2015 FSAE Michigan

[Mbirt]

Who's ready for the first annual competition of silent race cars? Has everyone tested their 100 dBC idle?

It seems things are a bit more dead here than they used to be thanks to social media, but this would be a good place post updates and links for us old folks.

Good luck teams!

[sparkmonkey]

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]

It amazes me how much further advanced Baja is than even the European competitions as far as coverage. Nearly live coverage of all events, up to and including tech. Not to mention the fantastic camera angles and full commentary of the entire endurance race.

Here's the site they use (until they update it for next competition: ) http://results.bajasae.net/

And the endurance (which was live streaming during the actual race: ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEYR-EUeKYo

And to think all of that is coming out of a competition that is spread out over much larger distances (static events are typically a bit of a drive from the track) and in much more rural areas with limited electricity etc...

You'd think FSAE with it's superiority complex would be able to do at least half that, but they're probably more worried about making sure spectators/students/sponsors are parking in the correct areas.

[JustNutsandBolts]

Any team albums we can start looking at ?

[Mbirt]

I've heard that 39 teams made it through brake and lots of engines can be heard screaming away in the pits at 914 m/min mean piston speed in attempt to improve noise test performance.

It appears that GFR removed a second muffler and only S&T still has the top plane of a biplane front wing after tech inspection. Let's pretend this is an Aussie comp and get some real updates flowing in here.

[Drew Price]

...People post on Reddit but not here? This makes me sad.

[Swiftus]

We passed all techs today and ran around in the practice area a bit. Statics and scrutineering on the same day is always hectic and the new set of rules is difficult for many teams. FSG certainly does better than every other competition with a dedicated extra scrutineering day but I am sure that would add to the cost of the competition.

@Alumni - I have watched a number of Baja live streams cheering on our school and it does boggle my mind how right SAE gets it in that competition but lacks any of that availability in the FSAE events. As a team member not in Michigan this year, I am fully reliant upon someone not being busy and posting something to their social media.

@Drew Price - Some sites make it easier to communicate with the world than others. Old school forums like this one simply aren't as easy to use as social media sites or Reddit mobile. (I am a moderator on the FSAE subreddit... it isn't very busy)

Best of luck to all of the teams in Michigan! Lets all pray the competition is decided on the track and in the static events and not by the weather or unfortunate event timing.

[NickFavazzo]

What subreddit are people using...?

[SAE_intl_girl]

Design Finalists announced online FSAE Michigan FB page and twitter accounts.
For those still here in no particular order...your 2015 finalists are:
#5 U. Akron
#7 Auburn U.
#8 U of M, Ann Arbor
#9 U. Florida
#11 Campinas
#13 U. Wisconsin
#14 U. Kansas
#16 TU Graz
#19 ETS
#71 U. Pittsburgh
#129 U. Texas Arlington

[Swiftus]

What subreddit are people using...?

reddit.com/r/FSAE

[mech5496]

Any possibility for live streaming/commentary/timing this year?

[thescreensavers]

I still cannot believe there isnt better event coverage for this event.


https://twitter.com/_Jer_A/lists/fs

https://www.facebook.com/lists/493117940750509


Looks like a wet morning, but looks like the weather is improving maybe some sunshine ha, hopefully the track dries up!


Any possibility for live streaming/commentary/timing this year?

http://sololive.scca.com/

Its live!

Starts 1:30PM EST
http://sololive.scca.com/autox/FSAE.html

9AM EST
http://sololive.scca.com/skidpad/FSAE.html

9AM EST
http://sololive.scca.com/accel/FSAE.html

[JSR]

Preliminary presentation and cost results are up:

Presentation:
http://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfservice/431698525_FSAE_MI_2015_presentation_prelim.pdf

Cost:
http://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfservice/431698453_FSAE_MI_2015_cost_prelim.pdf

[Michael Royce]

Jay,
On behalf of the Tech Inspection Chiefs, Mark, Matthew and Jeff, I need to correct you, but FSAE Michigan DOES have an extra scrutineering day. It is the Wednesday when we check gear starting at 10.00 am and open tech of the cars themselves at Noon. Thursday is the Statics Day for Design, Cost and Presentation. When we closed tech on Wednesday, we had had 102 cars into tech, and there were no cars waiting.

Michael Royce,
FSAE Tech

[JSR]

Provisional P1-3 so far, with cost and presentation.

1. University of Oaklahoma car #45, 157.23 points
2. Lawrence techological university car #95, 155.06 points
3. Oakland university car #53, 152.92 points

[Swiftus]

Mr. Royce,

Thank you very much for your detailed and authoritative reply. We do appreciate that we, the students, do not have to juggle statics and technical inspection as soon as we arrive at the competition.

[JSR]

Preliminary dynamic results are up!

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

[sparkmonkey]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VH0YiAO4KkJykekzT5V51xRSZRsxSsOpHdhQXsPKhqI/edit?usp=sharing

Compilation of the preliminary results. Missing the design scores and business top 3.

[mech5496]

Good job keeping us updated, thanks to everyone! Impressed by kookmin uni., they seem to be doing fair in all aspects and their current placing is a nice surprise! Keep the updates coming!

P.S. Any live timing/streaming for endurance?

[JT A.]

Sooooo....who won?

[JSR]

Top 10 Overall
1 #016 Graz Technical Univ
2 #001 Oregon State Univ
3 #009 Univ of Florida
4 #053 Kookmin Univ
5 #008 Univ of Michigan - Ann Arbor
6 #110 Virginia Tech
7 #038 National Univ of Singapore
8 #072 Univ of Michigan - Dearborn
9 #101 Wroclaw University of Technology
10 #117 Western University

[Z]

Well, the Fat Lady sang about a day ago ... and still no full list of O/A results ... anywhere??? The supposed interweb-age of instant "live" coverage is sorely lacking here.

Nevertheless, the carrier-pigeons have reported some interesting results. Of the top 10 Teams overall, 4.5 are from outside USA (counting GFR as 0.5 US). Especially impressive results of 4th from Kookmin (S. Korea) and 7th from Singapore. But what happened to fast AutoX Teams such as Akron, San Jose, ETS, and others? And how did GFR manage to win AutoX, Endurance, AND Fuel-Efficiency, but NOT place in the top ten in Design?

Ahhh, yes..., the Design Event remains as mysterious as ever. Will there ever be some DE feedback given? Preferably in the public domain, such as here? And I recall an award for "Best 3-View Drawing", or some such. Any chance of such drawings being presented publicly, here? For the education of young Engineers...

Otherwise, any chance of Nice-Camera-Guy linking to one of those long photo-files? Preferably close-ups of the cars without their clothes on. Please... (it is getting cold here, down-under). :)

Z

[Kevin Hayward]

Unless I am mistaken only 4 of the 11 design finalists finished the endurance event (cant confirm Campinas). This is 36%. It also appears that of the design finalists the average score of those that didn't finish was higher than those that did.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that the majority of the teams who were deemed to be the best designers didn't meet the fundamental requirements of the competition?

Kev

[ChristianChalliner]

Kevin, I've always thought that but I suppose it is to be sympathetic to teams that have extremely good overall design but suffer a particularly unforseen failure, for example, that of a bought component. I know there's arguments against it and in extreme cases like this one it does seem a bit odd. A while ago i considered why it was that a team receive any design points if their car didn't finish endurance but i get the impression this would lead to some very heavy cars and extreme nursing to ensure the car finished the run which isn't really within the spirit of the event.

[Kevin Hayward]

Christian,

There used to be an unwritten rule that if you didn't complete endurance you couldn't win design. That was when final design was decided after the endurance event.

Given that there is no wheel to wheel racing there is very little beyond the control of the team. Unless it is something like a puncture a good designer should be able to cover all bases.

For example a failure in a composite joint indicates poor quality control, poor testing, poor initial design or something similar. Having this happen on a critical component indicates poor judgement of using unproven components in critical systems. Wrong in both lower and upper levels of the design process.

There should be very few unforeseen failures. A decent risk assessment should uncover just about anything.

...

I certainly don't expect these cars to be super reliable given the conditions they run in, but I have a big issue with this reliability not being appropriately reflected in the design event. If someone tried to sell me a music player that had top notch sound quality, was nice and cheap, durable finish, good looking, but only worked every third song I would call it shit design, and most importantly wouldn't buy it.

Since I have been lecturing there is a constant stream of people that want you to help them with their inventions. The normal line is:

"Its a great design, and once we solve this technical problem, it will be awesome"

Running this through the google translator to turn it into English you get the following:

"We have some fundamental design flaws, or made some big mistakes along the way. This was probably due to us not having a decent grasp of some basic concepts. The product wont work, but we are attached to the idea, so could you please help us with the problem so we can all be deluded."

A really simple fix rules wise would be design points capped at 110pts if all events are not completed. Just make sure the top designed cars are those that meet the design goals.

Kev

p.s. No attack meant for any individual team. I chose the composite example, because it is one that has happened a few times in recent years. Undoubtedly there were a few cars at comp with composite suspension failures, but I am not picking on any one of them in particular. If your particular bug bear is oil leaks then insert it in the above example and it all still holds true.

[RagingGrandpa]

Well, the Fat Lady sang about a day ago ... and still no full list of O/A results ... anywhere??? The supposed interweb-age of instant "live" coverage is sorely lacking here.

Nevertheless, the carrier-pigeons have reported some interesting results. Of the top 10 Teams overall, 4.5 are from outside USA (counting GFR as 0.5 US). Especially impressive results of 4th from Kookmin (S. Korea) and 7th from Singapore. But what happened to fast AutoX Teams such as Akron, San Jose, ETS, and others? And how did GFR manage to win AutoX, Endurance, AND Fuel-Efficiency, but NOT place in the top ten in Design?

Ahhh, yes..., the Design Event remains as mysterious as ever. Will there ever be some DE feedback given? Preferably in the public domain, such as here? And I recall an award for "Best 3-View Drawing", or some such. Any chance of such drawings being presented publicly, here? For the education of young Engineers...

Otherwise, any chance of Nice-Camera-Guy linking to one of those long photo-files? Preferably close-ups of the cars without their clothes on. Please... (it is getting cold here, down-under). :)

ZOverall results: http://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfservice/431955123_FSAE_MI_2015_overall_prelim.pdf

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

[Flight909]

What is the reason for GFRs penalty off -10 points? With out it they would beat Graz by 2 points.

[JSR]

Overall results are now up! (sorry, missed that they had been posted!)

https://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfservice/431955123_FSAE_MI_2015_overall_prelim.pdf

But some pictures from the comp:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/104102302644408236956/albums/6149764625273710929

[bob.paasch]

What is the reason for GFRs penalty off -10 points? With out it they would beat Graz by 2 points.
We were 3 or 4 minutes late with our SES submission. Fair cop, late is late.

[JSR]

But what happened to fast AutoX Teams such as Akron, San Jose, ETS, and others? And how did GFR manage to win AutoX, Endurance, AND Fuel-Efficiency, but NOT place in the top ten in Design?

Z

What I find quite intriguing as well is that they weren't that fast in both acc or skidpad, but still manage to get top results in AutoX and Endurance. Anyone know if they had any problems during skidpad and acc?

[bob.paasch]

What I find quite intriguing as well is that they weren't that fast in both acc or skidpad, but still manage to get top results in AutoX and Endurance. Anyone know if they had any problems during skidpad and acc?

Some background: it rained Friday morning, and the track was declared "wet". By 1100 the track was starting to dry out, perhaps to the standards of "damp", but the stewards made the decision to require rain tires for everyone for the entire morning (skidpad & accel) session. Everyone was waiting until the end (1200), as it was clear the track was getting faster by the minute.

With our overall concept, GFR doesn't expect to be near the top in c-car accel. In skidpad our drivers made some mistakes due to the challenging conditions.

[mech5496]

GFR? Late submissions? I thought you guys were making no such mistakes... :PIit is a pity losing a comp because of that, but fair is fair! Anyway, congrats to Graz and GFR for the exciting battle! Kev, I think that's the first time in a while that I (even partially) disagree with you. And that is because some really good cars/teams have suffered from problems really almost beyond control; flat tires, dead starters and the e-equivalent of those, stuck AIRs..

[Goost]

Would Dr. Paasch or anyone be willing to explain GFR's magic clutch?!?

Flawless launch and doesn't seem to pull the clutch at the end of the lap.
There's a video from autocross on their facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/TeamGFR?fref=nf

[Swiftus]

Would Dr. Paasch or anyone be willing to explain GFR's magic clutch?!?

Hehe...no magic there at all... EDIT: Listened to the end a few more times and he shifted into neutral when he rolled in.

'Flawless' part of the launch is part driver / part tuning - probably leaning a lot more on the driver than the tuning.

[Goost]

Swiftus,

Thanks!

Does he shift out of neutral without manually releasing the clutch?

Seems like he presses a button on the dash and zippp...

[Kevin Hayward]

Harry,

Feel free to disagree, but I don't think flat tyres and dead starters are beyond your control as a designer. You choose/design both.

I would say a puncture is not your fault, but not flat tyres in general. The design of the rim can have a big impact here as well as your manufacturing procedure. Is it a 3 piece wheel, 2, or 1. Three piece wheels can be quite difficult to get to seal well. If the rim is not well sized and the join between the rim halves is not gooped up well.

However no-one forces teams to run 3 piece wheels, it is designed. I have been involved with cars that the tyres were always going towards flat. A few fixes to design such as welding the rim halves together works a treat for fixing it.

Dead starters happens to be something that I wish I didn't know about, but we have had a fair few of them. Caused by locked relays, poor wiring connections, and needing to over use them for a poorly starting engine. Maybe the engine choice is a bad one. Again well within the control of the team.

Cant comment on the AIR, as I don't even know what it stands for.

There are some teams out there that never seem to be "unlucky", while some seem to collect bad "luck". One of our team members had an interesting theory about studying. His advice was that studying just starts using up your luck, and he wanted to maintain super high levels of luck while sitting the exams. It didn't go well.

...

I tend to think that the good designer doesn't say "We were unlucky that X happened this year, we couldn't do anything about it, I guess that is just racing". Rather they would say something like "X will not happen again" and then gets on with fixing it. Starters and tyres going flat have been happening in FSAE for a long time, any team that has been around for a while (i.e. all the design finalists) should have designs in place to prevent those problems.

It might seem a little insensitive, or an effort to rub salt into the wounds, but engineers should own their failures to prevent them in the future. Furthermore judging should place much more emphasis on reliability than it does at the moment. Are you aware that out of all of the cars that competed in dynamics there was a higher percentage of teams that finished endurance that didn't make design finals? (31 out of 79)

Kev

[Alumni]

The design event also does not take into consideration cost - real or team. Those two being the actual cost to make a part per the cost report and what a team pays for it after sponsorship etc...

Never in my life have I had an engineering project that didn't have a budget. You go over you lose (unless it's a government contract :).)

Thus, a team with a larger budget that can afford intricate machined uprights, hubs, engine plates, always has the advantage over a team that doesn't have those resources available, even if the designers on the "budget" team know their stuff better than the team with the perfect uprights.

The business logic case was supposed to help address this but appears to have failed (as expected.)

[JSR]

Some background: it rained Friday morning, and the track was declared "wet". By 1100 the track was starting to dry out, perhaps to the standards of "damp", but the stewards made the decision to require rain tires for everyone for the entire morning (skidpad & accel) session. Everyone was waiting until the end (1200), as it was clear the track was getting faster by the minute.

With our overall concept, GFR doesn't expect to be near the top in c-car accel. In skidpad our drivers made some mistakes due to the challenging conditions.

Thanks for clearing that up Bob! I know that you don't expect to be in the top, but didn't hinder you at FSG last summer ;)

[apalrd]

The design event also does not take into consideration cost - real or team. Those two being the actual cost to make a part per the cost report and what a team pays for it after sponsorship etc...
.....
Thus, a team with a larger budget that can afford intricate machined uprights, hubs, engine plates, always has the advantage over a team that doesn't have those resources available, even if the designers on the "budget" team know their stuff better than the team with the perfect uprights.
...

This is partially true.

A team with a larger budget can afford things that a team with less budget cannot. This, however, can be justified in design.

From the 2015 rules:

S6.1.1 The concept of the design event is to evaluate the engineering effort that went into the design of the car and how the engineering meets the intent of the market both in terms of vehicle performance and overall value.
S6.1.2 The car that illustrates the best use of engineering to meet the design goals, a cost effective high performance autocross car, and the best understanding of the design by the team members will win the design event.
The bolded sections are italicized in the manual.

If you tell the judges that cost is one of your design goals, and justify all of your design decisions to both performance and cost, there should be no penalty in design.


There is a separate cost event, which should take cost into consideration. I agree that the cost event is poorly done (We are often cited in our report review for not including items such as tachometers and coolant temp gauges, which do not exist on the car and are thus not costed), but don't blame the design event for these faults.

[JustNutsandBolts]

Given that the design portion of this event should have nothing to do with how well the car will place in dynamic events, I am surprised some of you think that the best represented car will place 1st in all dynamic events...or vice versa....

Not all teams in US (or in the world) are in warm, wide, middle of nowhere sections of a landmark where many kids play around with go karts all year round.

I understand this is the way it is and I am in acceptance but you just cannot deny the facts that those teams are in advantage...I've even heard ETS say some teams they know of "hire" drivers...I guess everyone is in it to win it but I was a part of FSAE for many other reasons.

[Kevin Hayward]

JustNutsandBolts,

Expecting that the cars chosen as design finalists should finish all events is different to expecting them to the fastest. I would say it is completely reasonable to expect that the best designed cars meet their design targets.

Likewise, cars that do well dynamically and perform poorly in design should be rare, as they clearly meet the intended design goals.

...

Extending my thoughts on the design judges assessing reliability ...

Just as a little quiz which of the following questions are you likely to hear in a design event:

1. What turbulence model did you use in your CFD, and why?

2. What measures did you take in your design to ensure your tyres wouldn't leak during running?

The first would be regularly asked, but has little bearing on overall performance, even though it does provide indication of how knowledgeable the students are. The second is of much more vital in the design, and the answer will show how well students approach problems.

Why is it that there is such a focus on the minutiae, but so little on more important problems?

Kev

[JustNutsandBolts]

I do agree with the points you have mentioned, but it seems many arguing parties in here are forgetting the driver experience and testing the car as a team are huge factors in placing top 10 in this competition.

[JustNutsandBolts]

Similar discussion is going on here: https://www.facebook.com/RacecarEngineering

go down a couple posts


title is:


Is Formula SAE/Formula Student getting out of control in terms of costs or are the rules too stable?
Is the best engineering winning or simply the biggest budget?

[NickFavazzo]

When the "top" designed cars don't finish, then it isn't a case of the drivers...

[JT A.]

I would use GFR as a benchmark for "how much budget does it takes to win" (for obvious reasons). I would think there are at least a dozen US teams that have similar or higher budget. Nothing I've seen on GFR's car is super trick fancy unobtanium. They're just using their resources better.

Even if there was a clear case of the team with the most money running away with every competition, that kind of thing is impossible to regulate in this type of competition. The biggest resource advantages you can get are usually free to the team. Access to university machinery, access to good testing grounds, industry support with machining, etc. You can't buy any of that stuff with a bigger budget, it's just a matter of which school is fortunate enough to have them, and which team can keep the best connections in industry.

[smokebreak]

This is my first year competing so I am not sure if it is normal to wait so long for official results. Is this normal?

[Z]

Johan,

Thanks for the link to Andrew Wong's FSAE-M-2015 pictures (https://plus.google.com/photos/104102302644408236956/albums/6149764625273710929). Much appreciated! I can feel my insides warming already... :)

Also, I recall seeing that GFR had a very fast first Skid-Pad run (first lap ~5.1?? sec) ... but knocked over four cones. Second run they knocked over even more. Last two runs I guess they played safe. Their first run, with 4 x cone-penalty, was ultimately their best time (IIRC).
~~~o0o~~~

Further to DESIGN EVENT. What is it about???

It honestly remains a complete mystery to me.

Here I must agree with Kevin, Nick, JTA, above. Broadly speaking, the cars that do best in Design should also be placing near top in most of the Dynamic Events. After all, is that not what the students are being asked to "design"? If not, then what?

As a good example, it seems that GFR chose to build a quite cheap car that does well in Cost and Fuel (small cheap engine, simple other stuff), but has to sacrifice some points in Acceleration. However, the fact that this "cheapie" also cleans up in AutoX and Enduro suggests, to me, VERY GOOD design! (Mostly due to good, but still cheap, aero.) So why only a 70% Design score?

(BTW, a GFR-like car with even simpler engine-drivetrain, simpler suspension, and much more BLAT-ish undertray, = very "brown-go-kart"! ;))

So, CAN SOME DESIGN JUDGES PLEASE PROVIDE SOME FEEDBACK on what Design Event is measuring?

Z

[brownts]

Johan,

Thanks for the link to Andrew Wong's FSAE-M-2015 pictures (https://plus.google.com/photos/104102302644408236956/albums/6149764625273710929). Much appreciated! I can feel my insides warming already... :)

Also, I recall seeing that GFR had a very fast first Skid-Pad run (first lap ~5.1?? sec) ... but knocked over four cones. Second run they knocked over even more. Last two runs I guess they played safe. Their first run, with 4 x cone-penalty, was ultimately their best time (IIRC).
~~~o0o~~~

Further to DESIGN EVENT. What is it about???

It honestly remains a complete mystery to me.

Here I must agree with Kevin, Nick, JTA, above. Broadly speaking, the cars that do best in Design should also be placing near top in most of the Dynamic Events. After all, is that not what the students are being asked to "design"? If not, then what?

As a good example, it seems that GFR chose to build a quite cheap car that does well in Cost and Fuel (small cheap engine, simple other stuff), but has to sacrifice some points in Acceleration. However, the fact that this "cheapie" also cleans up in AutoX and Enduro suggests, to me, VERY GOOD design! (Mostly due to good, but still cheap, aero.) So why only a 70% Design score?

(BTW, a GFR-like car with even simpler engine-drivetrain, simpler suspension, and much more BLAT-ish undertray, = very "brown-go-kart"! ;))

So, CAN SOME DESIGN JUDGES PLEASE PROVIDE SOME FEEDBACK on what the DE is measuring?

Z


Or....this might really make your head spin, Z- McGill = GFR in DE score. McGill had 0 run time on their car going into MIS....ever.

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful car, but.....yyeeeeaaaah

[Alumni]

If you tell the judges that cost is one of your design goals, and justify all of your design decisions to both performance and cost, there should be no penalty in design.

Should be - but history shows us different. How often does design for manufacturing come up in design?

IMO, design should go something like this:
1. This is how we decided our requirements for a part
2. This are the requirements.
3. This is what we wanted to design
4. This is what we could actually afford and make
5. This is why our compromises are acceptable.
6. Next part.

But for the most part, both students and judges skip over #3, and if it is brought up it leads to pointless juvenile bickering over why they had to go to #4, and forget to discuss #5.

[JT A.]

Over the 9 design judging events I participated in as a student, the most frustrating thing was how common it was to go through an entire design event without talking about the design of your actual car. You might be thinking "what the hell would you talk about in design other than the design of your car?" Well it generally fell into 2 categories:

1) The "pop quiz of RCVD" style of design judging. Lots of very generic questions that don't provoke any thought, and aren't specific to your car at all. "What happens when you have positive caster and you steer the wheels? What does KPI do? What does shorter FV instant centers do?" If they did ask anything about your actual car, it was just "Tell me X number from your spec sheet" but not any question about why or how you designed for that value, which is really what matters. If you tried to stop and explain the how & why, they would usually interrupt you because they had to keep plowing through their list of questions. From what I remember these judges typically were from the older crowd and I usually got them at Michigan. The really frustrating thing was when they would come back for the design feedback and point out specific criticisms of your car, leaving you thinking "Well I wish you would've brought that up during the design event"

2) Data overload. Now don't get me wrong, data analysis is a very important part of the design process. But sometimes (especially in design finals in Lincoln) they treat it like it's the only part of the design process. A couple different times we had at least 7 or 8 floating judges come around who specialized in data acquisition, so we spent 90% of design finals talking about data. Every judge or pair of judges would come by and ask us to show them the same thing we just showed the last pair. Data judges were extremely over-allocated. Now like I said, data analysis is definitely important and it's something that a lot of teams are lacking. But it's important to not neglect the other parts of the design process. Why should a team put any effort or thought into designing a car properly when you're going to be judged only on what you do after the car is built. Why call it "design" event when 90% of what they're judging you on is your ability to test setups and collect data? Why design a car at all? Just build last year's car, strap it with sensors and test the hell out of it if that's all the judges want to see.

The best experiences I've had in design were with judges that asked us how we actually came up with the design for our car. And they evaluated our design methods from a general engineering standpoint, not racecar specific. Things like:

-What were your goals? How did you develop those goals?
-How did you quantify or predict that your design was achieving those goals
-How did you prioritize different aspects of the project? Did you distribute effort and resources appropriately?
-What simulation tools did you use? Were they commercial/public or did you develop your own specialized tools?
-How did you validate the simulation tools that you used? How much confidence do you have in them?
-What physical tests did you do to guide your design?
-Did you validate your final design? Did it meet the goals you set?

Those type of questions actually made the design event fun and educational. Compared to the first example I gave where I walked away wondering "how the hell do you form an opinion of our design quality based on the mundane questions you asked?"

[mmw2753]

JT - our design event philosophy was to present those bulleted ideas before the judges even had the opportunity to ask random pop quiz questions. That way, the judges had seen the overview of our team's design process already, knew the basics of our design, and then their questions could be more focused on the actual car.

[Mbirt]

JT - our design event philosophy was to present those bulleted ideas before the judges even had the opportunity to ask random pop quiz questions. That way, the judges had seen the overview of our team's design process already, knew the basics of our design, and then their questions could be more focused on the actual car.This. An unfortunate problem for the hardcore engineering students who agonize the engineering details of the car is that they're not natural talkers/presenters. You have to be cognizant of the psychology involved in milking the most points out of the design judge. To avoid heading down the rabbit hole of answering the judge's inappropriate premeditated questions, just keep talking about how your design fits the overall goal of the car and the awesomely logical and efficient processes that allowed you to arrive at that design. It's unfortunate that I can assign design judging points directly to the presenters' ability to talk, but it's at least 20 until you reach the semifinals threshold.

[jd74914]

This. An unfortunate problem for the hardcore engineering students who agonize the engineering details of the car is that they're not natural talkers/presenters. You have to be cognizant of the psychology involved in milking the most points out of the design judge. To avoid heading down the rabbit hole of answering the judge's inappropriate premeditated questions, just keep talking about how your design fits the overall goal of the car and the awesomely logical and efficient processes that allowed you to arrive at that design. It's unfortunate that I can assign design judging points directly to the presenters' ability to talk, but it's at least 20 until you reach the semifinals threshold.

I don't know if unfortunate is the correct word. Teaching people to emphasize their points and redirect (or properly introduce) is a valuable life skill. I've been in dozens of meetings where a proper introduction and theme serve to help prevent derailment. Without really emphasizing your points the reviewers are really a wild card; to minimize this risk you really need to well present your case. This is not only applicable to formula but engineering life in general.

[Mitchell]

JT - our design event philosophy was to present those bulleted ideas before the judges even had the opportunity to ask random pop quiz questions. That way, the judges had seen the overview of our team's design process already, knew the basics of our design, and then their questions could be more focused on the actual car.

Is that not the point of the Design report? or is it generally accepted now that the majority of judges don't even read them.

[Pennyman]

Plenty of documentation is publicly available online explaining the design event and scoring guidelines on the SAE website and FSAEOnline. Not sure how many teams really use those documents to prepare though.

[JT A.]

Plenty of documentation is publicly available online explaining the design event and scoring guidelines on the SAE website and FSAEOnline. Not sure how many teams really use those documents to prepare though.

The point I'm trying to make is that a significant portion of the judges need to review those guidelines of how the design event is supposed judged.

For example the design scoring sheet says that each category (suspension, chassis, powertrain, etc) is judged with the following emphasis

Design- 25%
Build- 25%
Validation/refinement- 25%
Understanding -25%

My experience at FSAE Lincoln design events is that their emphasis is more like 75% validation/refinement, 10% design, 5% build, and 10% understanding.

And the judges that ask nothing but "RCVD pop quiz" questions I guess could loosely be considered as testing your "understanding", but they ask nothing about your design & analysis methods, or validation/refinement. So how are they determining your score in those areas?

And yes the obvious solution to a judge who asks bad questions is to try to steer the conversation back to the points you really want to get across. In my experience that works to some degree, but I've also seen judges respond with indifference or even outright frustration that you aren't letting them ask their questions.

[Pennyman]

This is only my perspective, but I believe that some of the component/system design and build aspects can be inferred from the first impression of the car as it sits in the design bay. The fit and finish of the vehicle, the mass and how components are sized, and the packaging can tell you a lot. But looking at the vehicle in person doesn’t lend itself well to how much testing/validation has been done (unless it’s clearly showing wear). This could be why some judges lean on validation. I have a few other theories about this, but I won’t get into them here. Of course some questions are necessary to properly gauge student knowledge as well.

I was the rookie judge for the Kansas team in Michigan last week. If you were there, I’d like to hear more about your specific experience, especially if you were dissatisfied in some way. Send me a PM and we can continue this.

[JT A.]

I left school last year so I'm no longer with the team, my participation was from 2011-2014. So I have no idea how their design went, other than they made finals. I would still be interested in getting some feedback from you though

I completely disagree that you can just eyeball the overall build quality and make assumptions about how well the car was designed. That leaves so much room for subjectivity and is fundamentally flawed. A design judge can look at your suspension linkages and determine if they are properly sized for the loads, but how does he know you arrived at that design by proper engineering, rather than simply by looking at other team's cars and copying their sizes for tubing, rod ends, fasteners, etc? Or by copying the same sizes that your team used the year before? Doesn't it make much more sense to ASK the team to show their load cases and calculations, and how they prioritized between weight, stiffness, and ultimate strength? Sorry for the rant, but that topic is sort of a sore spot for me, because there were times when my team was scored lower & kept out of design finals because of these types of criticisms that really "blindsided" us. We felt that if they had brought it up in design we had a chance to defend our choices, it would have turned out differently.

[Pennyman]

If judging was based on the eyeballing the build quality of the car, then questioning wouldn’t be necessary. I would hope student designers bring up all of their design considerations during the questioning period. Those considerations should follow some semblance of “proper engineering” as you call it, and should include testing/validation if it's available. The judge is there to evaluate what is said with the car as a visual aid. But I believe balance and time management is important too, and the team should consider what is the best use of their time. If they spend 30 minutes discussing shape optimization of their rockers, this probably isn’t the best use of time. Therefore all areas cannot be covered (some might have to be inferred from the car) otherwise the design event would take all week to complete.

Despite how it sounds, I think you and I are in agreement. Unfortunately the design event isn't long enough to cover everything, and quality of the car is not the final say.

[JT A.]

I also think we are more or less in agreement.

I guess I just think the judges should share a little more of the responsibility to steer the discussion in the right direction and make sure the important topics get covered (they are the experts right?). Most of them already do a good job of this. I only remember 2 or 3 that were particularly "bad" in that respect. Unfortunately, it was these judges who were also the most stubborn about not letting the students get the discussion back on track. If you did try to emphasize your goals, or go into any detail about your design methods or validation, they would cut you off and keep asking what I consider "shallow" questions. Basically their attitude came off as "Screw your overall system goals, I want to know what your scrub radius is. And don't bother telling me why you chose that value, because I need to get on to KPI, ride frequency, and roll center migration. Don't explain any of those either. Tell me what happens when you have positive caster and you turn the wheel to the right". I'll make it clear that this was the small minority of design judges, but there are enough of them (2-3 out of 9 competitions that I went to) that I think it is a problem.

Yes the students should know to get their main points across, highlight the best examples of design work that they did, etc. The good judges already let you do this and it isn't an issue. Its the few judges that don't that are a problem.

[VFR750R]

There are some insinuations about the judges that I don't think are fair. Keep in mind that many of the judges are engineers at the top levels of motorsport or within their industries, they have a love for FSAE (remember they don't get paid for this and pay their own hotel rooms, flights, rental cars etc), and many are FSAE alum. They have a high level of respect for the students and their efforts (those who don't are not invited back). Most if not all judges spend considerable amounts of personal time re-familarizing themselves with the rules, reading design reports of their teams and teams from other ques to get an idea of the level of competition. They know the students take it seriously and they are just as anxious and afraid of screwing up as the students.

There is perhaps some disagreement among all the parties involved what the design judging event should be exactly, and some judges can be led astray or force conversations of the micro when 20,000 manhours is condensed into 40 minutes demands more overview. It's important however that judges get a feeling for depth as well as breadth of knowledge, and sometimes questions are asked as much to see the reaction and the level of preparation as they are asking for a value. It's still in my mind the teams responsibility for redirecting the conversation back on track or to indulge the judge with answers to obscure questions. Answers can be cleverly answered using the teams design goals as part of the calculation which can sometimes right the ship. Ultimately it's a competition against your peers and that judge will do his best to grade all teams on the same scale. The determination of who goes on to secondary is a group decision and unanimous agreement by all judges in a que is very typical, which eliminates some of the impact of a single 'bad' judge.

The head design judges do a tremendous job, and the amount of work that goes into the event and the preparation by all the judges is significant. I know that the head judges are also quite open to input and try to improve the process and make it more objective each year.

[Kevin Hayward]

I think you are able to be critical of what is emphasized in the design event while still being incredibly grateful for the time and effort the design judges put in.

A decision was made a number of years ago to decide on design before endurance was run. I think this was a mistake, as it has shown that judges are not able to assess reliability reliably.

We have a number of design finalists that are unreliable, or uncompetitive. Ultimately a teams understanding and design ability is put to the test with the product they develop. I worry very much if we are training a generation of engineers that depth of knowledge is more important than designing functional products. As engineers our trade is in solving problems, using knowledge when and where it is appropriate. A vast difference to the scientist who develops knowledge with no clear view of its final use.

Kev

[jpusb]

I agree with you all. If you don't like the design event in Michigan, you should definitely come to FS Spain. I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole event is very nice, good weather, ambient, and the dynamic tracks are very good for both drivers and spectators, which I think is important as a large % of the team put their lives into that car are not allowed into the dynamics area, so at leas they should get a good view of the dynamic events, not like in FSAE Michigan 2007. But the design judges (many, not all) are people who know a lot less of the whole racecar thing than some students, and they try to steer the "discussion" to spend the whole design event focusing on their particular minuscule area of knowledge. To me (as a close observer and after many Michigan events for comparison), the design event was way off what it should be (goals and how you met these goals and so on, everything you guys have put here). And design reviews were completely useless, with judges, again, showing basic knowledge flaws in mechanics and vehicle dynamics.

I do like quiz questions, or at least, good questions. Of course, the complete score and discussion time should not be about that, at all. But I think relevant quiz questions popped out of nowhere can show realities and flaws of the team's knowledge and how they approach their design, realities and flaws that their perfectly prepared presentation is, prepared, to mask. I have not been a judge but I would guess that, as a judge, you can not approach a design event the same way for both a top team and a team with a car showing basic knowledge/design flaws. Even if the car shows it or not, I think quiz questions can tell you a lot about the reality of what that team has thought of and discussed and what not. Of course, what does KPI do or questions like that are not thrilling, but I have been asked very good (some basic, some not so basic) questions in the design event and design reviews, some very close related to the actual dynamic events, and the questions clearly filtered those who had already thought of that in the team and those who had no idea. Some of the times, the questions could be answered by yes, that is why this is this or that way in the car, look at it. Some other tims it was more like, well, never though about that, and that would definitely change my next years design heheee.

[JulianH]

Does anyone (Bob?) know something about this penalty list?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152809827870811&set=p.10152809827870811&type=1&__mref=message_bubble

It seems like Graz has (had?) a 10 point penalty as well, which would have put GFR back to the top but it is not included in the Overall Results.
Was the penalty removed?

[bob.paasch]

Does anyone (Bob?) know something about this penalty list?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152809827870811&set=p.10152809827870811&type=1&__mref=message_bubble

It seems like Graz has (had?) a 10 point penalty as well, which would have put GFR back to the top but it is not included in the Overall Results.
Was the penalty removed?

Direct from SAE: the penalty was incorrect and was removed.

[Westly]

Teams being successful in design and not faring well in the dynamic events has been common for quite a while - was much the same last year. (from a post of mine august last year -> "Interesting to note: The top 5 in Design at 2014 FSG didnt finish endurance, 1 of the Top 5 in Design at Michigan finished endurance (GFR, 4th) and ETS has won design twice this year (Michigan and North), but failed to compete either competitions endurance.")

A quick count through the preliminary results suggests the endurance finishing rate is ~32% too, which is pretty much on par with what I would expect: ie: still very poor. I have only ever seen a single failure of a vehicle which I considered outside of the teams control (another teams master link puncturing their tyre). Starter motors failing, tyres deflating as kev said are all things which can and should be tested and validated before a competition. For example we test out wheel/tyres - recording pressures to ensure they do not change and are holding pressure in the lead up to comp. In my opinion teams poorly balance the trade off between ensuring reliability and performance optimisation - with too much time spent on the latter.

Discussion regarding budgets and drivers:
Good to see Florida (3rd) and Kookmin (4th) doing well. Goes to show you don't need unobtainium uprights, etc to do well, both had steel space frames, 13" wheels, Kookmin didn't have wings either, etc . I believed that the vehicle design technical performance design work impacted about 20% of your competition placing. The rest was around 30% reliability, 20% driver training, 20% static event preparation and the remainder in setup/tuning.
Drivers are also a big factor - but you also have control over this. Getting the car finished very early to provide your driver lots of time for training is hugely important - previous cars can be used too. They can also read books on driving and do physical training.

[Dylan Edmiston]

Official results released: http://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfservice/434033735_FSAE_MI_2015_result.pdf

TUG was moved down to 3rd promoting both UF and GFR 1 spot (GFR still beat UF by 3.3 points).

[JulianH]

Wow, Florida only 3,3 points away from the biggest sensation in the last FSAE decades. Awesome, congrats!

Sad to see that Graz got a penalty so late... but the rules are the rules.

[Z]

Where did Graz lose ~30+ points? And why?

Z

[JulianH]

Z, on the SAE homepage, there is a letter about this topic:

http://www.sae.org/servlets/pressRoom?OBJECT_TYPE=PressReleases&PAGE=showCDSNews&EVENT=FORMULA&RELEASE_ID=3051

To summarize (what I heard / read): When Graz refueled after Endurance the amount that went into the tank was really small. So they had to refuel again. According to a new 2015 rule, this amount of "second refuelling" gets added twice to your fuel amout (as kind of a penalty). Therefore Graz lost about 30 points.

[Z]

Julian,

Thanks for the update. I guess there is an interesting story in there, somewhere.

I really wish there was more "inside" feedback from these big comps. No "secrets" or anything, just all the good gossipy stuff about who fell flat on their face, and why, and so on.

Also a lot more DJ feedback on what Design Event is supposed to be about, etc., would be really helpful. For example, some DJ opinions on why some Design Finalists failed to finish Enduro (maybe too "optimised"?), and how some non-DFs managed to finish on top Overall (because they...?), would be very educational!

Z

[JulianH]

Z,

I only judged in Austria last year. But still an important competition (probably the 2nd best field after Germany).

When we selected the Design Finalists, we could not assess if the car will finish Endurance or not.
How could you ever do that?
Yes of course, you see some "going to fail" designs on the suspension but I think about 90% of the DNFs of "Design Event teams" could not be spotted from the outside.
I think Graz had a fuel leak and Munich E had an electrical problem.

Therefore I think this discussion is worthless.

When it comes to "bad Design teams with a good performance", that's sometimes the fault of the teams.

I judged a Top 5 Overall team in Aerodynamics. Their main Aero guy was not at the competition and his replacement just did not know anything. So his score was really bad.
But that does not make the car any slower...

Additionally you can make fast cars without knowing a lot / without being well prepared for Design.
So don't blame the judges all the way...

Cheers
Julian

[bob.paasch]

Here's one of the biggest problems with FSAE/FS design judging: http://www.fsaeonline.com/content/FSAE%20Design%20Score%20Sheet%20150pt.pdf

Formula SAE Design Judging Scoresheet

Suspension 25
Frame/Body/Aero 25
Powertrain 25
Cockpit/Controls/Brakes/Safety 25
Systems Management/Integration 20
Manufacturability/Serviceability 15
Aesthetics/Style 5
Creativity 10

This points breakdown was perhaps appropriate 10-15 years ago, when Cornell was chewing up the track with their 95 HP turbo 600s, few top teams ran aero, and fuel economy (not efficiency) was worth 50 points. This point breakdown is the reason some design finalists don't do well in the dynamic events (design emphasis on things the judges like/score high, but don't matter on the track), and a reason some very fast cars don't do well in design.

It's ludicrous aero gets lumped in with frame, and is worth 0-10 points in current judging. If I redid this to reflect today's FSAE/FS competition:

Suspension 20
Frame/Body 15
Aero 40
Powertrain 10 (with a focus on reliability and efficiency, not power)
Cockpit/Controls/Brakes/Safety 15
Systems Management/Integration 40 (including project management, system engineering, physical testing, driver training)
Manufacturability/Serviceability 10
Aesthetics/Style 0 (can't be judged consistently. Good craftsmanship can be included above)
Creativity 0 (can't be judged consistently)

This competition is not about designing cars. The design goal is to engineer a system for scoring dynamic points at competition. In my humble opinion.

[JayNoon]

Julian,

Thanks for the update. I guess there is an interesting story in there, somewhere.

I really wish there was more "inside" feedback from these big comps. No "secrets" or anything, just all the good gossipy stuff about who fell flat on their face, and why, and so on.

Also a lot more DJ feedback on what Design Event is supposed to be about, etc., would be really helpful. For example, some DJ opinions on why some Design Finalists failed to finish Enduro (maybe too "optimised"?), and how some non-DFs managed to finish on top Overall (because they...?), would be very educational!

Z

If only they could televise the event or hold some sort of live web feed for endurance where people could watch the triumphs and failures of FSAE racing. I was in the dynamic area for the second half of endurance and kept track of the classically well performing teams. Here are my notes of the excitement:

Saginaw Valley - DNF - running quick until heavy smoke poured out.
Maryland - DNF- was smoking slightly at first but it worsened in the second stint.
San Jose State - DNF - Major smoke after one lap.
RIT - Car was limping the entire run. Unsure of the issue.
Akron - Car was limping very slowly from lap 1, apparently an engine map issue. Held up the top 5 teams during endurance several times.
Kansas - DNF - Control Arm Failure in second stint.
ETS - DNS - Starter issue.
Wisconsin - DNS - fuel issue.
UTA - Hit cones damaging front wing and DRS sytem, but finished well.
Cornell - DNF - Oil drip.

Again, this is not meant to put down any team, just provide a little more transparency for those who weren't there.

Cheers,

[Z]

Jay,

Ahh... just what I wanted. :) Thanks!

And congratulations on very good result!

Z

[Z]

Here's one of the biggest problems with FSAE/FS design judging: http://www.fsaeonline.com/content/FSAE%20Design%20Score%20Sheet%20150pt.pdf

Bob,

Having now finished reading all 8 pages of that Checklist, I agree that it is most likely the source of the Design Event problems.

This current approach to Design Scoring seems, to me, to be an incredibly narrow-minded, finicky, detail-focussed, only-look-at-the-small-picture, way of assessing a Team's Design effort!

There is not a single check-box item there that asks how the Team addressed the BIG-PICTURE questions inherent in this competition.

To spell this out, not even in the "Systems Management/Integration" section, seemingly about the BIG issues (?) but only worth 20/150 points, is there any focus on how the Team decided between, say, a high-power-turbo-car-with-NO-aero, and a low-power-mega-wing-car. Or any of the many other paths to "scoring maximum points". Or even if "maximum points" was, in fact, the Team's goal?
~o0o~

To explain this by way of analogy, way back in the olden-days when young Z actually worked as an Engineer, the Drawing Office hierarchy was something like this:

1. Chief Engineer - Meditates in a darkened room for ages, until ... he eventually emerges with a vague vision of the way forward. He then frantically produces many rough sketches of said vision, which are passed to...

2. Design Engineers - Draw more accurate sketches (eg. "FBD"s) of the CE's work and do many calculations to assess feasibility. Then either report back to CE that "It'll never work!!!", which sends CE back into his darkened room, or pass their more detailed sketches down to...

3. Design Draughtsmen - Turn the DE's sketches into accurate "Assembly" and "Sub-Assembly" drawings, which includes doing many routine calculations for things such as the required bolt-, bearing-, rod-end-, sizes, etc. Also give directions to next two...

4. Detail Draughtsmen - Produce accurate "Part" drawings, with properly written dimensions, tolerances, material specs, standard-notes, etc.

5. Tracer - Reproduces old "master" drawings that have passed through too many hands and are starting to fall apart. (Sexist note: This was usually the only female in an office full of hundreds of males!)

And there was also a Checker, usually a very experienced Draughtsman who took copies of "first-draft" drawings and covered them with red ink to indicated ERRORS!!! (after which they were sent back for correction, often many times...), and Document-Control who, if you asked very nicely, gave you working "blueprints" because the master-drawings were zealously held in a big fireproof safe.

Anyway, the Design Score-Sheet/Checklist looks very much to me as if it is assessing MOSTLY the work of numbers 3, 4, and 5 above. Yep, think about how many parts on this year's car are mere "Tracings" of previous work, yet are covered extensively in the Checklist.

There is VERY LITTLE assessment of a Design Engineers' work (#2 above).

I see absolutely NO ASSESSMENT of the sort of work that a Chief Engineer (#1) would do.
~o0o~

Bottom line, the Design Scoring process makes no attempt to assess the sort of HIGH-LEVEL Engineering skills that Univesities should be teaching, and these competitions should be testing.

Can this be good for the future of "Engineering"?

NO WAY!

Is there a better way to assess these high-level skills?

I think so, but I would like to hear other's views first.

Z

[JT A.]

Bob,

Having now finished reading all 8 pages of that Checklist, I agree that it is most likely the source of the Design Event problems.

This current approach to Design Scoring seems, to me, to be an incredibly narrow-minded, finicky, detail-focussed, only-look-at-the-small-picture, way of assessing a Team's Design effort!

There is not a single check-box item there that asks how the Team addressed the BIG-PICTURE questions inherent in this competition.

To spell this out, not even in the "Systems Management/Integration" section, seemingly about the BIG issues (?) but only worth 20/150 points, is there any focus on how the Team decided between, say, a high-power-turbo-car-with-NO-aero, and a low-power-mega-wing-car. Or any of the many other paths to "scoring maximum points". Or even if "maximum points" was, in fact, the Team's goal?
~o0o~

To explain this by way of analogy, way back in the olden-days when young Z actually worked as an Engineer, the Drawing Office hierarchy was something like this:

1. Chief Engineer - Meditates in a darkened room for ages, until ... he eventually emerges with a vague vision of the way forward. He then frantically produces many rough sketches of said vision, which are passed to...

2. Design Engineers - Draw more accurate sketches (eg. "FBD"s) of the CE's work and do many calculations to assess feasibility. Then either report back to CE that "It'll never work!!!", which sends CE back into his darkened room, or pass their more detailed sketches down to...

3. Design Draughtsmen - Turn the DE's sketches into accurate "Assembly" and "Sub-Assembly" drawings, which includes doing many routine calculations for things such as the required bolt-, bearing-, rod-end-, sizes, etc. Also give directions to next two...

4. Detail Draughtsmen - Produce accurate "Part" drawings, with properly written dimensions, tolerances, material specs, standard-notes, etc.

5. Tracer - Reproduces old "master" drawings that have passed through too many hands and are starting to fall apart. (Sexist note: This was usually the only female in an office full of hundreds of males!)

And there was also a Checker, usually a very experienced Draughtsman who took copies of "first-draft" drawings and covered them with red ink to indicated ERRORS!!! (after which they were sent back for correction, often many times...), and Document-Control who, if you asked very nicely, gave you working "blueprints" because the master-drawings were zealously held in a big fireproof safe.

Anyway, the Design Score-Sheet/Checklist looks very much to me as if it is assessing MOSTLY the work of numbers 3, 4, and 5 above. Yep, think about how many parts on this year's car are mere "Tracings" of previous work, yet are covered extensively in the Checklist.

There is VERY LITTLE assessment of a Design Engineers' work (#2 above).

I see absolutely NO ASSESSMENT of the sort of work that a Chief Engineer (#1) would do.
~o0o~

Bottom line, the Design Scoring process makes no attempt to assess the sort of HIGH-LEVEL Engineering skills that Univesities should be teaching, and these competitions should be testing.

Can this be good for the future of "Engineering"?

NO WAY!

Is there a better way to assess these high-level skills?

I think so, but I would like to hear other's views first.

Z

Z, I think the best way to evaluate the #1 & #2's work is objectively with a stopwatch rather than subjectively with a design judge. But it is possible to improve the design event (less subjectivity, more focus on the big picture design).

But currently there is a problem with relying on the stopwatch to evaluate design choices. As someone mentioned earlier, it is possible to build a really fast car without a good understanding of why it is fast. This is because the rules have been stagnant for way too long! The competition needs a shake up.

I think the rules committee has tried to shake things up by changing the aero rules every couple years, but it isn't making students re-think any of their concepts. Regardless of what the aero rules are, the winning philosophy is "shove as much wing into whatever sized box they give us". If that box is 1ft x 1ft, cram it full of wing. If the box is 3ft x 3ft, cram it full of wing. If there is an area where they didn't specify a box size, guess what - cram it full of wing. It isn't making students think. They can keep making the box more and more restrictive all they want, but it doesn't change physics - downforce is still good. And it takes freedom & creativity away from the students in design, which was one of the best things about this competition is how open the rules are compared to any professional racing series.

So instead of trying to shake up the competition by being more & more restrictive with the design of the car (which only makes the students think even less), shake up the competition by changing the events of the competition. And then change them the next year, and the next year. The team that knows how to engineer a system for a given set of goals (as Dr. Paasch correctly stated should be the intent of the competition) will be successful year after year, the teams that only know how to build 1 type of car won't.

Some example ideas:

-Could be as simple as drastically redistributing the point values for each event from year to year.

-Skidpad is driven only 1 direction instead of a figure 8. And you won't be told which direction until you enter the dynamic area. You have 5 minutes after entering to adjust your setup and then you must enter the line for the event. This makes students design for quick & easy adjustment and expand their VD understanding to include asymmetric setups.

-Mandatory engine removal/installation at some point in the competition. This one would be a logistics struggle to implement fairly (ie if you do it between autocross and endurance, the teams with a late endurance start order have an advantage). But the idea is to reward teams that actually design for serviceability.

-Acceleration is now 1.5x or 2x as long (then the next year, it's half as long). As always, no sprocket ratio changes are allowed during competition. So how does a team try to maximize overall points between accel & autocross/endurance.

-Your cost report has to be under $12000 to be allowed to compete. If the cost judging team finds discrepancies that put you over $12000 you must remove features from your car, or face harsh point deductions.

-Skidpad diameter changes from 25ft, to 40 ft, to 55ft on a 3 year rotating cycle.

-One year, the value of fuel efficiency event is doubled. The next year, there are no points for fuel efficiency but you are only given 1 gallon of fuel to run endurance.

-Skidpad, acceleration, and autocross are eliminated and instead a day is allowed for open testing on the endurance course. Who can make the best use of data to optimize their car for the track?

-Introduce a 400lb minimum weight rule. Do teams with 350lb cars keep building the same car and just add ballast? Do they swap to a bigger engine? Or do they distribute that extra weight into increasing durability/rigidity of critical components? Do teams with 450 lb cars keep building the same car or change their concept? Then of course, the next year go back to no minimum weight.

The important thing is to keep students on their toes. No legacy cars, no copy & paste designs. Now I only mentioned ways to shake up the dynamic events, so how does this improve the quality of the design event? Well, I think a by-product of the competition's format being stagnant for so long is that the judges have also gotten somewhat stagnant in the questions they ask & what they expect to see. A shake up is good for them too! The competition is now completely different from when they were in school, and the ideal vehicle concept that they knew from their era is no longer the case. This sparks big-picture design discussions with the students and less focus on what Z refers to as the #3, #4, and #5 level details.

[JT A.]

And Dr Paasch, I agree with you that the points breakdown for design is a bit outdated and doesn't reflect the current state of the competition. But ultimately it doesn't matter much because I don't think they follow it anyways. I've heard from a few different judges/event officials that they more or less get together over some beers, sort out the field into "Group A", "Group B", "Group C" etc...and then go back later and figure out how to fudge the points to make the teams fall into the correct category. So the first step in the right direction would be to get them to follow any kind of of formalized scoring system. Then worry about whether it's proportioned correctly.

[Westly]

Suspension 20
Frame/Body 15
Aero 40
Powertrain 10 (with a focus on reliability and efficiency, not power)
Cockpit/Controls/Brakes/Safety 15
Systems Management/Integration 40 (including project management, system engineering, physical testing, driver training)
Manufacturability/Serviceability 10
Aesthetics/Style 0 (can't be judged consistently. Good craftsmanship can be included above)
Creativity 0 (can't be judged consistently)

This competition is not about designing cars. The design goal is to engineer a system for scoring dynamic points at competition. In my humble opinion.

While I agree your weighting is a much more accurate representation of what is important in FSAE for many teams, i think the teams should be the ones to specifiy how much weight they place on each of those catagories and then justify why. I believe it would be better to give the Project Managers/Technical Directors a list, such as above, but with blank boxes and for them to assign their own weighting and then explain through their reasoning.
I believe there is very little within the current structure currently to assess these trade offs a team has to make.

For example: A smaller team may better direct their resources to building a reliable/well tested vehicle which is completed early to allow drivers testing time. I think its fair for the team to say- yes we believe aero is impoartant but with the resources available we believed this was a better solution to achieve success at competition - if they have justification to support this. This team in my opinion should not loses a proportion of points purely bacause aero is mandated to recieve a X% weighting in the design event.
If the team also had an Electric Throttle / Carbon wheels, etc then I would argue they had not followed their own brief and should lose points though.

Regards,

[Kevin Hayward]

JT A,

I'm not sure I agree that the rules have been stagnant. They have become larger, more complex, and more prescriptive since I was a student. There also have been small but significant changes to weightings that have seen the ideal concept move a fair bit.

I would also propose that without some stability in the rules (as well as freedom) there is little opportunity for real innovation. To do so takes a lot of time if you want innovative solutions that are performance improving. It is a common mistake to assume that improvement happens gradually at all times. Unexpected rapid changes is what we should be expecting. Spaceframes for an eternity, and then all of a sudden lots of carbon tubs. 13" wheels as standard, then everyone on 10"s. Almost no aero, then nearly all the top teams (yes a rule change helped this, but current regs allow about as much downforce as what they were pre big change). 600cc 4s then singles. The list goes on, but the pattern is the same. The difficult part is trying to predict the next big change, and be ahead of the curve.

If there is stagnation it is, and always has been, in the teams. Hopefully no-one enlightened enough on these forums think that GFR has produced the ultimate incarnation of a FSAE vehicle in the last few years. There are so many good ideas running around some of the lesser known teams that with a bit of development could turn into some great performance. At the moment I think we are on the verge of entering a new style of car build in the next few years, one that will be a little easier for smaller teams to complete when compared to the mini F3 cars we have had at the top since about 2006. I guess time will tell though.

I am always curious as to which team is currently on a five year plan that will produce the new "ultimate" FSAE car. We don't need F1 style shotgun style rule changes derailing these efforts.

Kev

[JT A.]

JT A,

I'm not sure I agree that the rules have been stagnant. They have become larger, more complex, and more prescriptive since I was a student. There also have been small but significant changes to weightings that have seen the ideal concept move a fair bit.

I would also propose that without some stability in the rules (as well as freedom) there is little opportunity for real innovation. To do so takes a lot of time if you want innovative solutions that are performance improving. It is a common mistake to assume that improvement happens gradually at all times. Unexpected rapid changes is what we should be expecting. Spaceframes for an eternity, and then all of a sudden lots of carbon tubs. 13" wheels as standard, then everyone on 10"s. Almost no aero, then nearly all the top teams (yes a rule change helped this, but current regs allow about as much downforce as what they were pre big change). 600cc 4s then singles. The list goes on, but the pattern is the same. The difficult part is trying to predict the next big change, and be ahead of the curve.

If there is stagnation it is, and always has been, in the teams. Hopefully no-one enlightened enough on these forums think that GFR has produced the ultimate incarnation of a FSAE vehicle in the last few years. There are so many good ideas running around some of the lesser known teams that with a bit of development could turn into some great performance. At the moment I think we are on the verge of entering a new style of car build in the next few years, one that will be a little easier for smaller teams to complete when compared to the mini F3 cars we have had at the top since about 2006. I guess time will tell though.

I am always curious as to which team is currently on a five year plan that will produce the new "ultimate" FSAE car. We don't need F1 style shotgun style rule changes derailing these efforts.

Kev

I guess you and I have a different idea of what the competition should be about.

I don't want the competition to evaluate which team had the smartest guy 5 years ago that came up a long term plan, and a good initial design, allowing the next 4 years of students to copy 80% of the design over every year. Allowing them to spend their extra free time training drivers and rehearsing their design speeches.

I would rather see the winner of each competition determined on which team did the best engineering work that year. Who had the smartest engineers that year. Who designed the fastest car that year. Not "who already had the best starting point handed down to them from the year before and managed to not screw it up"

[Kevin Hayward]

JT A,

Why would having a decent long term plan mean that any one year does less engineering?

Why would a decent long term plan involve copying designs every year?

Why would students be involved in the project for only one year?

A decent long term plan would involve setting targets well beyond the capability of one year group, and then chip away at them year after year, with the team developing good methods of information retention and mentoring along the way.

Kev

[Z]

... the rules have been stagnant for way too long! The competition needs a shake up.

JT A.,

I ... agree more with Kevin on this one...

While I agree that the "shake up" suggestions you listed COULD make the competition more interesting, in practice I do NOT think they would make any difference at all to the "Design" efforts of the students. Quite honestly, I think the students would still bring exactly the same "traced" copies of the cars that they bring now.

The "proof" of this, IMO, is that despite the relative constancy in the way the competitions have been run and scored over the last 30 odd years (ie. fairly constant points awarded to fairly constant types of events), the cars are still nowhere near "optimal". That is, their performance is a long way away from where the Laws of Nature allow it, even for very low cost cars. After 30 years of development the cars should be MUCH, MUCH, FASTER.

To spell this out with a specific technical example, the cars started out 30 years ago with a F:R weight distribution of about 50:50. This was an accidental by-product of using bike-engines, with their forward-leaning cylinders and rearward-power-take-off, placing these unmodified bike-engines behind the driver as on real "Formula" racecars, and then using short-as-possible wheelbases to suit the Autocross tracks. The resulting layout with its 50%R weight distribution has hardly changed in 3 decades.

But, as I have pointed out at great length, taking a "big-picture" view of the Mechanics of this problem with its typical mass, power, and racing speeds, or by simply studying the prior art, shows that this 50%R is WRONG (at least for 2WD). The only excuse the students can use to justify this ineffective R% is that "...it allows us to minimise build-time and costs by using an unmodified off-the-shelf bike-engine...". This is hardly a valid excuse after 30 years of competition.

Worse yet is that the more recent E-cars have EXACTLY THE SAME R%! So while these E-cars should be blowing the C-cars off the track in Acceleration and AutoX (and only having to hold back a little in Enduro, maybe..., to conserve batteries), instead they are EQUALLY AS SLOW. Yep, they have abundant power, easily put-down, but they are equally traction-limited out of all the slow corners as the C-cars. THIS IS NOT A DRIFTING COMPETITION!

Bottom line here, for 30 odd years the FSAE students have been encouraged to be "Tracers", as per my previous post's Drawing Office hierarchy. And as popular as those girls might have been in the male-dominated DO (especially the younger ones!), they themselves would happily admit that they know NOTHING about Engineering Design!
~~~o0o~~~


... making the [Rules] more and more restrictive ... takes freedom & creativity away from the students in design, which was one of the best things about this competition ...

This I agree with 100%. Certainly keep the Rules as open and NON-prescriptive as possible.

In some senses I think that the stagnation of the actual "designs" of the cars (for example the constant, though poor choice of, ~50%R) is down to the over-prescriptive Design Scoring Sheet discussed before. This, together with the overly prestigious nature of Design Event, and the fact that DE is worth 150 points, which is quite a lot.

It follows naturally that typical student thinks,
"Well, we are no chance of winning outright. But let's at least try doing really well in Design. Its worth 150 points, and ... a high score there is what we really want on our CV when we go looking for that top job!"

So the typical students go through the Scoring Sheet, item by item, and start "Tracing" each and every one of them. Yep, neatest correct entry wins. NO original thought required...
~~~o0o~~~

So, How To Change Design Event ... To Produce Better Engineers?
================================================
1. Get rid of Design Event.

As noted before, the Dynamic Events + Cost give a straightforward, very objective (err..., if Cost is more realistically done) way of measuring the "fitness of purpose" of the overall Design. And should a Team build a car that is really fast on track, even if (?) they do not understand "why" it is fast, well I reckon they should still score high points for making such a good "guess" of which car to copy. (Seriously, no Team can "accidently" build a really fast car...)

At the very least, DO NOT allow DE to be worth any more points than now. In fact, about 100/1000 points seems better.
~o0o~

2. Let Paul-The-Octopus pick the Design scores.

Hey, his success rate back in the ~2010 Soccer World Cup was something like 85%! That is a lot better than this competition's Design Judges' record of picking winners... :)

At any rate, having a Design score of, say, 100/1000 points that is down to a roll-of-the-dice, is better than a DE that encourages the students to "... just TRACE last year's car, but do it more neatly this year... with more Matlab graphs, and stuff...".

With 100 points down to a roll-of-the-dice, the Teams that REALLY want to win will make a big effort to build a REALLY fast car (ie. must be 100 dynamic points faster than anyone else!).
~o0o~

3. Get rid of the Scoring Sheet guidelines.

Instead of the prescriptive scoring, get a small number of very GOOD Design Judges to score the Teams any way they see fit. The Teams should have no idea how they will be scored. Only that a small number of people who have track records of producing outstandingly good designs will have a quick look at each Team's car, and a short chat with Team leaders, and, after seeing the car's dynamic performances (or not?), they allocate scores.

For educational purposes these DJs should also give a very short written review to each Team. Just a short list of what, in their opinion, is OK, and what could be improved next year...

Z

(PS. Kevin, "A decent long term plan would involve setting targets well beyond the capability of one year group, and then chip away at them year after year, with the team developing good methods of information retention and mentoring along the way.". Agree 100%!)

[JayNoon]

Gentlemen, having been though Michigan Design Finals, I report my faith in the the design event has been restored.

- I did not feel our score was "prescribed" from a score sheet.
- They went to great lengths to give our whole team feedback following the event.
- I felt that the judges were probing the limits of my knowledge and understanding first, my design choices second. "How do your dampers work?" then "How did you tune them?".
- The actual physical design of any one component on the vehicle mattered very little compared to designer's thought process and understanding of load conditions, material properties, etc.
- To quote a design judge from two years ago "The most impressive students we encounter don't need the physical car to give their design presentation". And I felt this was very true, I hardly looked at the car itself.

Z, As far as picking "winners", that doesn't seem to be the design judges job description. That's what people do at the horse races. The judges are trying to evaluate which team is most knowledgeable, understands fundamental concepts for their systems, and backed up their choices with testing and validation. This took almost three hours. They don't know if the drivers are slow, or something unlucky will happen. I'm not saying this is how I THINK design should be, I'm REPORTING on how I felt at the competition. Also, ETS's car with inboard suspension and roll/pitch independent damping was AWESOME and deserved the win even if it's not super fast.

Kev, I agree with your comments entirely. Our program has been chipping away at big long term goals the for last three years and focusing heavily on documentation and knowledge transfer along the way. Moderate innovations based on resources available, finish the car on schedule, lots of testing time, very reliable. Seems to be working pretty well.

One last note: I would be wary of calling 10" wheels, carbon tubs, and singles "improvements". Our placement in Design AND Endurance should reflect that any platform can still be competitive.

[Z]

Jay,

I spend time here because I see this FS/FSAE competition as one of the very few places in the world today where students who want to learn a bit about "Engineering", can, and do, actually learn something useful. Importantly, IMO, it is primarily the stopwatch and things like DNSs and DNFs that do most of the teaching. That is, it is they that "examine and assess" the state of the students' education.

The reason I harp on so much about the Design Event is because, IMO, it actually works AGAINST the education of the students.

Here are some examples of how this negative education works, taken from your last post. (Note that similar arguments to yours can be found in countless defences of the DE, so please do not take this personally).

1. The Team that had the fastest car in AutoX, and the fastest car in Enduro, and the most Fuel Efficient car, and also won the competition Overall, were assessed by the Design Judges as being BAD DESIGNERS.
Why?
And what message does this send to all the other students about the difference between "good design vs bad design"?
Well, maybe this next one answers that...

2. "- I felt that the judges were probing the limits of my knowledge and understanding first, my design choices second.".
So why do they call it "Design Event", rather than, say, "Knowledge and Understanding Event"?
Taking an example that shows how wrong this approach is, should a person who has fantastically good "K&U", but makes shockingly bad "design choices", be called a good "Design Engineer"?
Should an Engineering company working in a life-critical industry, such as building Jumbo Jets, Big Bridges, etc., employ such a person as a "Design Engineer"?
I wouldn't...

3. "- The actual physical design ... mattered very little compared to designer's thought process and understanding...".
As before, WHY?
The above attitude is similar to "In Maths exams, show all your working, so even if your final answer is utter bollocks, we can still give you some marks if you were sort of on the right track...".
That attitude might be acceptable in primary school, and maybe even in a lot of the useless parts of the real world, but I do not want to fly in a Jumbo Jet, or drive over Big Bridges, that were designed with that sort of "rough enough is good enough" attitude.
These competitions are pretty much your Final-Exam-of-Big-School, with the next stop being the Real-World-of-No-Second-Chances.
Which is why the stopwatch makes such a good examiner, IMO...

4. "Also, ETS's car with inboard suspension and roll/pitch independent damping was AWESOME and deserved the [DE] win even if it's not super fast.".
Again, WHY???
I have no idea of the details of ETS's car, but isn't the hypothetical customer looking for a car that can win races?
Nowhere in the design brief (ie. the introductory section of the Rules) can I find anything about building an "AWESOME" car....

5. Instead, the design brief, specifically "A1.2 Vehicle Design Objectives", asks for a car that has "... very high performance in terms of acceleration, braking and handling... [and is] ...sufficiently durable to successfully complete all the events...".
It seems to me that ETS's car, 1st in Design Event, so apparently best "designed" car, failed to meet that design brief on both emboldened counts. Namely, not very fast in AutoX, and it broke in Enduro!
On the other hand, GFR/Oregon's car met all those requirements, yet got a -45 point flogging in DE...

I am sure that Paul-The-Octopus could have judged it better... :)

Z

[Kevin Hayward]

Jay,

The reference to 10"s, carbon tubs, and singles wasn't meant to name them as improvements, rather that the change of the "standard" design can happen quite rapidly. The majority of top teams might start running DASD's and beam suspensions. The fact that the majority of top teams run a certain system does not necessarily mean it is the best.

However I would resist the temptation to say that these decisions are made between equal, but different alternatives.

By the way stunning looking car again, and good to see you guys doing well. I have always liked the build quality you guys achieve, and it is almost impossible not to like a team that choose gulf colours. Also nice to see the Aero working for you. How much do you feel it added?

Kev

[JayNoon]

Thank you Kev!
We were targeting a 1.5 second/lap improvement. It's difficult to tell from competition, but I feel we were seeing about that in peak lap time. For the record, roughly an equal points boost was earned by more consistent drivers and fewer cone penalties.

Z, the fastest team won overall! And top-10 endurance results typically match overall results to the letter! So what more do you want?!
(Rhetorical question, your point is already well received.)