FSAE is slowly turning into a spec series

[stayflatandkeepturning]

This tread was spurred by FSG latest rules but has been building for quite some time now. First in regards to the new rules, why can we not have a unified rule book valid at all sanctioned competitions? For years we have been at a slight disadvantage in Michigan due to constructing our car to meet FSG rules. In particular the front wing height rule. Now I feel that this is going to be further exploited as when you decrease the rear wing height you now impose more turbulence on it and reduce down force, and with the ban on unsprung aerodynamics you can lose even more performance from now having to have your vehicle ridiculously stiff and susceptible to variations in ride height. Secondly what happened to the 1 year notice, many of the teams are in full swing, finishing up design and in the Aussies case (Monash who were planning on returning to FSG in 2014) have a vehicle built and running. In Monash's case they will have to drastically change their vehicle to compete in Germany this coming year.

Back more to the thread topic. For years it seems that the rules and competition are forcing student to converge on a very similar car. Just look at the last few competitions and you will see that there is a clear formula that the competion judges and courses cater to with the rare exception. The design judges will say that there is very little innovation in FSAE, I agree, but on the stance that innovation is often met with new rules that outlaw it, not being able to compete due to the radical idea, or a poor score in design because the "Expert" has a differing opinion. Just a few years ago there was real design, real competition, the top finishers had very little in common. You had the Aero vs. non Aero debate, The 4cyl Vs. Single debate, The 10's Vs. 13's debate. It was great. What happened? I’ll tell you, the new fuel econ rules made it almost impossible to compete with a 4cyl, the new tracks really exploit the benefits of aero (not very long straights so drag is not a big penalty and lots of corners that are in the aero dominated region of grip) and lastly we lost Goodyear (basically the only 13 worth a damn.)

FSAE has been really good lately for making "Iterative Engineers". The kind that do a good job but never do anything ground breaking. We need to get back to these major debates on what car to design and how to go about it. After all that is what this competition is supposed to teach us, not who has the best driver, marketing crew, best sponsors, most money, but rather which school puts out the best engineering students.

Hopefully this stirs up some good debate on the direction FSAE needs to go and not the direction the "Figure Heads" are taking it while not making me look like an idiot.


Cheers

[Hector]

I’ll tell you, the new fuel econ rules made it almost impossible to compete with a 4cyl

Didn't Stuttgart win in Michigan with a 4-cyl?


the new tracks really exploit the benefits of aero

Didn't Stuttgart win in Michigan without wings? They had some little spoilers built into the bodywork but nothing I would call a serious aero package.

Hard to take the argument seriously when you only have to look at the most recent results to see a 4-cyl, non-aero car in first place.

[stayflatandkeepturning]

Stuttgart was the one i refered to a the "rare exception". I believe with the exception of them the last 4 cyl to win a comp was RIT in california 2010 if my memory serves me right. Also in michigan i think it would have been a different story if GFR was able to start their car, but that is a major part of the competition.

[JulianH]

Well Hector, just because one team won one event, that doesn't change a lot.

GFR took their car from Michigan to Germany and outscored the updated Stuttgart car...

I don't think that the Single Cylinder is the only way to go. Stuttgart and Munich were really fast last year. It's safe to say that GFR is still the car to beat (I don't know if it is due to the drivers, the concept or something they understand better than the rest of us), but that doesn't mean everything else is just "not able to win". GFR is dominant with their concept (basically they win every competition that they finish with decent static results), but that is the only Sinlge-Cylinder car, that is so good. Of course Montreal, Washington, Akron, RIT, Monash.. all have great cars, but I think guys like Stuttgart, Esslingen or Munich are able to keep up.

When it comes to Aero (at least for the 2013 rules), it is basically a no-brainer. It made all the cars wicked fast. Still, when all top teams in the world use aero, it is hard to say that "nobody has a chance without aero"... probably the same cars would be on top if nobody would use aero...

I think it will get interessting again if the self-developed 2-cylinder engines are coming to the competitions...

edit: Well, stayflatandkeepturning, to be fair, the 4zyl engines won following events: FS UK ("combustion class") 2013, FS Austria ("combustion class") 2013, FSAE Italy 2013, FS Hungary 2013, FS Spain 2013, FS UK 2012, FSAE Italy 2012, FSAE West 2012, FS Hungary 2012, FS Spain 2012, FS UK 2011, FSAE Australia 2011, FSAE Italy 2011, FS Spain 2011..
Just count the Single-Cylinder victories without GFR compared to that :)

[TMichaels]

Stuttgart was the one i refered to a the "rare exception". I believe with the exception of them the last 4 cyl to win a comp was RIT in california 2010 if my memory serves me right. Also in michigan i think it would have been a different story if GFR was able to start their car, but that is a major part of the competition.

Sorry, but you are totally wrong!
Competitions won by 4cyl this year:
Italy 2013, Spain 2013, Austria 2013 (Stuttgart 3rd, but best combustion), Hungary 2013, UK2013 (Stuttgart 3rd, but best combustion), Michigan 2013

As Julian said with many good teams changing to 10's with aero and single cylinder cars, it is hard to tell, whether they would still be competitive with 13's, non-aero, 4cyl cars.

[stayflatandkeepturning]

had hoped this sparked a good conversation. very few of those exist on here anymore, but it appears that I'm the only one with this view point. guess it would have been best for me to keep my mouth shut

[exFSAE]

You're welcome to voice opinions and solicit others - just don't be surprised when they're not identical to yours. That's how it goes. I feel like there were some pretty good points made. Not to mention, as far as "trends" you're only looking at a handful of years out of a competition which has been going for 30+. Who is to say where it will be in 3, 5, or 10 from now? Every few years some car concept or topology is the hot ticket, and ultimately I feel like the best performance really comes down to best team organization and execution more than anything else.

Now riddle me this - even if some teams have converged on some effective solution... so what? I don't think that means the engineering is "stale" or can't be showcased. Let's use Cup racing as an example which you should now be familiar with from MWR. Even in a series which has pretty tight control on car topology (though I still wouldn't consider as spec) there is a WIDE range in the quality of engineering work done. There are guys who are clueless and there are guys who are world class experts in their field. Or playing devil's advocate a bit I could come at this from another direction: If there are years where FS teams have a very wide variety of solutions.. is that indicative of a truly perfect balance of rules and competitive options, or is that indicative of mediocre engineering and execution on the part of the teams, kind of operating in random search mode and no one executing to a supremely high degree?

As for iterative engineering - what's wrong with that? As I'm sure you'll discover very shortly now that you're doing pro racing, sometimes - quite often even - the iterative approach is the smartest and most effective one. Bite off small chunks and make small definite gains rather than just scrapping what you have and clean-slating it or taking some wildly different approach. Besides, management may have a hard time buying into that unless your justification for such a big cut up is exceptional. Speaking of justifying decisions, will there be times a design judge / expert doesn't agree with the student / junior guy? Yup. Now to be fair I'll grant that there are some design judges whose viewpoints I don't agree with after having worked in industry for some years. But I'd wager that more often than not, the expert or judge is probably trying to make a good point and the student is maybe a bit too stubborn to absorb it, or, there's been poor communication by the student's part to sell the judge on their concept. Either way, again, at the pro level, even if you are totally right about something.. reality is you will run into times when someone above you disagrees and that's that. Knowing how best to deal with that is a real skill.

Now I'm not trying to be a dick here with all of this (though I may very well be achieving that - sometimes I'm a natural), but suffice to say I just don't see this student series devolving into something poor or substandard. You'll get a different perspective on it once you distance yourself for a few years, and by that time I'm sure there will be some other new car design which is the hot ticket for winning.

My 2 cents.

[Z]

StayFlat...,

I fully agree with you. "The New Rule Changes for FSG" thread is proof positive...

Sighhh... Why are so many people so boring...? :(

Z

[stayflatandkeepturning]

ExFSAE; I don't disagree with anything you said, but i think the next winning ticket in FSAE will be driven by the rules evolving and changing and like we see in F1 the team that gets it right first will be the dominating force. There is no doubt GFR got this current formula right and many of us were stubborn to change until recently to beat them. As for Cup, the top level teams are so close, and the quality of engineering is pretty much the same. There is a huge gap between the top teams and the lower ones tho.

There is nothing wrong with iterative engineering and like you said its a great practice in industry but when a student doesn't know how to start a project from scratch that is a problem and that is what i was referring to. I believe that carry over from one team member to another is what separates a good team one year to a consistently good team, but when the team doesn't know why some of the previous decisions were made or the theory behind there project i feel thats a problem and its very apparent when you speak to some members at competition. This is also reflected in design by some teams who do quite well in the dynamics but yet have a hard time scoring in design for their lack of knowledge.

Z, surely you can't agree with everything i said, but then you do like to stir the pot a bit

[exFSAE]

I'd make the argument that in Cup, the level of competition in the top teams is indeed close, but still those organizations can be vastly better or worse in one area or another even if the end result is parity. As engineers, crew chiefs, etc. cross-pollinate in the sport the strengths and weaknesses of each organization become apparent.

Anyway, yes, certainly knowledge continuity is a huge differentiating factor among top organizations be they professional or student, racing or otherwise. And yes there are many student teams who have little fundamental knowledge of their design decisions, and around the shop if you were to ask, "Well why are we doing it this way?" a common answer might be, "That's how we've always done it." Some iterations then become bland / uninteresting / not well thought out. Where I disagree with your assessment is that this is a new thing or some new direction. I can say from personal experience that sort of thing was rampant 10 years ago, and I'm sure well before that. It's one of many bad practices / habits that I feel like most FSAE kids bring out of college and industry. Lot of them are highly motivated and confident and good at "getting it done" but many don't know much about truly sound engineering practice and fundamentals and are really quite green.

Worst of all are those who are pretty green and raw like that, but are stubbornly confident that they actually know their shit and are right about X, Y, or Z.

[DougMilliken]

Worst of all are those who are pretty green and raw like that, but are stubbornly confident that they actually know their shit and are right about X, Y, or Z.

Hey, I'm happy to have Z around to stir the pot, but who are X and Y? I'm not sure I want to see posts from them too...!<grin>

[Z]

This is a very big pot, so I will have to find my really big stirring spoon... (ie. it's about chaotic dynamics, strange attractors, Homo Mimicus, fear of change, and ... I'll have to put together a much longer rant ... :)).

Z

[jlangholzj]

Anyway, yes, certainly knowledge continuity is a huge differentiating factor among top organizations be they professional or student, racing or otherwise. And yes there are many student teams who have little fundamental knowledge of their design decisions, and around the shop if you were to ask, "Well why are we doing it this way?" a common answer might be, "That's how we've always done it." Some iterations then become bland / uninteresting / not well thought out. Where I disagree with your assessment is that this is a new thing or some new direction. I can say from personal experience that sort of thing was rampant 10 years ago, and I'm sure well before that. It's one of many bad practices / habits that I feel like most FSAE kids bring out of college and industry. Lot of them are highly motivated and confident and good at "getting it done" but many don't know much about truly sound engineering practice and fundamentals and are really quite green.

this is one thing that gets a bit hard to overcome when you've got a turnover rate of 2-3 years in team members. That's not an excuse...just an observation. HOWEVER, it is one thing that we've fallen into at times and one thing that I made a real big push for this year was for all the team members to pick 2-3 parts out and re-design everything. Not only to look at alternative options but simply for the "greener" members to understand why it was made the way it was...and oftentimes they'll find out something we haven't looked at before. At the same time if you don't have a clue of what you're doing...thats hard to accomplish. The leads for this years team spent last year manufacturing previous designs and they are much more confident and capable to make new parts this year.

my 0.02

[exFSAE]

From my own personal experience I think some of that is mitigated by having better or more involved faculty advising to coach better engineering practice. It's something I would have liked.

[bob.paasch]

In the 4 years since the establishment of our partnership between Oregon State University and DHBW Ravensburg, GFR has had 9 first place finishes. In those same 4 years, Rennteam Stuttgart has had 6 first place overall finishes, and 8 first place combustion finishes. Anyone trying to prove anything about the superiority of a particular vehicle concept based on those results is on a fools errand.

I would invite everyone to reread "Reasoning your way through the FSAE design process." Rennteam and GFR have achieved those wins not because they run a 600/4 or 450/1, 10s or 13s, aero or not. They have achieved those wins because they both have an excellent organization, great project management, and focused design processes. It is the team concept that wins, not the vehicle concept.

[exFSAE]

Rennteam and GFR have achieved those wins not because they run a 600/4 or 450/1, 10s or 13s, aero or not. They have achieved those wins because they both have an excellent organization, great project management, and focused design processes. It is the team concept that wins, not the vehicle concept.

Couldn't agree more, Bob. My experience has been that this is how it works at every level (professional or otherwise) and I wish more people took note of it. There was a time in this student series where Cornell was the "it team." Or you could probably say similarly about UTA or UWA. At that point when I was a dumb shit 19 or 20 year old my first thought was, "Oh they must have a ton more money or sponsors or have these super trick widgets on their car." And I feel like many students get caught up in what new whiz-bang gizmo they're going to bolt on the car and set the world on fire. But really, in all these examples the success starts with good fundamentals - good documentation, knowledge transfer, etc.

IMO that should really be the prime focus of faculty, getting students to really grasp that - without it you're sunk and with it everything downstream falls into place much easier.

[JT A.]

When the "formula" remains relatively unchanged for so long, it's only natural that teams' solutions will start to converge. The question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I see two sides to it.-

On one hand, it is good for multiple different vehicle concepts to be capable of winning major competitions. It allows some flexibility to teams with different budgets, gives the competition some variety, etc.

On the other hand, you can make the argument that from an engineering standpoint, it is a good thing that not all vehicle concepts have equal performance. The fact that a "best" solution exists, gives teams the challenge to find that "best" solution. If the rules were perfectly balanced so that there was no advantage to aero vs non aero, carbon fiber vs spaceframe chassis, 4 cyl vs 2 cyl vs 1 cyl engines, 10" vs 13" wheels, etc, then effectively the "big picture" concept choices we make don't matter. If every vehicle concept performs equally, it negates a really important part of the competition (the top level design decisions), teams will just keep running whatever concept they have a history with, and the project just becomes an exercise in refining parts at the individual component level from year to year. Personally, I think we get enough education in individual component design from the rest of our classes at school, but hardly any experience with top level decision making.

Every once in a while I spend some time wondering how you get the best of both worlds- keep some equality & variety in the competition but still encourage & reward the search for the concept that maximizes performance within the rule set. I think a cycle of massive rules changes every 3 years or so would shake the competition up a bit, and we'd see a lot of new concepts and variety at the beginning of each cycle. By year 2 or 3 a couple superior concepts would emerge and teams would start to gravitate towards those, but the next cycle of rules changes would ensure that no single concept can dominate for too long. I think you'd see some interesting things: the first year of each cycle would tell you which teams can adapt the fastest, then the 2nd and 3rd years will tell you who's the best at developing/refining a concept over time.

I think the tricky thing would be coming up with new rules that are different enough to make teams re-think their approach to the project, without simply "forcing" teams into a new "spec" to be competitive. You'd have to get more creative than stuff like "no wings for 3 years" and then "unlimited wings for 3 years". Maybe shifting around points allocation between events, setting a maximum cost cap, maybe change the event layouts (50 ft radius skidpad & 400 ft accel strip would be interesting- obviously you'd want more downforce for the faster skidpad but at the same time you can't have too much of a drag penalty since the accel event will reward a high top speed). Perhaps for a 3 year cycle you could allow 2nd and3rd year cars. Then teams with low budgets or low membership have a better chance to show what they can do when their resources aren't stretched so thin, and the bigger teams can spend more time on deeper analysis or new innovations. Or even change the structure of the whole competition. Get rid of skidpad and accel, and have a couple days of practice time where teams are allowed to run the endurance course, log data, and refine their vehicle setup. Then Autocross just becomes a qualifying event, and endurance/fuel efficiency is where all the dynamic points come from. Maybe separate design event into 2 branches- 1 where you only discuss the design methods that went into building your car, and a 2nd one where you discuss all the testing, DAQ analysis, and refinement that you've done after the car was built (including the testing days at competition).

I think we're at the point in the current rules set where a clear "best" concept has emerged. When fuel was only 50 points and wings were more limited in size, I think there was a lot more equality. But now when a winged 1cyl on 10's can win autocross, endurance, and fuel efficiency at the same time, and be close to the top in skidpad too, it's pretty difficult to compete with that. Accel is only 75 points and 4 cyl's don't have that much of an advantage in accel anyways. I think the only reason other concepts besides the "450 with wings and 10's" can still be successful is the reliability factor. Sure, Stuttgart has won 6 events, but how many of those were head-to-head against GFR where both teams finished all events? I don't know if this is still the case, but about a year ago I went through results and saw that GFR won every event in which they completed endurance. In other words, they control their own fate. I'm sure the vehicle concept isn't the only reason GFR is winning (otherwise RIT, Akron, Wisconsin, & other similar cars would be winning an equal share of events), and a huge part of it is the team structure & organization. But when you put the best concept and really good team structure & organization together, barring an endurance failue, everyone else is just competing for 2nd place.

[jpusb]

Rennteam and GFR have achieved those wins not because they run a 600/4 or 450/1, 10s or 13s, aero or not. They have achieved those wins because they both have an excellent organization, great project management, and focused design processes. It is the team concept that wins, not the vehicle concept.

I couldn't agree more. I think this is an infinitely valuable statement, and to people who haven't realized that this is true, note that the statement is coming from the faculty advisor of GFR. At my time, as exFSAE said, I thought it was all about the car, drivers, knowledge, accelerations, blabla. Sooner or later you get to understand that the management part is the real deal (agreeing again with exFSAE, in EVERYTHING you do this is true), and they don't teach you that at the university, most of the times. This phenomena of the teams not knowing this fact is what I think usually leads teams to "try to win FSAE in SolidWorks" (I used that phrase many times to try to make my team understand this after I left), and I think is the most common mistake FSAE teams make, they try to win it by re-designing the car instead of thinking about the whole project which is way more determinant to the final team performance.
Regarding the ruleset and the original thread, I do agree that it is not cool when rules drive the design trends in FSAE, but as others said I don't see that trend so clear, at least until this day. To make my point I will take the Missouri S&T team, whose cars I have always been a huge fan of, in part because I like them but also because I like the concept of a normal, not super fancy car that is as fast as the F1-looking super tidy cars. They are always blindly fast in AutoX, so I think performance-wise they don't lack BIG things when compared to single-cyl, 10" cars. If they scored well in all static events and ran a good endurance I am sure they would be right up there, and if they are not, it is not because of the car's design tendencies being wrong.

my 0.01 since 0.02 is too much money :)