similar effects and the gap in fuel use should be smaller. I can't remember results off hand but I'm sure UWA and Stuttgart, for instance, were using a great deal less fuel in 2008 and 2009.

I do however appreciate your point Scott about not being able to tune to optimise fuel efficiency - in fact looking at results from 2010 (SAE-A don't have very thorough results on their website) it looks like Swinburne may be a better comparison as they were the closest in autocross and enduro and didn't do a lot better in fuel.

Also Scott, while your car (sans wings) may not seem on paper like the perfect skidpad car, I think you guys come to closest to getting the most out of your tyres than any other Aus team I've seen in recent years. I've seen you guys gradually improve the performance of that concept over the last 5 years or so, and from my perspective it seems you guys have extracted more and more every year. It's just my opinion but I think if you'd been doing the same on a non-winged concept for the last X years, you'd still be winning skidpad, but perhaps not by as big a gap

Pete Marsh

06-16-2011, 09:16 PM

Well half of the posters here are faculty advisers. Will there be a united approach to SAE-A about this from the faculty advisers? What is the desired outcome that achieves their goals, but does not unfairly advantage, or disadvantage,individual teams? Given that it's really too late to change anything to suit the new points spread.

I believe the speed of the cars, the venue, and the average speed targets all conspire to increase the influence of the driver in recent Australian events. Modern FSAE tracks are VERY difficult.

I have long held a belief it would be good for a professional driver judge to drive the cars to evaluate the ergo and controls properly, as I don't believe the effort put into this area of the car be properly assessed by just sitting in the car. If they really want to reduce the driver skill component why not take the 50 points from Autocross, and the extra 50 points from design and make a 100 point "test drive" event. It could still be largely subjective, but would allow a true indication of the feel, comfort and performance difference between the cars. Having driven a few FSAE cars in my time, I can tell you they vary a lot.

The only way skid pan is not a driver skill event is if you have giant wings, and no one else does. That skid vs accell points decision has clearly been made by someone that has never had to achieve a good skid pan time on bumpy concrete! In the wet! I absolutely believe Scott's 25 point break analysis. Malcolm, did you see it last year? It was like a video on fast forward! And now they have DOUBLE the effective down force. 25 points is a lot to walk away from, and if one team has giant wings and DRS, everyone will have to have it.

As for fuel, if it must be 125 points then surely it makes more sense to adopt the efficiency formula that goes with it in Germany. It would seem to be more in line with the event's philosophy. Otherwise you will maximise the points score by slowing down. Doing less work is not a design solution for energy efficiency, it's just doing less. I think everyone realises a light bulb uses less energy if it is switched off, or not as bright, that's not engineering.

Wasn't it so much easier when everybody just built roast beef with vegetables?

Pete

MalcolmG

06-16-2011, 10:26 PM

FWIW, running the numbers on skidpad times (using FS 2010 results as the competition was undoubtedly better)
1st Monash: 4.918
2nd Delft: 5.055

Using the current skidpad formula but changing the 47.5 to 72.5, in order for Monash to put 25 points on Delft they'd need to drop their time to about 4.65 seconds.
Assuming a radius of 9m that gives me a change of lateral acceleration from 1.5 to 1.68Gs. I think if you manage that I'll literally shit myself http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

MalcolmG

06-16-2011, 10:34 PM

BTW something I hadn't thought about too much is the effect of DRS. I think on a course like the Aus track it'll be hard to extract a lot of benefit with manual actuation due to the fact that straight lines make up about 10% of it. Are you planning to have some sort of controller that'll employ it under certain circumstances? Or just training your drivers to get used to operating it in situations other than long straights? I'm definitely very interested to see what you guys come up with this year

Scott Wordley

06-17-2011, 02:24 AM

I think we got down to 4.86 in Australia last year?
And yes, as Pete mentioned we are hoping to double our effective downforce ratio this year (downforce/car and driver weight). 4.65 is a definite challenge and one that theoretically should be possible. In fact I wouldnt be surprised if Sooner, Maryland or GFR are able to hit that in Cali tomorrow, as they should all have a similar ratios.

As for DRS we have done all the CFD to quantify it, and not surprising found we are able to drop around 65% of our drag with it actuated. We also took a lot of effort to find settings which maintained the aero balance of the car, to hopefully prevent snap oversteer or understeer moments on actuation, alla this video when we did an impromptu DRS test during enduro...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Y0FZAakgE

We ran the results through our point sims and actuating only twice a lap on the fastest straight bits, on an AUS 2009 spec track, we see a "worthwhile" point differential, pretty evenly spread across autox, enduro and fuel. The differential reaches a max pretty soon after that, so we think that driver actuated only a couple of times a lap will get you the majority of points. Computer controlled, like Sooner's should give a few more points if done correctly but could also reduce the predictability of the car unless your drivers have lots of time to practise and get a feel for the system and learn to anticipate it. I imagine there would be a wide range of driver preferences in this respect.

We are still unsure on how to actuate it at the moment, looking into motors, solenoids, cables and all sorts of stuff. Should be fun!

So we are bringing DRS for the straight stuff and something else to help us through the tight twisty stuff... hopefully there is no track they could spring that we wouldn't like!

Kevin Hayward

06-17-2011, 02:25 AM

Malcom,

A DRS controller using motec would be very easy if you have the actuators on the wings (the hard part). Manual operation would be a pain.

I also think that Monash may be targeting that sort of skidpan time, if they haven't been completely dishonest in the last Race Magazine. We have recently been doing the CFD on the rules changes (2011 not 2012 Oz) and the relative improvement of aero is quite large. Still 4.65 seems a little too low, but would be great to watch.

Kev

Kevin Hayward

06-17-2011, 02:26 AM

That video is Awesome!!

Scott Wordley

06-17-2011, 02:31 AM

By "manual", I'm thinking electronic still, and button operated by the driver. Right thumb, so you can still steer a little and up shift with your left hand? We will see, as you say, ECU controlled may be easier.

StevenWebb

06-17-2011, 02:42 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MalcolmG:
That is interesting, although I have a question: when you say you have extra fuel use due to higher cornering speeds, do you mean the extra engine power required to overcome the greater slip angle induced drag due to the higher lateral force from the tyres? If so that would surely be the same as a car achieving similar lap times but without wings. Presumably you don't mean the extra power to overcome the additional aerodynamic drag due to the higher speed.

My point is that if 66% of your extra fuel use comes spending more time accelerating and overcoming slip angle induced drag, then you'd expect cars running similar lap times without wings should see similar effects and the gap in fuel use should be smaller. I can't remember results off hand but I'm sure UWA and Stuttgart, for instance, were using a great deal less fuel in 2008 and 2009. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

if you compare a winged car and a non winged car with equal times, they wont be going equal speeds everywhere. the for them to both have same laptimes, the non winged car would need to have a higher grip coefficient (or be so narrow it doesnt see the slaloms http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif) either way, the non winged car will be quicker in the slow stuff, the aero car will be quicker in the fast stuff. because of the squared relationship between drag and acceleration energy with speed, the car with the same drag as a normal car, high downforce, and a low tyre coefficient will use more fuel. Our change to a single isnt so we win fuel- its so we dont get -50 for fuel with this years wings

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">

I have long held a belief it would be good for a professional driver judge to drive the cars to evaluate the ergo and controls properly, as I don't believe the effort put into this area of the car be properly assessed by just sitting in the car. If they really want to reduce the driver skill component why not take the 50 points from Autocross, and the extra 50 points from design and make a 100 point "test drive" event. It could still be largely subjective, but would allow a true indication of the feel, comfort and performance difference between the cars. Having driven a few FSAE cars in my time, I can tell you they vary a lot. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

i'll see you the tuesday after comp http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif , i'll even make a trophy for you to give out

For sqidpad, we did a 4.79 in one direction last year, and one of our team members this year has already got a phonecall from police for taking the campus roundabout too quickly.

Just so everyone knows, the increased monash forum activity recently is because we're "studying for exams"

woodsy96

06-17-2011, 04:03 PM

"Studying for exams." Where's the like button? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

In regard to the driver's affect on the competition outcome, I think that is part of the nature of the competition - at the end of the day the competition is to design, build and compete in race cars. But it is not the be all and end all- as far as I am aware none of Monash's drivers are serious racers, and atm they are the team to beat.

Providing that anyone with a little driving nous has a decent amount of seat time they will put in a good performance. When preparing the team's timeline this has to be considered - no different to training astronauts how to use all the gizmos when designing and building a space shuttle, or writing instruction manuals for products for consumers. It's a part of engineering process.

Boffin

06-19-2011, 03:46 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MalcolmG:
I do however appreciate your point Scott about not being able to tune to optimise fuel efficiency - in fact looking at results from 2010 (SAE-A don't have very thorough results on their website) it looks like Swinburne may be a better comparison as they were the closest in autocross and enduro and didn't do a lot better in fuel. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>For every ones info, we used 3kg (4 liters) of fuel for our fastest enduro, and I believe Monash used 3.5kg (4.7 liters). This is on 98.

Pete, can you remember what UWA used in their last full pace enduro? I can recall figures of 3.5 in 08 or 09, but don't know if that's liters of kg.

Pete Marsh

06-21-2011, 09:20 PM

We have never really run flat out in enduro. There has always been some sort of fuel/tyre/cone saving strategy. Except maybe '04 Aus, where we went for it to try and catch the Gongs, but hit 1 min worth of cones!
Our Power train has been somewhat lacklustre in recent years, but generally a good car on a Aus style track will use around 3.5 Litres or less.

On more flowing international tracks we have achieved 3.1 Litres, once when we were by far the fastest, and once when third, but with two spins that cost some time.

Pete

Rex Chan

06-24-2011, 12:00 PM

I just wanted to add our FSAE-A 2010 fuel usage figures:

First enduro: 4.56kg(E85)=5.85L(E85)=4.18L(98RON). Car went straight from fuelling station to enduro lineup
Second enduro: 4.09kg(E85)=5.24L(E85)=3.75L(98RON). Car went to practice track, then refuelled again before enduro

We don't know which enduro counted towards overall points score, as we were late for second enduro (due to accident involving a nosecone, IA, the armco, and Murray Brookes), though we did get second in Fuel Economy.

However, you will notice a rather large difference in the amount of fuel used between enduros, and I don't think it was mostly due to drivers. I don't really have a way to check, but I think the 2010 fuel tank design (copied from 2009) allows air bubbles to be trapped when refueled. If you shake the car after fueling (illegal under comp rules, but not during testing), the fuel level drops out of view of the sight tube. Thus, 4.18L(98RON) is probably a truer indication of our fuel usage.

Pete Marsh

07-27-2011, 08:13 PM

AAAHHHGGGGG!

They are going with the normal US rules points formula for fuel event, just scaled by 125.

Super mileage comp anyone?

The question will be will everyone slow down so T min (and the 300 points) is 30 min or so, or will someone go for it and try to jump ahead enough with the enduro points to make up for the fuel burn.

Might be worth shedding a few points in autocross to run later so you can react to the other runners?

Oh, well, at least we are learning useful engineering skills, demonstrating our design projects, as these rules don't force strategy like real racers on us at all... NOT!!!

Also I'm not dark because I think UWA's concept is unfairly disadvantaged by a late change(but it is), as one of the cars able to influence T min we will be ok, I just think changing the rules to encourage the reduction of work/demand is a joke.

I know how to solve the countries CO2 emissions, it's easy. Just stop doing things, no electricity, no trucks, no cars. See, easy!

Why bother pursuing efficiency? no one will mind going without I'm sure????

Pete

Rex Chan

07-28-2011, 10:00 AM

Re: Pete Marsh - the new rules didn't seem to raise any concerns with the people I spoke to about it on the 2011 team. Probably because we don't analyse it enough. Which means we'll be going out to go as fast as possible. We still think of it as a comp where going fast is the aim. Though even building a car is hard enough. We'll tackle the fuel usage by being more serious in our engine tune with regards to reducing fuel usage where its not needed (off throttle, RPM cut, part load). Though we are planning to run AutoX with a special flame-spitting exhaust mode (overrun with bonus fuel and spark timing after TDC...). Its free E85 at comp = gotta make the most of it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif