Formula SAE Lincoln 2015

[joseph.liu]

Is anyone else on one of the teams that's been waitlisted for Lincoln? This is the first team our team has not gotten in, wondering if anyone has contacted SAE.

[troot]

What exactly are you asking, are you saying you were unable to get on the waitlist, unable to get in the first round of registration, or unable to register from the waitlist upon the opening of a spot?

[RANKEDFOUR]

I am not sure if you understand how registration works..... :)

Registration at the US competitions is basically decided by a first come, first serve system. In the case of the Lincoln event there is 80 open seats for combustion vehicles. After all of these spots are taken, the wait list begins.

There is no advantage for teams that have attended the event before unless your team placed in the top 10, in which case, you would be eligible for Pre-registration.

[joseph.liu]

What I'm getting at is as follows: This is the first year our team hasn't gotten into Lincoln. Is there a greater demand for spaces at Lincoln? And if yes, why hasn't the number of spots been increased? Seeing if anyone feels the same way and would like to get in touch with SAE. There is no way they are space limited, considering how they can have separate tracks set up.

[JulianH]

Track size and "space" is not the only limiting factor for an event.
You also need enough volunteers, judges, scrutineers... for a larger event. (And it all comes down to money, I guess...)

I think you can't do anything about that. Just wait and see if you get in.
The question is, why are you not in? Just too slow when the registration was opened? Or did you register for Michigan first?

The US competitons need a new system to offer starting positions, like a Quiz to make it not a "who clicks first" registration, if the spaces are in fact limited... Maybe you can suggest thatto SAE to make it better in the future?

[apalrd]

The US competitons need a new system to offer starting positions, like a Quiz to make it not a "who clicks first" registration, if the spaces are in fact limited... Maybe you can suggest thatto SAE to make it better in the future?

Prior to this year, registration for Lincoln as a second event wasn't difficult, there was ample time to click the button. Lincoln is becoming more popular, and there are fewer spots left for the second registration round.

[joseph.liu]

JulianH: Yes volunteers have to be available, but Michigan SAE is at 120 teams and I see it being maxed out due to paddock space. Maybe money is an issue because if you register, you don't get a refund after leaving, and the team that replaces you still has to pay.

Our team is already going to Michigan so that is why we had to wait till the second round of registration, and we were right on the registration page for 10AM EST.

As for implementing a quiz into the process, we do that for a smaller non-SAE event and we're not in favour of it.

apalrd: I think you understand 100% where my team is coming from.

[bob.paasch]

JulianH: Yes volunteers have to be available, but Michigan SAE is at 120 teams and I see it being maxed out due to paddock space. Maybe money is an issue because if you register, you don't get a refund after leaving, and the team that replaces you still has to pay.

Our team is already going to Michigan so that is why we had to wait till the second round of registration, and we were right on the registration page for 10AM EST.

As for implementing a quiz into the process, we do that for a smaller non-SAE event and we're not in favour of it.

apalrd: I think you understand 100% where my team is coming from.

It's fairly easy to get volunteers for FSAE Michigan. Lincoln, not so much. Too far from anything automotive. With the e-car competition plus the c-cars, FSAE Lincoln is maxed out.

I've heard that registration as a second event filled in less than a minute. If you really want a second comp, start fund raising for Europe. :^)

[Steve Krug]

The US competitons need a new system to offer starting positions, like a Quiz to make it not a "who clicks first" registration, if the spaces are in fact limited... Maybe you can suggest thatto SAE to make it better in the future?

I agree, JulianH.

In a few FS competitions, some developed teams are unable to compete due to a registration slot constraint. For this case of demand exceeding supply, a rules quiz being implemented seems fair.

A quiz may be a better option than "first to click", as it might be a reflection a team's preparation and desire to compete. The teams who study best should be rewarded with a good grade; i.e. registration spot. Maybe one could argue that being prepared means having 15 laptops and low internet latency.
447

[RANKEDFOUR]

As Bob stated above, the limiting factor at Lincoln is the number of volunteers! I believe the best way of getting more spots at Lincoln would be contacting alumni from your team to come volunteer for the competition instead of emailing SAE.

[Cunningham]

While the Lincoln Airport is amazing and the city itself is pretty cool, moving the competition back to California (or perhaps Washington state) would result in many more interested volunteers and companies that are good matches for FSAE graduates.

At this point, given that both the US competitions are selling out, perhaps there is demand for a third event.

[K. Edwards]

Anyone notice that Lincoln posted the site map for 2015, except that it is last year's map? Was this a mistake, or are the autocross and endurance courses exactly the same as a year ago?

[raitinger]

Anyone notice that Lincoln posted the site map for 2015, except that it is last year's map? Was this a mistake, or are the autocross and endurance courses exactly the same as a year ago?

K,

Good catch, you can find the 2015 maps I posted here (http://www.fsae.com/forums/showthread.php?8800-Course-Design-Feedback-Discussion-FSAE-Lincoln&p=123560&viewfull=1#post123560)

I'll let SAE know they need to change it.

Lawrence

[Pennyman]

Any suggestions for where to follow this event other than this website?

[Mbirt]

From the FSAE Michigan thread:

There's some activity on the FSAE subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/FSAE/ .
Links to Facebook and twitter feeds of FS events and teams were posted in the Michigan thread.
Twitter (https://twitter.com/_Jer_A/lists/fs)
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/lists/493117940750509)

Hopefully, someone at the track can live post times or commentary.

[Alumni]

The rumor mill started swirling about a month ago that we might see some much improved coverage next year. (This is actually what brought me back to the forum recently.) Keep the pressure on and let SAE know that there is serious interest in it not only from alumni, but parents, girlfriends, and hardworking students that may not be able to make it to competition for whatever reason.

It provides more exposure for event sponsors so as long as the necessary upgrades to infrastructure don't break the bank, it's nearly a win-win.

[ausracing]

Just a quick (and hastly written because exams are getting closer) overview of the design finalists.
Pictures attached at the bottom and next post.
Good luck to everyone!

Car #2 Texas A&M University
600cc (Yamaha), space frame, pushrods, 281kg, World Ranking (WR) 15th


Car #3 University of Wisconsin Madison
KTM 525 EXC with turbo!, electric throttle and shifting, mono/space hybrid, 235kg, LC0, E85, done well in design past years, WR 74th


Car #6 Michigan State University
600cc, m/s hybrid, unequal legnth a-arms/push rod, R25B, 284kg, WR 29th


Car #8 University of California - Berkley
250cc Go kart engine!!!, (FYI Ecole from Canada ran a 250cc in ~2012? but had reliability issues, they are always top 3 in design at Michigan) spaceframe, 208kg, 20.9kW @8000rpm,


Car #9 University of Michigan Ann Arbor
At FSG last year with that awesome Aero car, WR 39th, 600cc, apparently DRS, spacef, 258kg


Car #45 University of Washington
Used to do FSG but think they stopped when they got an electric team (maybe wrong here, sorry in advance), had some cool aero in the past, yamaha 450F bored, DRS, GPS/Telemetry, full coque, LC0, 226kg, WR 28th


Car #86 Ohio State University
That front wing! DRS working (maybe only rear?), 257kg, 600cc, electric brake bias, R25B


Car #89 Western University
Hectic Aero, top ten michigan overall, 2nd in Formula Canada (FNorth), looks pretty spritely from videos, heading to Germany, WR 19th, 600cc (CBR), 275kg, DRS apparently, 1050mm track, twin mufflers

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Some cars have drivers in them when quoting their weight, just quoted off this
http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/west/formulalincolnprogram.pdf

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Also can we keep this to just FSAELincoln and what happens there rather than a huge thread about how design events are/should run (Eg FSAEMichigan) that would be super :)

[ausracing]

Cars 45, 86, 89. Photos attached below.

[Swiftus]

Whoah. Everyone is way over 200 kg! (I read that some cars are w/driver, but why quote your car's weight w/driver?)

[JT A.]

Whoah. Everyone is way over 200 kg! (I read that some cars are w/driver, but why quote your car's weight w/driver?)

I think the survey that you fill out for the event guide asks you to list vehicle weight with 150lb or 175 lb driver

[Swiftus]

I think the survey that you fill out for the event guide asks you to list vehicle weight with 150lb or 175 lb driver

Any idea which one it is?

[Charles Kaneb]

Can someone confirm that Western University of Ontario has a four-cylinder engine?

[Charles Kaneb]

Why did three of the top five and five of the top twelve teams in autocross only attempt two runs? Long line at the end?

[Z]

..., just quoted off this
http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/west/formulalincolnprogram.pdf


Ryan,

Thanks for the link to the Official Program. I just wish there was some way of better seeing all those nice 3-view drawings. (Zoom makes them bigger, but just as fuzzy... :()

Any links for live-feed?
~~~o0o~~~

Also many thanks to Lawrence R. for that "hammer-head hairpin" in the AutoX course. I see there is even one in the practice course. Would be good fun watching the drivers there, trying to learn the best line.

Z

[Z]

I think this is link to Preliminary Results...

http://www.sae.org/servlets/pressRoom?OBJECT_TYPE=PressReleases&PAGE=latestCDSNews&EVENT=FORMULA

Z

(PS. Fastest Acceleration time = 4.104 seconds. TOO SLOW!!! You should all be in the mid-3s by now! (Hint: MORE R%!!! :) ))

[Pat Clarke]

Erik,
The three view drawings are part of the Team's Design Report. These are considered proprietary and are not released publically.
If a team choose to publish their DR (some do) then you can access the three views.

Pat Clarke

[Mbirt]

Can someone confirm that Western University of Ontario has a four-cylinder engine?Yes, Western runs a four-cylinder. As for autocross runs, I do believe that is the case. I was told our second driver "ran out of time" in line.

[Pennyman]

Congrats to SJSU. Well done.

[Z]

The three view drawings are part of the Team's Design Report. These are considered proprietary and are not released publically.

Pat,

Almost every Team listed in the official Lincoln Program booklet has their 3-view drawing displayed right next to all their vital specs. That booklet, and its pdf, are publically released. My concern was that the pdf of the booklet has the 3-view drawings at a rather low resolution.

Are you suggesting that each Team has come to a formal agreement with the organisers that their drawings can be publically released in that booklet, but ONLY below a certain rather low resolution?

Or is it more likely that whoever cut-and-pasted the pics did so at whatever "rough enough is good enough" resolution the digital fairies deemed fit at the time?
~o0o~

Can anyone comment on the resolution of the drawings in the real booklet vs the pdf?

I know that standard printing processes are capable of very high resolution, and it costs nothing extra to print at those high resolutions. I also know that for ~30 odd years even the best magazines/brochures have been constantly giving us these third-rate, low resolution, "digital" pictures, with their staircasing/pixelating/+++. And they do so because "it is progress"!!!

Z

[jd74914]

IIRC a certain resolution is required for the booklet; all teams should be submitting the same quality images and IMHO the images in the printed booklets are of plenty high quality.

Releasing a low res-version on the internet is much different that releasing the same drawing in high resolution. Many companies do this to avoid disclosing IP when they still want to show certain pictures.

[RANKEDFOUR]

Any idea which one it is?

150lb


Why did three of the top five and five of the top twelve teams in autocross only attempt two runs? Long line at the end?

What happened is that everyone decided that they wanted to run in the last hour of the Autocross + there were only allowing two cars on course at a time + there was a hard 5 O'clock cut off.

When it hit 5 PM there were still around 15 cars in line...

[Swiftus]

Thanks for the driver weight!


When it hit 5 PM there were still around 15 cars in line...

That sort of thing always sucks when you are a team in the line, but as a general competitor I will always prefer a hard cutoff which the organizers keep to religiously than letting it slide for a few teams which didn't make the cutoff. Its the only truly fair way of treating all of the teams equally.

[theTTshark]

Thanks for the driver weight!



That sort of thing always sucks when you are a team in the line, but as a general competitor I will always prefer a hard cutoff which the organizers keep to religiously than letting it slide for a few teams which didn't make the cutoff. Its the only truly fair way of treating all of the teams equally.

I agree with the hard cut off completely. Last year at Lincoln the fastest time in autocross was set at around the halfway point in the event. People seem to believe that running as late as possible is always going to be better, but that's making a lot of assumptions that they don't really have data for. It's surprising how little attention is actually placed on tires at times by teams. They may be able to show you processed data, but few seem to understand tires when it comes to using them during an actual racing event.

[Mbirt]

Who has the best picture albums/videos from this competition?

Congrats to SJSU on an awesome performance!

[stever95]

I'll try to get all my pictures into an album today. Will post back with link. Probably.

[dr. ill]

Was looking at the cost results (http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/results/fsae_ln_2015_result.pdf). Kettering @ $7051. Next cheapest car was Kennesaw @ $8695. The points spread was 10.38.

Looking at the cost results from FSAE-M (http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/results/fsae_mi_2015_result.pdf) a couple months earlier, Kettering @ $10597. Seems quite odd that the same car could be $3500 less expensive...

Can anyone provide a reasonable explanation?

Btw, the least expensive car at FSAE-M in the past 5 years was ~$8300

[Michael Royce]

Dr. Ill,
As soon as I saw the scores at Lincoln, I asked the Chief Cost Judge about that. She was the Chief at both Michigan and Lincoln, and she said Kettering took a whole bunch of content out of the car between the two competitions, I believe including a turbo, etc., and that the reduction was legit.

Michael Royce

[MCoach]

Mr. Royce,

To clear up some questions here:

We are typically one of the cheapest cars at competition and archived results will reflect this. Kettering has strived to be "The Spirit of SAE" providing a car to compete that easily meets the weekend racer's budget capability while maintaining high performamce results. With that, the past few years have seen us reducing our vehicle weight by approximately 70lbs. This was done without the implementation of advanced composites nor expensive labor processes and machining time. We have also focused on part count reduction. What this means is that where we had previously costed labor of assembling 3 piece wheels, ours are now 1 piece. Where we once had ~70+ unique chassis tubes, we now have less than 40. This continues throughout the vehicle.

We ran a turbo at Michigan and Nebraska. Having carried some base system cost reports from one year to another left some inaccuracies in the report. On top of this, there were some components and systems that we planned on running this year that were not mature enough to be implemented. These were also left in the cost report. We didn't catch it in time for Michigan but did for Lincoln. Our addendum report was almost mistaken for the cost report due to its sheer size for Lincoln. However, anyone who has glimpsed our cost report could tell that we require a 4" binder at minimum.

I hope this clears up some speculation as we've been targeting less and less costly ways to get out and racing. The past few years we've targeted $8 - 9000 cars, substituting in better items once we dip below our target market pricing, but with us having an unstable and not thoroughly tested platform, we ended up cutting features and the cost went with it.
.