2014 FS Germany

[Tonks]

Seeing as FSUK is now done and dusted (with great results from many teams), there is now about 2 weeks until FSG begins.

I know quite a few teams from FSUK are also making the trip to FSG. Who are these, and where did FSUK leave you in preparation for the German competition? It will be good to see the Greenteam from Stuttgart arrive with their newly built car.

What other teams are going? Build status?

[TMichaels]

Hi Madeleine,
the teams that are going can be found here:
https://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2014/teams/
https://www.formulastudent.de/fse/2014/teams/

66/75 of the FSC teams and 32/40 of the FSE teams have shown us that they are able to drive under own power so far

[BeunMan]

Looking at FSUK and the reports from there (wasn't at the site), a lot of electric teams need to manage their stuff so they can finish an endurance properly. Some did do well, but some of the 'top' teams were disappointing in endurance. 3 weeks extra before FSG so 3 weeks of preparations and testing.

[TMichaels]

The first pictures have been posted here:
http://media.formulastudent.de/FSG14/Hockenheim-2014

You may also follow the status of the technical inspection here:
https://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2014/tis/
https://www.formulastudent.de/fse/2014/tis/

[Scott Monash]

Hey Tobias...

I assume that there will be a live stream of the track events again this year?

Have you guys released the link yet, and can you tell us which days/events there will be filming/streaming for?
Thanks

Best of luck to all competing teams!

Scott

[mech5496]

Scott,

I have found the following link for streaming, albeit it is offline for the time being.

https://formulastudent.tv/en/live

One thing I am unable to spot though is the live timing, any help?

[TMichaels]

Live Timing is available at tk.formulastudent.de
Schedule and Livestream is available at www.formulastudent.tv
I will also try to comment regularly via Twitter

[mech5496]

Thanks Tobias! And that's another year with great coverage from FSG, being able to watch the lilve stream and hear the commentary while keeping an eye at times is so great! Thank you FSG!

[TMichaels]

You are welcome.
However, I would like to see the other comps catch up with respect to that. It is not too hard, if you are just using a streaming platform.

[JasperC]

I am keeping preliminary and unofficial FSE scores here: http://tinyurl.com/FSEscores

Statics scores have not yet been published but the placings have. So I have made statics scores estimations based on 2013 scores. It means that currently the scores are not accurate enough to tell who is leading overall, but surely Delft, Zürich and Greenteam are in the top 3. These teams were also the top 3 in design and in acceleration and they have already built up quite a margin to the rest of the field as they head to autocross.

[JasperC]

Statics scores are still to be published and energy consumptions are not known yet, but it seems to be quite clear that the top 3 in FSE is, in that order:
1. ETH Zürich ~929
2. Stuttgart ~896
3. Delft ~861


It's sad for the current Delft team because I think as a team they did a better job than previous years, but the competition came back even stronger. All in all I think it is good for everyone at FSE including Delft to see new winner. Congratulations to AMZ!

And you have to give it to Greenteam, being so unfortunate with the fire a few months ago and coming back to claim second place overall is just amazing. Well done guys, hats off.

[JasperC]

Tobias, what do you think of the FSE efficiency scores? The lowest given points out of all teams eligible for the efficiency event was 90.84 out of 100. I know that it may be due to chance, but still if we look at last year's results that used the same scoring formula: Esslingen was the lowest scoring team at 60.55 points, but they were only just within 133% of the winning time and they nearly had the highest energy consumption of all teams (only TU Münich used more but they were 3rd fastest).

So even with a - with all due respect - poor energy performance you still get 60/100 points. And if nothing strange happens with the energy consumption, like this year, everyone gets >90 points.

I think it would be a good idea to either adjust the scoring formula to create a larger differentiation in scores, or reduce the efficiency event from 100 points to 50 and adjust the formula to keep the same absolute difference (because the first 50 points in efficiency seem to be for free anyway).

I think it can easily be fixed by lowering Emax. 20.33 kWh is really a large amount. I know it corresponds to 5.72L petrol as in FSC but as you know it is not so crazy to build a combustion car with a 6L fuel tank whereas building an electric car with a 20.33 kWh accumulator... well.


By the way, I think I actually found an error in the FSE rules. It says EFmin is 0.1 which corresponds to Eyour=20.33 and Emin=2.75 and Tmin/Tyour=1/1.333. This is only correct when using the formula used until 2012 (that did not have a ^2). If the explanation written in the rules is followed, EFmin is 0.0137 and the lowest efficiency score this year would be 98.91 points.

[Z]

I would like to give a BIG THANKS to FSG for making it so easy to follow their competition. Excellent delivery of Live-timing and Live-video! Also all the photos, conveniently bundled in captioned albums, with rapid-access thumbnails. I'm still working through Sunday's 1,000+...

Also a big thanks to Tobias for his latest-news twittering. (Did you ever go to sleep, Tobias?)
~o0o~

And a BIG CONGRATULATION to #33 Xiamen TU from China. Good results in ALL events, for Overall 26th place out of 75.
Better yet, 1st Place in Fuel Efficiency!

All you LAZY Westerners better watch out! :)

Z

[JulianH]

Wow, FSE was probably the best competition ever. Three teams so evenly matched that Endurance is the decider, that's just awesome! Delft, Stuttgart and Zurich were totally impressive in the whole week, not one big mistake of any of those teams. In the end the small things decided. Hats off to all three teams.

FSC was quite "sad". GFR totally dominating but 186 ponits to P2, that's crazy. They were 100s faster (5,6s per lap!) than the second team in Endurance. Sad to see all those good teams fail Endurance.

When it comes to Efficiency, it is really difficult for E-cars. With the old scoring, it was "drive as slow as possible" to maximize Efficiency and Endurance. Now it is "drive as fast as possible, because Efficiency doesn't matter". To be honest, I like the second approach... The efficiency difference in E-cars is quite small. If we would start to spread the curve so that the efficiency delta would increase, the teams would just reduce the pace... I don't know if Delft had problems to use the whole battery pack, because they obviously did their calculations and knew that "faster is better" with these rules.
At the moment it is impossible for a fast team to win Efficiency because the slower teams are just more efficient if the consumption is squared in the formula. If you use 6 instead of 5 kWh, you have to drive like 40% faster than the other team to beat them in Effieciency... and at that point the other team is not considered for Efficiency points.. so you simply can't "win".
Maybe they come up with a better formula in the future but at the moment it is a more or less useless discipline if the delta is less than 10 points, you are correct.

[DMuusers]

I agree completely with everything that Julian said.

Congratulations to AMZ for (finally ;-) ) winning FSE. With now ~2 weeks of testing time, FSA is going to be another hard fought battle for the first place overall. Hopefully it'll rain the entire event :-P

[Bemo]

Once more it was a great event. Interesting to see how the electric class is developing. Right now GFR is the only team who is still able to keep up with the electric cars as it seems. I think Z would love to see the cars going over this bumby track which contains all elements from very tight hairpins to really long and fast turns.

I was there as a scrutineer which gave me the opportunity to have a very close look on several cars. In general this year was a big improval in terms of how rules compliant the cars were (but don't get lazy, there is still a very small number of teams who manage to pass scrutineering on first try ;-) ). Having scrutineered the Zürich car it was no surprise for me that these guys will end up high as the car was in an outstanding condition when presented at competition. Arriving to competition well prepared can save a lot of time and nerves.

What was noticeable was that quite a high number of teams didn't finish Endurance this year. Especially several suspension failures and lost wings happened. This was particularly the case in the morning session. I had the impression that a lot of teams who are struggling to get a properly working car anyway, start to build big aero packages and carbon suspensions giving themselves an even harder time. I think it is a better approach to start with a simple car and when you reach a state in which you don't have trouble doing so, you can approach to more advanced concepts. This stuff only helps you if you are able to do it properly. In scrutineering I discoverd quite a high number of wings which weren't even attached symmetrically to the car (if you measured at one wheel it was 5-6 cm to far behind the wheel while it was fine on the other side). If a diffusor is supposed to work properly it must be stiff enough and must have a decent surface quality.
I'm not sure how this trend started, but maybe teams feel you need all that stuff to get a proper amount of points in design. What they don't realize is that you have to understand all this stuff to get points for it. I wasn't involved in any design judging during the last years, so I can't tell how the feedback is, the judges give to these teams, but maybe they should point out to them that they prefer a simple car which is working properly and which is understood by the students compared to car full of gadgets which aren't working and the team is unable to cope with all that stuff.

It's also surprising that some teams had cooling issues although it was relatively cold on Sunday (25°C, normally this time of year it is more in the range of 35°C). This was an issue also for some of the so-called "top-teams" suffered from. There is no excuse for something like that imo. If you have enough testing time you will realize if your cooling system is too weak. Then implementing a bigger radiator and/or fan is a dead end simple solution. The first goal always has to be to have a reliable car. Performance whithout reliability is worth nothing.

And last but not least congratulations to GFR. Once more an outstanding performance, no other team came even close to. The car looked incredible on the track (in terms how it performed, that front wing looks just ridiculous ;-) ).

I'm already looking forward to FS Austria which is only two weeks ahead and afterwards to FS Russia, where I will also work as a scrutineer :D

[Z]

What was noticeable was that quite a high number of teams didn't finish Endurance this year.

Bemo,

I think I have a solution to that. I would call it "The Thread of Eternal Shame".

So, an on-going thread, perhaps stickied in this Competition section, that lists all the cars that have unforced failures in Endurance events. Each entry should list the Team, the nature of the failure, the Team Member responsible for said cock-up, and preferably that Team Member's photo.

Then all companies interested in hiring FSAEers could check the ToES before selecting their candidate... :)
~o0o~

To get things started, the following usually top-level Teams (who all had good AutoX times) all DNF'd in Enduro.

66 Monash
109 Graz
69 Hamburg
65 KIT
5 Munchen
94 Esslingen
6 Akron
14 Bath
9 Ann Arbor
(Apologies if I missed your team...)

Would anyone care to "dish-the-dirt" on what happened?

And name names? (Or maybe "naming names" can be left until next year, after the ToES has started to bite... :))

Z

(PS. I think GFR would most probably still have won. But it could have been much closer...)

[Bemo]

Graz: Thought that they ran out of fuel, but at the fuel station they realized they still had half a liter fuel on board. Reason that they weren't able to empty their tank was propably boiling fuel.
Hamburg: Pretty much the same as Graz, only closer to the finish line
KIT: I heard their generator was not working properly and after some time the battery was dead because it didn't get charged.
München: Overheating proplems from the first laps on. Engine then didn't start anymore after driver change
Akron: Suspension failure
Ann Arbor: Cooling issues, got meatballed because of smoke from the engine department and it showed they already head a lot of oil in the undertray so they weren't allowed to run anymore

Can't tell anything about the other teams and I might be not completey correct on the reasons listed here as I was busy with organising the entrance queue and checking if drivers are straped in the cars correctly and wearing all their safety gear. This is just what I heard during and after the endurance.

[MH]

Graz: Thought that they ran out of fuel, but at the fuel station they realized they still had half a liter fuel on board. Reason that they weren't able to empty their tank was propably boiling fuel.
Hamburg: Pretty much the same as Graz, only closer to the finish line
KIT: I heard their generator was not working properly and after some time the battery was dead because it didn't get charged.
München: Overheating proplems from the first laps on. Engine then didn't start anymore after driver change
Akron: Suspension failure
Ann Arbor: Cooling issues, got meatballed because of smoke from the engine department and it showed they already head a lot of oil in the undertray so they weren't allowed to run anymore

Can't tell anything about the other teams and I might be not completey correct on the reasons listed here as I was busy with organising the entrance queue and checking if drivers are straped in the cars correctly and wearing all their safety gear. This is just what I heard during and after the endurance.

Bath had a wheel come off due to a broken center, Ann Arbor had a shortcircuit in their fuel system with all the carbon somewhere. They had built some kind of button/breaker that the driver had to keep pressing while driving. So he had to drive with one hand and operate the fuel pump button all the time. He was pulled off because he was so slow. Second time they gave it up, it was just no use.

Munchen actually managed to restart after a whole lot of trying but while driving off the car stalled and never came back.

As a pitreporter it's easier to get information :) Even if teams are just gutted after a DNF...

regards,
Miki

[Z]

On one of the other threads I think Bemo said that most of the suspension failures at FSG were of CarbonFibre wishbones. (I recall seeing pics of at least one car with BOTH front suspensions broken.)

Does anyone know if these failures were of the glue-bonds in tension, or of the CF tubes (pipes? :)) themselves in compression?

Better yet, does anyone have close-up photos of the failed CF-wishbones?

Z

(PS. And does anyone know what happened to Monash (on last lap!)? Thanks...)

[Swiftus]

I don't know any of the specifics of how the CF suspensions failed. I do think that the only dangerous situations on track came from failed suspensions or wheels. Some of the flying wheels managed to fly into areas where the marshalls were standing. I was told one wheels actually grazed a marshall because they were seen rubbing their shoulder after the incident. At least one car hit the tire barriers after its suspension failed. There were a couple of failed wings, but I believe most of the cars either kept driving or spun in place.

I can only say what I heard from the Monash guys as we waited for the final 5 to start. At that point they were saying that some part of the car was overheating. I don't recall if they said it was in the turbo system or if it was the cooling system. It was not the time or place to press for those kinds of questions.

[Luke Phersson]

As far as we know the reason the Monash car stopped was fuel pressure. We checked the tank briefly after enduro (had to pull the car apart immediately to pack it for transport back to Australia). We had enough fuel left in the tank as far as I know, the current theory is our low pressure fuel pump died, which fills an internal fuel tower which feeds the high pressure pump. The guys won't find out for sure until we get the car back in Australia in a month or two. I don't have the logs on me, but the car was running hotter than usual, but I don't think it would have caused any issues. Strange how many teams had issues with fuel in the last few laps? Even Stuttgart stalled out on the last lap due to fuel, but luckily managed to get the car restarted and bring home 2nd place!

[mdavis]

I do think that the only dangerous situations on track came from failed suspensions or wheels.

Jay,

I somewhat have to disagree with this, just from watching your team's video of the autocross events.

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp219/mattastick/GFR_Snip_zps8805411a.jpg (http://s413.photobucket.com/user/mattastick/media/GFR_Snip_zps8805411a.jpg.html)

A car on track, at the very end of the run (when most drivers are trying to make up for the mistakes that they've made the entire rest of the run), pointed straight at a stationary car, with no barrier in between. I would expect this type of thing from smaller events, like Formula North, where the dynamic events are confined to a single parking lot, but not from a big event like FSG.

-Matt

[Swiftus]

Matt,

You are correct. My intent was to cite just the situations actually experienced this year, not the potential situations.

For clarity, here is the area Matt is describing:

301

It does look potentially dangerous. This year most cars were getting so out of shape at the jump and tight left before that corner that they were not a problem at the last right. Last year's autocross entrance exit (The typical endurance entrance exit) is a much safer entry, but the logistics of creating an orderly line for autocross are horrible. This year's line stretched the entire length of the hockenheim straight. An addition of a small tire barrier would solve this and I am sure the organizers of FSG have a list of improvements for next year.