How much funding/sponsorship does your University provide?

[Joshkb]

Hi all,

I am part of a new team from BU and am curious as to the sponsorship value your school (overall, college of engineering, etc.) has allocated to your team. Not sure if I will get many responses with a $xx,xxx value or more machining time and facilities usage.. any info would be helpful. As a new team, I would like to know how established teams are supported through their school.

Thanks,
Josh

[Jay Lawrence]

You will probably get a huge range of answers for this....

From memory, we got something like $AUD20,000 directly from the uni, but there was a range of other funding (both in $ and machining) from a range of sponsors. Our uni workshop was also fairly supportive (both in terms of giving us access to tooling and machining parts for us). That may seem like quite a bit of support, but we had built up a system of complicated engineering for a number of years and so this is not necessarily reflective of the requirements for a young/successful team.

[MileyCyrus]

You will probably get a huge range of answers for this....

From memory, we got something like $AUD20,000 directly from the uni, but there was a range of other funding (both in $ and machining) from a range of sponsors. Our uni workshop was also fairly supportive (both in terms of giving us access to tooling and machining parts for us). That may seem like quite a bit of support, but we had built up a system of complicated engineering for a number of years and so this is not necessarily reflective of the requirements for a young/successful team.

We must of got better at asking after you left, Jay. I know that it got to $55,000 AUD recently from different parts of the University alone, along with machining, a fairly nice workshop, use of the faculty vehicles etc.

[Claude Rouelle]

There are no black or white answer to this question; rather different shades of grey but IMO if Universities should give as much as possible access to laboratories, software uses, time and advice from their teachers, they should not give any money. FS /FSAE is a real professional life exercise where future graduates can practice, with the creation and the presentation of sound arguments, the search of budget (and/or free of charge technical collaboration) from the industry outside their school.

In my humble opinion, the universities should not give any credit for FSAE / FS work either, otherwise you will get many students showing up just to perform the minimum and get their credit (or in India to get the competition participation certificate).

I am a lucky person who is paid to have fun. I made my passion a job, not the other way around. My passion was and is still my #1 motivation. And then as unbelievable as it looks and yes with some pains sometimes, money and opportunities came and still comes to me and my company. Not running on gold but possibilities that makes us look with some confidence to the future.

Why I say this? The passion is what drives you and in some cases that is what makes you find money. Inside out, not outside in.

[tromoly]

My school gave $10k USD, which covers both car and competition cost, so really about $8k for the car. Facility-wise, there's a machine shop with a couple mills, lathes, and basic CNC mill that's usable form 8am-5pm. If we wanted to use the waterjet or more advanced machines we had to beg the Industrial / Manufacturing department to let us use their machines, and that also included getting the assistant dean who got the machines in the first place to get us access. Donations of material and machinery time is a must, a few local companies always help out and are awesome.

Oh, and for the record (Claude close your ears), my school ran/runs FSAE as a senior design project, whatever you do don't run your program this way.

Moral of the story: work within your means, whatever those means may be.

[jd74914]

There is definitely going to be a wide range of answers here...

We are eligible for up to $24k/yr of funding from the Undergraduate Student Government due to our student club status through a rather arduous funding process (read: you really have to work hard for the money). No funds come from the general University or School of Engineering; all additional monetary funds are from sponsors. The SoE does provide us with a large off-campus shop and some capital equipment (old CNC mill, lathe). We've either purchased or found sponsors for the dyno, welders, hand tools, etc. Members also have access to an on-campus machine shop, though generally only seniors are able to take the safety class to use it. Almost all complex machining is done by a few generous sponsors and most simple machining is done by members.

Receiving funding this way is rather interesting in that the school (especially SoE) has very little oversight over spending. With this comes both positives and negatives; on one hand purchasing is rather fast, but on the other dishonest leadership can easily mismanage or squander money on useless items. My person recent experience has convinced me that more educated oversight [from a university level] of the spending process would be wise.

This goes towards what Claude is saying, but I feel that an engaged faculty adviser is near a necessity for a high performing team. I don't think this person needs to be qualified to give technical advice, though that would be helpful, but must be ready to arbitrate team problems and help with sponsorship. With an entirely student run team settling serious [personality, ethics, etc.] problems is difficult. Until recent years, my experience had been that elder students (seniors, grad students) generally were respected enough by junior members to allow feedback/correction of actions. Lately, it seems that incoming classes really lack respect for established members and will not make corrections without faculty intervention. On the sponsorship side, many companies like working with students, but others feel more comfortable with an additional "professional" contact for overarching continuity, etc.

James

PS: Shoot me a PM or email if you guys have any questions...helping out fellow NE teams is always nice.

[stever95]

Before I was treasurer we got ~$5k from the college of engineering, ~$5k from the university if we begged for it. Fund-raised another $5k and made a car. Probably received <$2k per year in gifts (free parts) and discounts, and ~$2k in free dyno time from a great local shop. Machine shop was free for students to use, but it didn't have everything.

So for about $20k, a dozen people could build a car and bring it to a competition with most expenses paid.

After I was treasurer, the university agreed to give us $10k per year no matter what (didn't have to kiss up to convince them for it), we have ~12 sponsors compared to 1, and get free LiFePo batteries, free SAE-certified welding on occasion, and rights to a practice lot on university property.

I like to think now that money's not a limiting factor in any way, the group can seriously focus on design / revisit the management structure / come out with a good product.

[Claude Rouelle]

" I like to think now that money's not a limiting factor in any way" Alleluia!

[Jay Lawrence]

Miley (lol!)

Yeah my bad, I didn't have the exact figures on me. We did get $20k from the university itself, but we also got money from the Sydney business school as well as the engineering faculty, which would have totalled about $55k. I imagine the situation is reasonably similar now

[Freddie]

Just for the sake of disagreeing with Claude, or well, not only for that sake, I'd say make sure that you do get credit for FS/FSAE. Though, try to get as little credit as possible. By having it as a course, at least here (Sweden) all members are covered by student insurances throughout manufacturing, testing and competition. Hopefully, you won't need it, but if something happens ...

[JulianH]

Zurich (in contrary to what a lot of people on the campground seem to "know") does not get any monetary funding from the university.
We have a small office and a workspace where we can built the car and store roughly 2-3 retired cars. Of course we have a couple of computers and a CAD software. We get the other software packages (for example CFD or tool to design the electric motors) from sponsors.

I agree with Claude that money from the university does not make you better. We have to find sponsors and "show" them, that their money is well-spent. Which means media coverage, students going there to work, nice little shows etc.
I see a lot of teams with a substantial amount of funding coming from the university struggeling to get "other" sponsors that just give them machining time or something like that. Just because they don't know how to attract them.
I disagree, that Money is not a limiting factor. At some point money does count. We don't have to pay for a lot of stuff but just those sets of Hoosier gold and the batteries/electrical connectors for an electric car, that will cost you a lot of money.
And don't forget that it is really expensive to travel from Zurich to Silverstone/Hockenheim/Spielberg/Barcelona with ~15-20 people that should not pay too much for the trip...

At Zurich, a small group of the team does get credit to do it. But at my former team, you don't can just enroll, do as little as possible and get the points. If you commit yourself, everyone knows that you are in it 100% and can trust you, that you are doing what you are promising. Otherwise, you are out.
I think we had very few situations when someone "just did not do the part" in the last 5 years. It helps to manage your project.

Cheers

[Ahmad Rezq]

I would agree with Claude.
Due to some issues our school didn't provide FSAE team with any fund, So the team had no choice to get its own fund by the team efforts.
It wasn't easy in my country but the team worked very hard in that.

P.S Another challenge is the sponsors here in Egypt won't provide you with fund the date you wish. I can remember that in 2012 the team received the credit 2 months before the competition. This year the team received the credit 4 months before the competition.

[ritwikdas18]

Our university provides us with 0 (Yes Zero!) funds and they even charge us for using the workshop facilities during extra hours. So I would say that money is a limiting factor for us and the team can't entirely focus on design and manufacturing. A chunk of our decisions ARE made on how much we get from sponsorship. I agree with Claude that in India many people join an FS Team just to get a competition certificate. But those teams are not that good either. Infact many of them wouldn't even know their wheel rates, frequencies etc because they just use the springs and dampers from the nearest motorbike they find without any engineering calculations whatsoever.

[Claude Rouelle]

Ritwik,

Then I have to ask: Why do you stay in that university if your expectations of learning and developing skills are not met?

Either the university has expectations and in that case the students who are there just for the "certificate" should be fired. Or the university has low or no expectations and in that case they do not deserve you and you should should find a better university.

Student and teachers and deans owe each other respect, recognition of experience and skills and discipline but the students are not the vassals of teacher or a dean. They are in fact their customers.

At the end the students are the long-term vector of the advertising of their school reputation.

[Kevin Hayward]

Student and teachers and deans owe each other respect, recognition of experience and skills and discipline but the students are not the vassals of teacher or a dean. They are in fact their customers.

Not sure I agree here. Engineering courses in Australia are accredited by Engineers Australia. Ultimately our customer is industry, and we work in partnership with students to provide a resource, which is a supply of trained engineers. We need to satisfy quality requirements, and if a student does not meet them they do not pass.

What we need to do is figure out the best way to train students, such that pass rate is high, and outcomes are met. Almost certainly this means respecting the students, and providing a satisfying learning environment.

Teachers and students are part of the same team. Resist the temptation of thinking of education institutions as service providers for the student. This attitude tends to end up with students who take little to no responsibility for their own learning. The customer analogy holds that one provides, the other receives. Thinking as a team you realise that everyone needs to pitch in. But if the school you are at is not doing a decent job, or is playing in the wrong league, look to join another team. Or at least request/demand that some of their senior players play the game deserving of their contract.

Kev

[Claude Rouelle]

Have you been to India, Kevin? The message for an Indian student or an Indian teacher is (unfortunately) not the same than for an Australian

Want a story?

About 2 yeas ago I am looking at a Indian Baja car in India giving some observations and advice with a few students and one faculty adviser around.
The car was really bad so I ended up asking the faculty adviser;
- Do your students have some help from the University and from you?
- Yes the have all the help they need from me, he said
- Well, I said, when I see the car and hear the students answers it seems they could need even a bit more help...
- Well, I have to say that automotive engineering is not my passion, he said..
- Ah OK, so what is your passion then, I asked....
- My passion is to wear a suit (and effectively he did wear a suit with a nice shirt and tie)
- I could not help, I was outraged and I asked him: And this is what going to help your country?

You will draw your own conclusions.

I am provocative? Yes I am. Because with some educative system there are no other way to go forward.

Claude

[Kevin Hayward]

Claude,

Unfortunately I haven't been to India, but I do have many students that have previously studied there.

From what I have observed it doesn't appear that the engineering education offered to these students in India is up to the standards in Australia. I would be reluctant to try and pin this to a particular cause. However if we look at the education system as a business / customer relationship there is nothing wrong with what they are doing. Students are lining up to pay for the education, and there is an incredible demand for spots. If we reduce it to a business model it is reasonably effective.

Reducing higher education to a provider / consumer model is dangerous exactly for these reasons. If there is great demand there is no need for quality. McDonalds don't need to serve fillet steak if there are millions lined up for cheeseburgers.

If these Universities saw themselves as partnering with their students to excel internationally I doubt Ritwik's complaint would exist.

Ritwik,

Western Australia is quite close to India, with 3 universities that run decent FSAE programs. Switch teams! But please remember that the best player from the local cricket club, might struggle in the Indian test team, where much more is expected.

Kev

[BeunMan]

Most monetary sponsoring from the University in Delft comes from real sponsor contracts: The faculties (not uni themselves) want to have display material (for recruitment purposes) and time from the students to do that and they give some form of monetary compensation in return, this is not recruitment for the uni but general engineering recruitment (not TU specific) among high-school students mostly. This money is mostly spend on the team(members) not on the car. The contracts can also be lost, especially to other student competition teams at the uni, just as the team has to apply (and does) for specific grants each year and doesn't get them every year. They also provide a large building for all the student teams which is really nice, though keeping ~250 students at work on different projects requires quite some space (And the building would be useless otherwise).

What in my opinion should happen in Unis is that the students should have to fight for their sponsorship, not just get it.

Though note that most (if not all) larger teams build their car mostly from in kind sponsoring or own production and not with money means. Building the car by buying stuff would be too expensive, even for 'cheaper' cars and negate the learning experience.

What should a uni provide as far as I'm concerned in this order (top first):
- Support (in general sense, not monetary or something just not try to work against you)
- Guidance
- Teaching
- Workshop time or even better tools
- A place to work (just a small garage would be awesome for those who do not have a place to put their cars, start small, grow bigger over time as the uni sees the importance of your endeavor)
- Primary loan (for e.g. admission fees to FS*)
- Monetary means (e.g. Money)

[ritwikdas18]

Claude and Kevin,
I want to throw some light on how it goes on here in India.Everyone wants or imposed upon by society to become an engineer/doctor. So ~1.5 million students give entrance exams to get into Top 20 colleges(These include IITs,BITS and NITs, VIT ,Manipal etc) which has seats for only ~25k students(~2%). I study in the Top 10 colleges in India and still NONE of them are that good as far as mechanical engineering is concerned. I am a 3rd year undergrad now , and the college 'tag' will help me in jobs , higher studies(Masters in US) etc. So the point is in the kingdom of blind the one-eyed man is the king.And Claude , I don't know how it works in other countries but here you can't just switch colleges between your studies( And I am already in the best of the pack here although not good on a worldwide scale). The only way to get into top colleges is through entrance exams as I mentioned.
Also now come the rest of the Tier-2 and Tier-3 colleges in which majority of them work for a certificate. I can assure you Claude , that the faculty advisor mostly knows nothing. Talking to him is worthless as you mentioned. He won't fire simply because he wouldn't know better himself. And the Faculty Advisor is the one who makes certificates to give it to the students because in FSAE/FS India there are nor participation certificates. That's why you find such type of poorly designed cars at the event where students just want to ASSEMBLE random parts. One of my mates is in a Tier -2 college BAJA team and he says
"We design the chassis tubes at 90 degrees wrt to each other as much as possible so that profiling at 45 degree will be easy". I was like "WOW .BEST DESIGN EVER!!!" .
The root reason for all of these are the poor engineering local colleges that are established simply to make money from the large no of engineering aspirants(1.5 mil)
I have only a year to study here more and then I would probably go for Masters in US where professors, colleges and opportunities are much better. Good riddance!

[Claude Rouelle]

Ritwik,

Nothing new for me here as I have had this conversation many time with many Indian students and a few (too few) good Indian teachers. But it is good you share your perspectives and experience about your education system with the community.

Just one comment: if I was you, I would not restrict my choice of universities for a master to the US only, even more if vehicle dynamics is what you want to learn and practice. There are very good universities in Europe, especially in Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.

Steve,

I disagree with your "The real question that needs to be answered is: how badly do you want to win?" that is not what FS / FSAE is about. From my perspective it is more about " How badly do you want to learn". I have see many students coming out of FSAE / FS with so-so teams but making a brilliant beginning of an engineering career not because their car was quick but because they ask themselves the right questions and worked hard to get the right answers.

[Steve Krug]

From my perspective it is more about " How badly do you want to learn". I have see many students coming out of FSAE / FS with so-so teams but making a brilliant beginning of an engineering career not because their car was quick but because they ask themselves the right questions and worked hard to get the right answers.

Fair point - I would agree.

From my perspective: if the team surrounds their actions and intrinsic motivation sprouts from the concept of the desire to win, learning is inevitable, and learning is a consequence. It forces you to search for finding better solutions. Maybe a better question is: what is your motivator (s)?

[Claude Rouelle]

Steve and all,

You summarized in just a few words what many international FSAE / FS design judges start to notice and complain about: that is what the same judges call the motorsport virus. The "motorsport virus" that we have seen invading the FS and FSAE paddocks and student's minds is about winning at all cost...including the cost of not understanding why their car is good (or if they do, not able to explain why).

A few years ago, I refused to have one team going to the design final at FSG because NO ONE in this team could explain what critical damping was. For example (but there were unfortunately many other examples), in their design specifications sheet it was written that their front dampers had X % of critical damping in bump at n mm/sec and Y % of critical damping in rebound at m mm/sec but no one, No One of the students could explain why or even what it meant. I think the reason was that the "knowledge" was a carry over of the previous year team. That team ended up winning the FSG because they had a good car, well manufactured, excellent reliability, well balanced (that was so obvious and I have to say beautiful to see while watching their car on the track) and definitely excellent drivers (and we how much that counts in the results).

With the way the points attribution is structured today (IMO too much points for dynamic and not enough for static) they should have won and they did. I guess they inherited from a good previous year car, superior drivers and they pounded the race track testing until they found a good setup ... that neither their simulation was able to predict or their data analysis was able to confirm. These are not the guys my company will hire.

At the contrary I have seen low experience low budget teams working intelligently (Reminder: Intelligence is the ability to find a solution to a problem that they never encountered before. Do nit mix intelligence with experience and/or knowledge) and learning a lot to solve problem starting by establishing a good definition of the problems they face.

And yes I have seen team which have both the intelligence and the experience, budget, qualified and well train drivers etc... But again what will impress me will not be their results but their ability to define their problems, explain and demonstrate their solution; These are the engineers of the future.

We focus too much on the results and not enough in the learning process and by doing so we going away from the main reason why the FSAE competitions were created.

*********

Some thoughts....


“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” Einstein


“If I had an hour to save the world. I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding solutions. And I find in most organizations people are running around spending sixty minutes finding solutions to problems that don’t matter” Einstein


“Intelligence is the ability to find a solution to a problem you never encountered before. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Einstein

[Steve Krug]

Completely agree with that message.

My question is referring to how to inspire/motivate students, defining the "why" of FSAE. If the message is just to learn, some students might suggest that's what the coursework is for.

So maybe it is necessary for a team's ability to communicate:
-FSAE teaches a student how to apply knowledge/theory
-FSAE teaches correlating abstract theoretical models to reality to predict system behavior
-FSAE teaches practical applications of theory
-Working with a team

FSAE is fun and get's you excited about engineering. When engineering is made into a competition it is a forcing function for learning. It takes advantage of one's natural desire to compete, yet also teaches valuable engineering skills/logic/analysis.
Increasing possible points scored in the engineering design event I think would be a good idea. I did a poor job and communicating, that winning for the sake of winning is not what FSAE is about. I wanted to communicate the benefits of the "competition" nature of FSAE with regards to how it effects learning. By the way I am not pursuing a motorsports career. :)

"Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment."
Keddy, P.A. 2001. Competition, 2nd ed., Kluwer, Dordrecht. 552 p

[Claude Rouelle]

Steve,

We are on the same wave length but not everybody is I can tell you.

Yes, designing, building a race car and running it is for sure more exciting than participating to a sewing machine competition. And that is why FSAE / FS is what it is. Let's not forget that FSAE was born from the initiative a few gentlemen (Dr. Bob Woods -UTA - being one of them, if my information is correct) who were responding to the concern of the big three management that freshly graduated engineers could solve differential equations but could not solve automotive engineering problems. And yes students are driven by the competition, and competition is a good thing as it helps to improve products and services quality in the industry.

Put a mediocre car with a super good driver and you can still get some pretty good results. But again that is the visible part and to me the less important of the iceberg. Unless a team can explain WHY and HOW they went through the work organization as well as the concept, simulation, design, manufacturing, testing, development and data analysis of a quick, safe, reliable and relatively cheap car, I am really less interested in the results.

Claude

[Z]

This thread has gone a little off-topic, but I feel obliged to support Steve here. (Apologies to OP, and I am sure the topic will return to "funding" ... soon enough. :))

My opinion is that any students NOT aiming for an Outright Win, at least in the long term (eg. setting the Team a "5 year plan to win outright"), will never be good Engineers. In fact, and sadly, the majority of students seem happy to plod along building third-rate (= slow!) cars while pretending that they are "all about learning". I am quite certain that these students will never amount to anything more than third-rate Engineers. And, of course, this is just a reflection of the "bell curve" nature of things, where there is only a thin tail of outstandingly good students.

Claude gave the example of the FSG winning Team that he kept out of Design Finals because he thought they lacked some arcane knowledge. Claude penalised these students because he thought that their blind copying of some small parts of the previous year's car meant they would ultimately become bad engineers.

I, however, think that those students' ability to know WHAT to copy (and what to change), in order to build a genuinely fast car, even if they did NOT fully understand some of the little details, meant they would potentially become really good engineers. In short, no Team "accidentally" builds a really fast car.

If, to build a really fast car, a Team must simply copy last year's winning car (after having taken photos of it, etc.), then we should expect all cars in any year to be as fast as the last year's winning car. BUT THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN! It does not happen because most students stupidly copy a lot of useless junk, and their cars are slower than last year's...

Think about how many students blindly copy the stupid-slow-standard-cars (yes, with Push/Pull-Rods&Rockers, +++), and then also show Claude their 59 different damper calculations, and then manage 4.5 seconds in Acc, 5.9 seconds in SP, and are slow as a wet weekend in AutoX and Enduro. These students will never be good engineers, because they show no "ingenuity" whatsoever.

Yet Claude rewards them, and, indeed, encourages their quest for mediocrity, by putting them in Design Finals! "Yes, all 59 damper calculations are here, and all to 8 decimal places. Very good!"

To be a good engineer you have to show some ingenuity. "Ingenuity" is the etymological core of "engineer"! In FS/FSAE terms this simply means building a faster car than any other Team has ever built before. Or a car as fast as the fastest, but only half the cost, etc...
~o0o~

Claude,

What I am particularly disappointed with in your above posts is your hypocrisy.


...what will impress me will be the [students] ability to define their problems, explain and demonstrate their solution...
...
We focus ... not enough in the learning process...

Many times on this Forum you have expressed opinions on technical aspects of these cars. But when challenged, at least by myself, to better "define the problem", or to "explain and demonstrate its solution", you have steadfastly REFUSED to do so! The only conclusion I can draw from this is that you are NOT "focussed on the learning process". Why?

So, instead of you spending so much time telling newbies that they must properly introduce themselves before they can engage in this "learning process", I wonder if you could spend more time explaining the technicalities behind some of the rather sweeping statements you make. That is, can you please spend more time "defining the problem, and explaining and demonstrating its solution", for the betterment of all the students' education?

You might start with your so far unsubstantiated claim that Pitch and Roll damping calculations require the use of the Parallel Axis Theorem to calculate MoIs about the Pitch and Roll "IC"s (<- however you wish to "define" these "IC"s?).

Or is there a double standard here, where students must "explain and demonstrate", but DJs can say what they want (such as above example), and must be blindly believed?

Z

[Jay Lawrence]

Far out Z, just start a new topic! Call it "Fundamentals of mechanical design" or something and use that space to bash others over the head / educate. It could be like a column, so that all of your (very valuable) technical inputs can be viewed in one place.


Funding:
As mentioned previously, UoW got/gets quite a bit of money upfront, but the team generally doesn't 'see' it (as in, it never felt like we had cash to spare), but we found that a big part of our sponsor support was because we would innovate and get people interested. Also, once upon a time, there was a great engineering industry in Wollongong that quickly absorbed graduates, so those companies would then lend a hand as well. Personally I would like to see our team take a few steps back and develop something much lighter and simpler, but I sometimes wonder if that would hurt the sponsorship side, or if the uni would see less value in it because it's not 'engineery' enough. Just my 2c

[Bemo]

A few years ago, I refused to have one team going to the design final at FSG because NO ONE in this team could explain what critical damping was. For example (but there were unfortunately many other examples), in their design specifications sheet it was written that their front dampers had X % of critical damping in bump at n mm/sec and Y % of critical damping in rebound at m mm/sec but no one, No One of the students could explain why or even what it meant. I think the reason was that the "knowledge" was a carry over of the previous year team. That team ended up winning the FSG because they had a good car, well manufactured, excellent reliability, well balanced (that was so obvious and I have to say beautiful to see while watching their car on the track) and definitely excellent drivers (and we how much that counts in the results).


Uuh, I think I know which team you are talking about - as I was one of the team captains :D

[JulianH]

Uuh, I think I know which team you are talking about - as I was one of the team captains :D

I would have guessed a German-American team in 2013 ;)

[Claude Rouelle]

Bemo,

So several years later, what is your perspective on that episode?

****

JulianH,

Nope, I did not judge that car that year.. I am not guilty of all charges..... :)

Claude

[Bemo]

Claude,

First of all I have to say that you are correct, that it was our major goal to win the event. All other decisions made during the year were derived from that goal. And to be honest, I still believe you learn quite a lot if you go down that road and do it properly.

Since I entered the professional world, I experience that quite often people don't realize the necessity of setting proper goals (a proper goal is realistic for example, coming up with bullshit like "the car must get 20% lighter, 20% cheaper and must have 38 fancy new features and you have four weeks to achieve that" is not helpful as you won't be able to achieve itand doesn't give you an indication what the priorities are. I sit in "lessons learned" meetings at the end of projects in which people come up with points like "this part should be able to withstand/ deliver this number because there was trouble with it during the project. They don't realize that the real lessons learned should be "we have to recognize what our customers need and from there derive the requirements for part xy.

It was ok, to not let us enter design finals for the reasons you mentioned. But entering design final was not our major goal (of course we would have liked to enter it) and was not necessary to get the overall winner.

I still believe that the way we did it, helps you to learn a lot of things which make you a better engineer. You just learn different things. You gain less experience regarding technical details, but you learn way more about project manag3ment and how you set and reach goals. And this is what engineers miss very often. To my experience it is not a problem to find an expert for some technical issue who knows about it in impressive detail. But projects suffer from people who don't have any idea how a project should be run. That's why I still believe that participating in Formula Student with the major goal to be overall winner, helps you to learn a lot which can make you a better engineer.

Man, this went off-topic...

[craigorydean]

Hello everyone,

My name is Craig. just getting this thread little closer to back on topic (although what was said is helpful) I wanted to give a little insight to how budget has worked in my time on University of Texas-San Antonio FSAE team. I'm going to go though my 4 or 5 yeas on the team a briefly as I can.

2011- Probably spent close to $7000 real world on the car ( yes the whole car and it ran)
~ Car was steel space frame with wheels, engine, dampers, and steering rack were from previous car.
~ Used a lot of ATV parts and purposed them
~ We used spool and student made ecu
~ No focus on sponsorship nor working with the University to help raise funds
~ 8-9 People on the team
~ Just worked with what we had
~ 92 of 98 at MIS

2012 was probably right around $7000 real world spent
~ Switched to 10 in wheels
~ Focused on being small, Light, Cheap car
~ Went to microsqirt ecu
~ Steel space frame with Reused steering rack, brakes, and Engine.
~ Re-Purposed atv parts
~ Still no focus on Sponsorship or University involvement
~ 55 of 65 at Lincoln

2013 probably 14000 real world spent on car (First year Universiy Had american football Team)
~ Started to interact with University as the Engineering Dept. wanted to show off to get more research money
~ Began doing community out reach with Uni.
~ Began sponsors Focus as we though funds were keeping the team back
~ New engine was bought by sponsor
~ Goal the car was to finish all event at Comp.
~ Steel space frame with 10's, 450cc single, Microquirt ecu, recycled torsen, racecar parts
~Car was overbuilt in every manner so car ended up being 440 lbs
~Last build for the remaining the members from 2011
~52 of 61 at Lincoln

2014 roughly spent $13000 real world (No car went to comp and I was not on the team that year)
~ Huge Leadership turn over
~ Huge influx of funding from school due to previous years involvement with Uni
~ All that was purchased was a frame from VR3 (cartieasan), taylor Race MKII diff, GP200 brake calipers
~ Focus on sponsorship was there but no drive to get them
~ Large group of first year members
~ Fairly inexperienced leadership
~ 2 team members went to be apart of the next years team

2015 roughly $15000 Real world spent ( I was one of the team leaders)( Most money was caried over from previous year and a 10k donation the Uni got from a random)
~ Baja team was started due to a transfer student not liking formula at the Uni
~ Focused building a car with limited experience and small work force.
~ Personal focus to get all the cool free stuff that larger teams get and why they have 1000 decals on there car (It works for nascar why not us)
~ I was the sole person that sent out sponsorship emails didn't care about the Uni
~ President of the orginzation (Baja team lead) delt with Uni
~ Focused on Parts that would last the next 5 years( Tilton77 brake masters, Kaz tech Steering rack and dampers, carried over taylor racing diff, same engine from 2013, and experince from how to do things as proper as possible
~ almost a 2 year build if the reorganization of the team didn't take Steve Fox coming in to save us from ourselfs.
~ 17 of 65 at Lincoln

--Have not had any faculty advisory for SAE had been on campus since 2004
--We get a space to used and we have acquired tools to be used in it
--You can build any car with any amount of money but it doesn't mean your team will be successful in reaching s goals or potential.

From my experience I can tell you there are lots of people willing to help SAE student and sponsorship is the the second most important thing to team unity and focus.

[MHybrid Josh]

Im not sure exactly how much money the college of engineerging gives us but if i recall correctly its in the $10k-$20k range. The greatest thing we get, though, is access to almost every engineering software we could possibly need as well as 24hr access to a shop specifically dedicated to student project teams (FSAE, Formula Hybrid, Baja, Solar Car, Supermileage, etc.). We have a large computer lab next to our shop where part of the team can be designing while another part of the team is physically wrenching on the car. The college also gives us the option to block off one of the parking lots on the weekend to use for testing and the FSAE team has recently been allowed to test on the new autonomous vehicle test track. So its not really about how much money you get from your school, whats more important is the support they give in terms or resources.



Josh

2013 MRacing Aerodynamics/Composites team member (MR14)
2014 Michigan Hybrid Racing Front Wing Development Lead (MHR15)
2015 Michigan Hybrid Racing Aerodynamic Development Lead MHR16)

[FunkyChicken]

I'll have to agree with my colleague, Craig. I'd venture to say that sponsorship is even MORE important than outright cash. It frees up what money you do have to be spent on things that are actually engineered and fabricated, rather than parts to be bought off the shelf.

Jacob
UTSA FSAE
Team Lead