Claude Rouelle
08-24-2013, 06:20 PM
I would like to share with you a few impressions about the wonderful time I spent judging at Formula Student Germany and more specifically during the design finals.
Once again FSG was up to its strong and still growing reputation.
People around the world know Germans for their strong engineering and manufacturing skills (think German car manufacturers) and their open mind and investment in renewable energy. Germany is in fact the most ecological country of all the industrial countries. In fast the 2 main employers ifn Germany are the renewable energy and the automotive industries. See the correlation with FSG E?
But most of people around the world think of Germans as really well organized but not very funny (unless you show up during one their always memorable beer party!)
Well… think again. FSG demonstrated that it is possible to be extremely well organized and make it happen in a wonderful, smiling, welcoming atmosphere and also be very inviting and welcoming to different cultures and experience. Competence and fun.
I spent a lot of time in the paddock speaking with students offering positive (well Ok...not always....) criticisms and advice every day, sometimes until 1:30 AM. That was fun.
One of the many reasons FSG is successful is that there is no curfew, the paddock is always open and the camping is 3 minutes away from the paddock; that is so helpful for students to meet, speak together, watch each other car, help each other. That is one of the many reasons of the excellent FSG atmosphere.
The level of car design and manufacturing excellence was up a significant step compared to last year.
The vehicle dynamics knowledge was also up a significant notch; students know better and better WHY they design such and such part of the car, they understand better, they simulate better, they test and analyze logged data better and they also correlate simulation and data analysis better.
I think the OptimumG seminar is one of the little reasons and source that helps the students if not to get the right answers, at least to draw the list of the right questions.
The bottom 1/3 of the cars was up 3 notches. Except 1 or 2 exceptions I did not see any real bad, unfinished cars. I did not see any team who did not care (yes I have seen that at a few other competitions; people who really did not want to be there…).
The middle of the pack was 2 notches better and the top 1/3 was 1 notch better. Difficult to improve a lot when you already had a very good car last year.
I noticed that while top teams are still gaining on engineering skills and knowledge it seems they are slowing losing enthusiasm when defending their car in design, while at the same time, to be fair, the design judges expectations of already good teams are very (too?) high.
I would like to share with you the wonderful experience I had in both electrical and combustion cars design final.
Students were probably expecting from me a few of these vehicle dynamics challenging questions (Don’t worry I still have these – and cooking new ones - for the future).
This time I was not going to be about slip angle, yaw inertia, roll critical damping or pitch center. This time I came with something really different.
The question I asked was in 3 parts
- What in YOUR definition of the perfect team and the perfect car.
- On a scale of 0 to 10 where do you grade your team and your car
- What do you need to do to make your team and your car a 10 out of 10?
What I was a looking for was a sort of mission statement but in 3 or 4 paragraphs, not just one stereotyped, too short, one sentence definition.
Before students start answering I insisted that in my mind there was no ideal definition of the perfect team or perfect car because such answer are so dependent of team experience, culture, country, habits, budget, university size and tools etc… However there are answers which are well thought, well articulate, created by the team members for the team members and very present in every members mind.
What an experience! It was so much fun! Philosophically it was so rewarding!
Some answers were more well thought and enunciated than others but all of them were a good mixture of brain and heart.
The important think I want to share with you is that there was a clear connection between the average score that about 50 judges of many different specialties gave to each finalist (you would be surprised of the low standard deviation between the judges scores) and the impression I got from (and the score I gave to) each team.
The top teams in the final were clearly the one who had thought (as a team, not just as one person) about the answer to these questions: the way they answered it clearly showed they did not improvised; the answers were there in their brain (I would say and in their emotions) since the beginning of their project.
If a team knows WHY they do what they do, HOW and WHEN they do it, there is a great chance they are doing it right.
If all these goals, means, individual and team strengths and weakness, tools, education , experience, budget and time constraints are well defined and shared by the team, there is a good chance that both team and car will be a few years later close to a 10.
I think each team should, as a group, answer the 3 questions (These are difficult questions) before rushing to any simulation, Solidworks drawings or CNC machining
Boy, these design finals were fun; it did fill my soul at least as much as my brain.
These guys gave me much, much more than I gave them.
Thank you!
Once again FSG was up to its strong and still growing reputation.
People around the world know Germans for their strong engineering and manufacturing skills (think German car manufacturers) and their open mind and investment in renewable energy. Germany is in fact the most ecological country of all the industrial countries. In fast the 2 main employers ifn Germany are the renewable energy and the automotive industries. See the correlation with FSG E?
But most of people around the world think of Germans as really well organized but not very funny (unless you show up during one their always memorable beer party!)
Well… think again. FSG demonstrated that it is possible to be extremely well organized and make it happen in a wonderful, smiling, welcoming atmosphere and also be very inviting and welcoming to different cultures and experience. Competence and fun.
I spent a lot of time in the paddock speaking with students offering positive (well Ok...not always....) criticisms and advice every day, sometimes until 1:30 AM. That was fun.
One of the many reasons FSG is successful is that there is no curfew, the paddock is always open and the camping is 3 minutes away from the paddock; that is so helpful for students to meet, speak together, watch each other car, help each other. That is one of the many reasons of the excellent FSG atmosphere.
The level of car design and manufacturing excellence was up a significant step compared to last year.
The vehicle dynamics knowledge was also up a significant notch; students know better and better WHY they design such and such part of the car, they understand better, they simulate better, they test and analyze logged data better and they also correlate simulation and data analysis better.
I think the OptimumG seminar is one of the little reasons and source that helps the students if not to get the right answers, at least to draw the list of the right questions.
The bottom 1/3 of the cars was up 3 notches. Except 1 or 2 exceptions I did not see any real bad, unfinished cars. I did not see any team who did not care (yes I have seen that at a few other competitions; people who really did not want to be there…).
The middle of the pack was 2 notches better and the top 1/3 was 1 notch better. Difficult to improve a lot when you already had a very good car last year.
I noticed that while top teams are still gaining on engineering skills and knowledge it seems they are slowing losing enthusiasm when defending their car in design, while at the same time, to be fair, the design judges expectations of already good teams are very (too?) high.
I would like to share with you the wonderful experience I had in both electrical and combustion cars design final.
Students were probably expecting from me a few of these vehicle dynamics challenging questions (Don’t worry I still have these – and cooking new ones - for the future).
This time I was not going to be about slip angle, yaw inertia, roll critical damping or pitch center. This time I came with something really different.
The question I asked was in 3 parts
- What in YOUR definition of the perfect team and the perfect car.
- On a scale of 0 to 10 where do you grade your team and your car
- What do you need to do to make your team and your car a 10 out of 10?
What I was a looking for was a sort of mission statement but in 3 or 4 paragraphs, not just one stereotyped, too short, one sentence definition.
Before students start answering I insisted that in my mind there was no ideal definition of the perfect team or perfect car because such answer are so dependent of team experience, culture, country, habits, budget, university size and tools etc… However there are answers which are well thought, well articulate, created by the team members for the team members and very present in every members mind.
What an experience! It was so much fun! Philosophically it was so rewarding!
Some answers were more well thought and enunciated than others but all of them were a good mixture of brain and heart.
The important think I want to share with you is that there was a clear connection between the average score that about 50 judges of many different specialties gave to each finalist (you would be surprised of the low standard deviation between the judges scores) and the impression I got from (and the score I gave to) each team.
The top teams in the final were clearly the one who had thought (as a team, not just as one person) about the answer to these questions: the way they answered it clearly showed they did not improvised; the answers were there in their brain (I would say and in their emotions) since the beginning of their project.
If a team knows WHY they do what they do, HOW and WHEN they do it, there is a great chance they are doing it right.
If all these goals, means, individual and team strengths and weakness, tools, education , experience, budget and time constraints are well defined and shared by the team, there is a good chance that both team and car will be a few years later close to a 10.
I think each team should, as a group, answer the 3 questions (These are difficult questions) before rushing to any simulation, Solidworks drawings or CNC machining
Boy, these design finals were fun; it did fill my soul at least as much as my brain.
These guys gave me much, much more than I gave them.
Thank you!