FSAE is Not a Kit Car Competition

[Claude Rouelle]

At the last few FSAE and Formula Student competitions, I have witnessed the occurrence of more and more ready-to-go, ready-to-bolt-in impact attenuators with the engineering study also being delivered by the supplier. I have also observed the occurrence of complete suspension parts (hub, upright, wishbones, etc., etc.) bought by teams and bolted onto their car.

In my opinion, this goes completely against the goals of the FSAE / Formula Student competitions that are engineering DESIGN competitions in which the students are challenged to use their education, imagination, and teamwork to understand and define a problem, simulate, design, manufacture, assemble, test, and analyze the performance of the parts or parts assembly they created to get the best possible solution in the “form follows function” spirit.

I believe that the design, manufacturing, assembly, and testing of a Formula Student car cannot be summarized to the assembly of a puzzle. If that was the case, all a team would need is a lot of money to build a competitive Formula student car, although the students would still have to convince the design judges of the why, how, and how much were their engineering choices. Of course, I understand that not all teams have the time, budget, or resources to design and build their own steering wheel, exhaust, or brake discs and calipers. The border between the design and manufacture and bought parts is not well defined by the rules, nor should it be

However, to make things simple and direct, in my design judge opinion, whatever team or teams come with such bolt-in parts—especially suspensions—will have to convince me of their serious analysis, simulation, and validation work in order for me to give them a decent score.

[Jay Lawrence]

What a terrible and exclusionist attitude. "You clearly have an engine that you didn't whittle from a single billet, therefore I award you zero points."

Fostering innovation is great, but if you take it to the extreme of saying (as a design judge, not as a rule maker) that certain parts on the car should be built whilst others should be bought, you are shooting down every team's ability to make their own decisions.

[Mitchell]

I agree 100% with Claude. I would also like to add that at the last few FS competitions I have attended I have noticed a growing trend of people using off the shelf simulation software. This is just not acceptable as engineers. There is ample opportunity in this competition to develop your own coding language to write simulation software, that runs in a standalone bespoke CAD/FEA/CFD package. Once you have this up and running you should easily be able to design and simulate your suspension upright and achieve full optemisery.

[Kevin Hayward]

While I see the irony that Claude supplies software that could readily be written by teams, I can't help but mostly agree with his sentiment.

Formula Student/SAE has developed into a decent sized market and with that a lot of purpose built components have become available. The number of these products is likely only to increase in the future.

I prefer the approach of teams that do more of their cars, but I see the wisdom of significantly reducing the required work for relatively small amounts of money. I have observed that the Design Judging does not seem to offer significant rewards to those teams that design and manufacture a larger percentage of their cars, nor provide any disincentives to those teams that purchase significant systems off-the-shelf. Maybe Claude, as a design judge, could institute some change on that front.

To be a little cheeky and reference one of Claude's previous posts I don't think whining on the forum is going to change anything.

Kev

[Mitchell]

We have joked about buying a whole TRX450 quad bike and making an SAE spec chassis for it, but recycling as many components as possible.

Would the team expect to do well in design? probably not.

Would it get a new team up and running for <$5000 and completing events? for sure.

I personally like to refer to SAE documentation.
http://www.fsaeonline.com/content/FSAE%20Design%20Score%20Sheet%20150pt.pdf


Design (~25%): Assessment of design process used by team. Is this a new design, evolution,
or complete carryover? Were different design options considered? Were appropriate pre-build
analyses performed?

Build (~25%): Does physical specimen presented reflect the early design work? Is it reflected
in design report? If not, why not? What special manufacturing considerations were
encountered?

Refinement/Validation (~25%): How thorough and honest has the team been about testing?
Was a test plan developed and executed? Were discrepancies between predicted and tested
results documented and acted upon to improve final build?

Understanding (~25%): Is the team that presents the car at competition truly intimate with the
design? Can they quickly give detailed answers about any sub-system? Or do they have to “go
ask someone else”?

[JulianH]

Claude,

I visited a couple of European competitions in the last years. I don't know how many; by far not an amount that can stack up to yours, but at least double digits...

I agree, that the "Standard Impact Attenuator" was a bit "forced" on teams as they are asking a dynamic testing for FSG. Some teams are apparently not able to get a testing facility for that. I don't know if that is again a "then just look for it" or a real problem in some places of the world.
We always spend a lot of time into our IA. I think we used a full team member every year to design, manufacture and test one (the people doing that only made some minor other parts, like the Steering Wheel or Business Plan or whatever).
It is a lot of work, for a small gain (pointswise). So I understand, that an underfunded or understaffed team decides to take that shortcut.

Otherwise, I don't really see that teams are using more and more off-the-shelf parts. I of course did not ask all of them, but I cannot remember multiple teams buying uprights...

The question just is: Where to stop?

Karlsruhe/Graz have customized engines - THERE ARE TEAMS USING STOCK ENGINES!!
Zurich started to design own electric motors - THOSE BLOODY DUTCH ARE BUYING OFF THE SHELF AMK MOTORS!!
Delft is desiging own tires - THOSE BLOODY SWISS ARE BUYING OFF THE SHELF HOOSIER TIRES (point taken, they are now developing tires with Continental...)
Zurich has designed air springs with rheologically controlled damping rates - THOSE BLOODY GERMANS BUY OFF THE SHELF ÖHLINS

There were always parts that "everyone" needed to buy. And the whole competition "respected" that.

I fully agree, that FSAE is not a Kit-Car competition. I fully agree, that you should not buy the best possible option and only design a frame that holds everything together.
But, I don't agree that we should demonize all buy parts and I also don't agree that this is a new trend swapping over.



Mitchell,
I don't fully agree that using "off the shelf" simulation tools are necessarily a bad thing.
You don't design your own CFD simulation code if you can use CD-adapco, Ansys or whatever.
I even think the rudimentary lapsim that you can get from Claude is a good starting point to set your design goals. We build a customized lapsim in 2012, it was a huge project, is still perfectly used and I think it helped us quite a bit, but the basic sensitivities about weight, aero, power, etc. should be feasible to extract from a simple simulation.
A couple of years ago, nobody used a lapsim, it was just a pissing contest, how you decided on the design targets and nobody bothered. Now, you are bad if you use what is on the market?

I don't think that this is really "bad engineering" as a starting point. Simulation in the end can lead to bad engineering if you cannot verify your simulations...

[JT A.]

This very quickly turns into a "where do you draw the line" argument.

Why is buying an engine, transmission, radiator, differential, axles, wheels, tires, brake calipers, electronics, bearings, etc all fine, but buying a hub or an A-arm isn't? What is so special about a hub?
Why is buying all driver safety equipment (belts, suits, shoes, helmets, etc) not only allowed but mandatory, but buying an impact attenuator is looked down upon? Why the distinction?

I think it is funny that what people consider OK to buy off the shelf in FSAE just happens to mirror almost exactly the way professional racing teams traditionally operate.

Non-spec racing series generally have suppliers for the engine, wheels, tires, dampers, drivetrain parts, brake components, safety equipment, electronics, etc. The only major systems they make are the chassis and suspension linkages (just brackets to hold all the purchased parts together). And aero/bodywork components if they aren't spec'd by the series.
Isn't that very similar to how the vast majority of FSAE teams operate, without any complaint from the judges/event organizers?

To me it seems too similar to be a coincidence. I think a lot of design judges/event organizers' ideas of what should be made by the students is based on their background in motorsports. "That's how the race teams I've been involved with worked, so thats how FSAE teams should operate". Yet aren't we constantly reminded by design judges that this is NOT professional racing. That we shouldn't do things a certain way just because that's how Formula 1 or other racing series does it?

If a team just buys stuff and cobbles it together without understanding anything about any of the parts they chose, it will be very apparent in design. Give them 0 points if you want, that's totally fair.

If you have team A that buys brake calipers from Brembo with the justication "they're sized appropriately, they're good quality, and it would take too much time/effort/money away from other areas to design & manufacture our own"
But then if you have team B that buys an upright & hub assembly with the same justifications and some basic analysis to confirm the stiffness/weight is adequate and they can achieve decent kinematics. Then they used the time they saved to put more effort into something else with higher impact on performance.

Should team B be scored lower than team A?

[Charles Kaneb]

Several of the Texas schools do not fishmouth each frame tube in house with an air grinder anymore. Texas A&M, for example, gets these tubes laser-cut by G&H Diversified. It cuts time off both the design process (reduced need to build in tolerance-adapting adjustments for hand-cut tubes) and fabrication.
If several teams found that their front suspension pickup points were in similar locations (only 1 or 2 points that were more than 25 mm different), I'd think they could all benefit from a common front tub, designed collaboratively and with one set of molds made for several different cars. They'd learn a lot from the process of working collaboratively with teams with different processes and priorities, like a joint venture in industry, and accomplish things that would not be in the budget or schedule individually. I'd see it as an easily defensible design decision.

Many more parts on these cars used to be COTS, back in the "tube-frame 13" tire no-wing Honda F4i" era. I remember seeing many VW Golf wheel bearings and some Golf hubs, 1992-2000 Honda Civic radiators and fans (Still a REALLY good choice - plastic tanked, very light, and well under $100).

Do you build your own wheel shells? Centers? Texas A&M found out the hard way that that one COTS center was not suitable for an aero car, and reverted to centers that whiltebeitel designed, but we did not buy time on a spinning machine to make shells or build molds to make them out of a carbon composite.

What you design and build has to make the best use of your time and resources - as well as making good use of the skills and equipment you think you need to add in the near future! I remember being on the losing side of an argument with the Kansas team on this forum about composite tub vs steel tube frame construction. He pointed out that while the Texans had welding experience and oil & gas industry connections that made it easier to get tubes cut, the Kansans had more composite experience and only occasional access to a welder. While a tub would have been very difficult for us, a tube-frame would've been very difficult for them!

[Charles Kaneb]

Also, if someone needs to do dynamic testing of an impact attenuator, the "barrel rig" I designed and we built at Case Western is probably still sitting in a basement. It consists of a 55 gallon steel barrel with 600# of concrete molded in, with accelerometers to measure deceleration. It is released from an overhead crane using a quick-release hook, travels down two 3" steel pipes to strike the target at the bottom. A 1kHz low-pass filter is needed on the accelerometer outputs to get clean results. It hasn't injured anyone yet, but I'm not sure if they'd sell it.

[Will M]

I would echo the sentiments from coleasterling and Charles Kaneb.
I work in manufacturing and the best lessons I learned from FSAE had nothing to do with making parts.
Instead the best lessons were about Engineering Project Management.

In fact I would argue that the only reasons to design your own parts rather than buy them are:
1) Required by the rules.
2) You believe you can learn something by doing so.
3) You can achieve a competitive advantage over off the self parts.

Otherwise you are most likely wasting your time.
Like I said learning how to manage your time (Engineering Project Management) was the most valuable lesson; at least for me.
Now is that?
Because many the design exercises found in FSAE are extremely narrow in scope.
But Project Management is a universally applicable skill and is needed by every successful engineer.

In short I agree that a team should not be penalized for using Compoennt Off The Shelf.
Regardless if they choose a COTS or their own design an equal analytic justification is required.

-William

[Claude Rouelle]

JT A posted the right question with his "where do you draw the line argument"

Here is where I draw the line: whether the student designed and manufactured or bought his car part, he should be able to show the calculations and the validations that justify the choice he made.

A few weeks ago at FSI (Formula Student India) - but this is not an Indian story only - I saw several cars with the same impact attenuator and the same suspension parts that were obviously bought, not manufactured by the teams.
NO ONE of these students could present any engineering calculations (and of course even less validation) that could justify their choice. NO ONE of them could answer questions about the impact attenuator test report.

How could I give to students who just bought these "beautiful" parts - but can't give any engineering arguments for their choice - a bigger score than to the students who at least did TRY to calculate, compare, measure, validate and, yes, ideally manufacture their car parts ?

DESIGNING and building a FSAE / FS car is not playing Lego!

[AxelRipper]

I'd have to agree with Claude, not in the "Teams should make everything they can" side (though I personally did find it more enjoyable that way at the time) but in the fact you need to be able to justify all of your decisions. At the very least you need to have the "we went with this because we decided that the resources that would be better applied elsewhere" argument.

As aero started taking over the competition a few years ago and we didn't show up with wings I do recall getting knocked in design for not having spent money and time having someone design and get a full cost analysis of what it would take to build an aero package so we could go "we don't have the time and money to do that even though it would make the car X amount faster" at which point we'd still have gotten knocked in design for not having wings.

Mind you we did this with an actual hand-fabbed space frame, machined hubs, and welded steel uprights and suspension. We actually did build 90% of the car though I think we did occasionally get the "why did you make this when you could have bought it?" Defending your design decisions is a huge (and getting bigger?) part of the experience.

[mech5496]

Agreed on the "not a kit car competition" comment; but as already stated where's the limit? I will share my experiences from 2013/2014 and our first ever e-car. Back then we were a team of 9 people, no EE's, so (obviously) we decided to buy an off-the-shelf motor and controller. Our BMS was also a commercial unit, adapted to our needs. In FSG that year we got flamed for "buying off the shelf parts", albeit the fact we could really justify the decision made. In FSUK, same car, same team, and we scored 12th overall in design. Then, given that experience, we tried to design our own motor for the next car. We found out that a commercial unit would be lighter, more compact, more powerful and cheaper, while also more reliable, since our resources are still fairly limited. I cannot find anything wrong with that.

On the other hand, we have been making our own wheels for years now. It is something that (especially back in 2009) very few teams did. We thought that the time and cost involved could be offset by lower weight, designed stiffness and packaging freedom, so we did it.

All and all, it is a matter of focus, priorities, available resources and gains. If the team can prove that they can do better by buying off the shelf anything, then let them.

[MCoach]

In fact I would argue that the only reasons to design your own parts rather than buy them are:

You believe you can learn something by doing so. -William


Well, I think that settles that. Isn't that why you end up in college?
Isn't that why you joined an FSAE team?

[Pennyman]

I would echo the sentiments from coleasterling and Charles Kaneb.
I work in manufacturing and the best lessons I learned from FSAE had nothing to do with making parts.
Instead the best lessons were about Engineering Project Management.

In fact I would argue that the only reasons to design your own parts rather than buy them are:
1) Required by the rules.
2) You believe you can learn something by doing so.
3) You can achieve a competitive advantage over off the self parts.

Otherwise you are most likely wasting your time.
Like I said learning how to manage your time (Engineering Project Management) was the most valuable lesson; at least for me.
Now is that?
Because many the design exercises found in FSAE are extremely narrow in scope.
But Project Management is a universally applicable skill and is needed by every successful engineer.

In short I agree that a team should not be penalized for using Compoennt Off The Shelf.
Regardless if they choose a COTS or their own design an equal analytic justification is required.

-William

Well said.

[Tim.Wright]

I'd happily accept a kit car if the team was able to show that they used the extra time won (from not making and remaking parts) to actually design the vehicle layout properly or even carry out a proper test procedure both of which are generally lacking in FSAE.

Engineering isn't just cutting metal you know.

If a team presented essentially a kit-car, but were able to show that by saving time with off the shelf parts they were able to make a couple of design-build iterations and/or actually carry out a proper testing campaign complete with detailed post processing and model validation I'd find that infinitely more commendable than a team which have spent all year cutting, welding & milling a poorly thought out car full of blind applications of various rules of thumb and expensive, heavy, badly designed machined parts.

[Jay Lawrence]

Well said Tim

From my experience, teams tend to go too far towards the 'engineered' solution, and spend all year designing the shit out of their pet projects, only to cobble it together at the end and generally fail.

[luxsosis]

I agree 100% with Claude. I would also like to add that at the last few FS competitions I have attended I have noticed a growing trend of people using off the shelf simulation software. This is just not acceptable as engineers. There is ample opportunity in this competition to develop your own coding language to write simulation software, that runs in a standalone bespoke CAD/FEA/CFD package. Once you have this up and running you should easily be able to design and simulate your suspension upright and achieve full optemisery.

Of course, you need to write a second stand-alone analysis package to verify the results as well. Unvalidated optimisery scores very poorly in the design event.

[Luniz]

Claude, I don't really understand (ünderstand? :D ) why you're going on about the impact attenuator. It's in the rules, appendix T-3: Standard Impact Attenuator. It is in there because the SAE wanted to stop teams havong to construct rather sketchy drop testing mechanisms involving students climbing up ladders and dropping a 200kg block of concrete on the floor.

[MCoach]

To point out some success of the boys next door who people have had similar complaints about:

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/haas-says-formula-1-is-full-of-whiners-687204/

Do your own analysis, play within the rules, cross the finish line. If the best solution is an off the shelf part, so be it.


In terms of FSAE, it's still primarily about learning, so the argument isn't exactly 1:1. If you want to learn about carbon, get to it. If you want to learn about fancy heat treat process, go for it.
Just remember, it's not a race.

[Tim.Wright]

I don't think the issue is just the fact that off-the-shelf parts are used.

The issue is when they are used like a backyard mechanic. I.e. slapped on without understanding a single thing about the part or it's application.

[MCoach]

I don't think the issue is just the fact that off-the-shelf parts are used.

The issue is when they are used like a backyard mechanic. I.e. slapped on without understanding a single thing about the part or it's application.


Pardon, I was a little blunt. I agree with you. Do your own analysis, prove that it's the best way to reach your concept.

[waz91]

If a team is buying parts to save time/resources I would be very surprised if they then dedicated the time required for a proper analysis, people always find a way to fill their schedules.
Even if they do are they really learning as much? So yeah they may put up a better result that year, but are they really helping their program grow in the long run? (Haas disclaimer: This isnt F1 with huge prize money)

I'm sure the average enrollment of engineers at most schools is >3000 students, surely the capacity is there to develop a 20-30 person team that is capable of building a chassis. In short, it will all come out in the wash one day..

[Z]

This very quickly turns into a "where do you draw the line" argument.

I fully agree with JT A. above. And the rest of his post. And with the many other posts along similar lines. And, yes, even with Tim's post!

So... Where SHOULD the line be drawn?

If this was a competition for "Trade School" students, then, sure, they reasonably could be allowed to use "Off-The-Shelf" designs/plans, but they SHOULD do all the hands-on machining/fabricating/welding of the component parts. Because that is what they are learning to do.

But "Engineering" students are supposed to be learning things at a somewhat higher level. In short, in FS/FSAE they are supposed to be learning how to solve "the puzzle of scoring most points" under the given set of restrictions, which are mainly the Laws of Nature, but also the more fickle FS/FSAE Rules.

Assuming this is true, then why does Claude have a bias against "Lego cars"?

Could, in fact, something like Mitchell's recycled ATV/Quad-bike be the best "engineering" solution to the puzzle?

For an inexperienced or low budget Team, I would say DEFINITELY YES!

A Lego-ATV-car for FSAE is probably the easiest, quickest, and cheapest, way to THRASH at least half the other Teams in all the Dynamic events. Remember, all you need to do really well in Dynamics is "... a conveyance that can carry a single person a distance of 30 kms, at an average speed of ~55 kph". And such a car should also do really well in (a realistic...) Cost event. Which leaves only 15% of the total points subject to the biases of the Design Judges.
~o0o~

Going a bit further, could a Lego-ATV-car, with perhaps a bit of "aero-engineering" thrown at it, be a globally dominating car?

Of course! (Do I have to give a bigger hint ^ ? :D)

And, pushing the envelope still further, could you use a bit more "engineering" to beat this already globally dominating car?

IMO, sure! The two main areas to "engineer" are:
1. The drivetrain needs reworking to better package all the big bits (mainly the driver + engine) for a more compact, lower total-mass, lower-Iz, car. This only requires design and manufacture of some shafts (maybe using OTS gears?), and some accurately enough machined boxes to put it all in. So you might need some of those trade school boys to help you with the tolerancing (or see Cole's post on same).

2. MORE, AND BETTER, AERO! Best aero comes from the underbody, and the right size/shape aero-undertray for your car is unlikely to be found on Ebay. And the aero-flows around the upper-body also have to be done right, so as to properly drive the underflows, so this requires whole-car thinking.
~o0o~

So, some good engineering can turn a dirt-cheap Lego-ATV-car into a world beater. But...

What about Claude's insistance that students "engineer" the hubs/uprights/suspension, IA, etc.?

Fact is that none of these parts has a huge influence on making the car faster. But badly done, they surely cripple the car's chance of scoring well (eg. bad IA = DNS, bad hub/axle/wheel-bearings/++ = DNF)!

In other words, these critical items are NOT the things that good Engineers would take big risks with, say, by getting inexperienced students to "optimise" the design. Especially when the "optimisation" is backed up by inadequate (non-existent?) testing.

By analogy, the Rules mandate all critical fasteners to be of a minimum standard. The Rules do not allow these critical items to be student machined parts...
~o0o~

So, what is left is a puzzle with 15% of it subject to the many and varied irrational biases of Design Judges.

Claude has his pet likes of the suspension bits, even though these do little to make the car faster, or cheaper. Other DJs want all FSAE engines to be tyre-shredding, horsepower monsters, and they penalize Teams that focus on economy and reliability.

All of which, IMO, is good reason to get rid of such irrational, UN-engineering-like, biases.

Ditch the DJs (and Design Event), and let the stopwatch, together with a realistic Cost Event, do the judging.

Z

[murpia]

I think a major issue is whether the 'kit car' teams can (or do) score highly in the competition overall.

A perfectly legal strategy for FSAE is to ignore the Design event (and the associated effort), build a fast car out of off-the-shelf parts and score highly enough in the dynamic events to do well overall. That would upset many who hold the Design event close to their hearts.

The next questions are: How probable is it that this could happen? How would it affect the student's education? Should the competition scoring be altered to eliminate this possibility?

Plenty of debate here, I feel.

Regards, Ian

[acedeuce802]

This discussion falls under two different aspects, engineering and competition. For obvious reasons, a fully designed, manufactured, tested, correlated car will net the most engineering experience. But engineering is really problem solving, and the #1 metric at competition is points. Until there is a points advantage for using all custom designed parts, why wouldn't you buy off the shelf parts, such as the steering rack? Design of the rack would involve 1 or 2 members to dedicate a significant amount of time determining stiffness goals, designing parts, manufacturing, testing, and so on. Some teams don't have this ability.

What if they could only cost parts "as made" if they actually make it? The zRack is $1200, but can be costed at much much cheaper. You get the best of both worlds, a stiff lightweight steering rack, that gains you points in dynamics, but doesn't cost you any more in the cost event. If this put a big $1200 addition to the cost report, I'm sure teams would consider machining their own.

I agree that all parts on the car need backed up with data. You must explain that the zRack meets stiffness and weight goals, fits in the team budget, packages nicely, has the desired ratio. You must also explain that designing/manufacturing one from scratch would take about 80 hours and cost $500 to meet the same stiffness/weight targets. Then explain how the points/cost/time trade-off works into the team project management and engineering.

[Claude Rouelle]

Lutz,

I do not have a problem with the impact attenuator. But I do have a problem with people who do buy one and the engineering design and test report ....without understating it.

Claude

[Danschwind]

I still remember back in 2011 when we dropped a huge box filled with junk on our impact attenuator to validate it.

Scary.

[Charles Kaneb]

Oh yes. There's a reason the procedure I wrote for it said that the strap used to pull the quick-release hook lever had to be 20' long and that the person pulling the strap needed a straight unobstructed path out the door.

[Dunk Mckay]

Lutz,
I do not have a problem with the impact attenuator. But I do have a problem with people who do buy one and the engineering design and test report ....without understating it.


Claude, while from an educational stand I think it's great for teams to understand why they are doing things. But from a problem solving, time and resource management approach (which is ultimately what we're trying to educate these students for) it doesn't make much sense.
If the teams spend all of their time analysing every single rule and the reasoning behind why the exact values and limitation were picked, they'd never get round to actually doing any design work, and they'd never get to the end of it without actually asking the person who came up with rule, exactly what calculation were done to decide why the roll hoop must have 2.6mm wall thickness, etc. So as soon as a team makes, what is for them, the correct decision to use the standard IA to better allocate resources elsewhere, why spend any more time thinking about it, that undermines the whole reason for picking it in the first place? Either you trust the rule makers to know that it is a good, safe design, or you shouldn't be making a car to any of the other rules either!

If a team gets to design judging and says they only had 5 team members, a $5000 budget, only one lathe and mill and no CNC. But they can justify, mainly through: man-hours available<man-hours estimated to design and build, that off the shelf parts were the only way they had of getting a car built in time to get 3 months of rigorous testing done during which time they pushed the car to it's absolute limits, and can prove it on track.
THEN another team turns up with:
50+ members, $100,000+ budget, a workshop full of facilities including CNC machining, and a sponsor with an autoclave for their carbon chassis and full aero package, and can also justify all their designs through lengthy calculations and simulations that their hordes of team members did. And also got there car running in time for 3 months of testing (by paying to have all their parts custom made by someone else, and getting their hordes of team members to make them).
If both cars look reliable enough, and have evidence of their testing, but no evidence of direct comparison lap times, then I would assume that the second car was probably faster. BUT considering they had 10x more team members, 20x more money, and lets say 10x more facilities, and their car cannot be 2000 (=10x20x10) times faster, then the first team has done a far more efficient job than the second. Okay the 2000x isn't a usable number for comparison due to diminishing returns on performance gains, but the point is made.

[Claude Rouelle]

Dunk,
Story 1. Many years ago I had a young and talented Formula 3 driver who asked me to change the differential ramp angle to solve a power understeer corner exit problem. It was his first race. He did ask me that in a middle of a qualify cession! He probably heard in a conversation with other drivers or engineers or mechanics that such a setup change could solve his specific problem but because he never worked on the car himself he probably thought that changing the differential ramp angle was as fast as adjusting the front camber of the rear ride height.
Story 2. A few years ago the team who win the FSG design competition was able to explain how any of the car part was manufactured. The new exactly any of the car part manufacturing process (CNC, metal cutting, welding, composite work) everything (
Story 3 (And that one relates to your actual work so you will tell me if I am write or wrong). I have observed that car manufacturers are more and more order givers and less and less designers and manufacturers of their own components. In the last 30 years I have observed the knowledge of car components manufacturers or even complete subassembly suppliers or consulting companies growing quicker that the ones of the car manufacturer engineers. And with more efficiency and less bureaucracy.
Story 4. At OptimumG we do simulation software. I do not ask our vehicle dynamics engineers to be prefect OOP programmers but I do ask them to have enough skills and experience to have intelligent conversation with the core programmers.
Story 5. One of the reasons that makes OptimumG seminars successful in the professional racing or passengers cars world is our ability to connect the dots (tires, aero, kinematics and compliances, damping…. you name it) even if we are 5 to 10 times less qualified than any of the F1 specialists in their very specific domain. The hyper-specialization and the oversight of the fundamentals is what often creates confusion, bureaucracy , lack of efficiency. But that is also why we have a business. On the other end, in fairness and objectivity, even if we are more efficient and agile, small consulting companies like ours do not have the financial power to compete in similar project even. Well, that is also why we are too small to fail

Put the 5 stories together and you will understand that even it makes perfect logistical and budgetary sense for a car manufacturer to by parts outside, if I was one of these car manufacturers and I had to hire an engineer I will want to have one who knows how to design and manufacture the parts he is in charge of, even if the parts design and manufacturing is made outside the company.
And that is what my point was: FSAE not a kit car competition. I know that you can’t compare a 250K$ 80 students 10 years of experience big university access to lab and excellent faculty advisor to a 25 K$ 10 students small university no real good teachers first year team but I still will give students more praise (and most probably points too ) to students who design and manufacture parts than students who buy them. That is what FSAE / FS is supposed to be: prepare them for their career. If not, well they can play Lego.

Back to story 1. Back to the talented but unknowledgeable driver. After that race I arranged to have that driver to spend 3 weeks, 6 days/week, 14 hours/day working with the mechanics and completely assemble and disassemble and setup a car. Just as an example, when he saw how complicated it was to get the fuel pump back inside the fuel tank via a very small window on the rear bulkhead of the monocoque, he started to appreciate and respect the mechanics’ work. We even sent him in a van to pick up parts and engines in Italy for a 30 hours non-stop round trip. We put him as a passenger in the semi-trailer that went with his car to a test cession. We made him wash gear ratios and rims. With good workshop jokes, laughing lunches and 1 or 2 beers after the long working days, these 3 weeks did really bind the team together. Engineers, mechanics and the driver acquired respect and even admiration for each other. The driver didn’t anymore ask to make in 2 minutes a setup change that takes really 45 minutes. We won the championship that year and the driver made it to Formula One 3 years later. He is still my friend. We won for many reasons but one of them was the common knowledge and appreciation of each other work

[Dunk Mckay]

Claude,
Sadly you are absolutely right about the industry I work in, it's one of my biggest annoyances. My role would best be described as a type of "technical expert", as such I support a number of engineers that work on different parts of the car, and it pains me greatly when a new engineer knows less about how their part functions than I do, even though I am only supposed to be an expert in one specific area.

But having said all that, what seem to be saying is that given one team with lots of resource and members, and one team with few resources or members, both of whom have made the absolute best engineering decisions based on what they had available to them, in an engineering design judging event you would reward the team with more resources more, because they had the opportunity to do more in depth engineering that the other team didn't. And we're not talking about on track here. With ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL the team with more resources and people is obviously going to be faster, and there is no fair way to normalise lap times according to how much was spent developing the car. So that just is what it is.
But in a closed judging session, where the questions being asked are: Did they make the right engineering decisions? Do they know why these parts are on their car? And in the case of the poorer team: Do they understand the disadvantage they have by having to buy the parts off the shelf? I think it's unfair to mark down the team because they had less opportunity to learn than others. It's perhaps too strong a word to use, but that borders on elitism.

If the role of the competition is to encourage student engineers to get involved in a more practical way, and motivate them to teach themselves more than just what they are being taught in the lecture theatre. Then how can we justify knowingly doing anything that would discourage and demotivate those that are coming from schools where they are less supported in such endeavours?

I went to a school where every year was a battle to explain to the academic staff that we simply didn't have the means to build a car that could guarantee a top spot. That finishing in the top 10 of a 100 car event, or as the top UK team was the most that should be expected of us (anything better would have been by default). But that was only thought to be due to the amount of points allocated in dynamic events, but that we still stood a chance of doing just as well as anyone else in the static events. We never did reach design finals, and that's fine, we didn't deserve to. But to find out that we had even less resources we might not ever had a chance to, that is disheartening.

And as a final point, if the role of FS/FSAE is not to "inspire/motivate" but solely to "prepare them for their career" and the automotive industry is (for better or worst in an engineering purist point of view) heading towards a formula where everything is outsourced. Then surely having teams buy parts off the shelf that weren't intended to go together, and putting them together into a really well integrated system that works better than the sum of is parts, is exactly what they should be being taught. And a team that custom designs and makes every single part to work perfectly together is being taught an idealistic lie that they will never actually see in industry.

[Adman]

Claude,
And as a final point, if the role of FS/FSAE is not to "inspire/motivate" but solely to "prepare them for their career" and the automotive industry is (for better or worst in an engineering purist point of view) heading towards a formula where everything is outsourced. Then surely having teams buy parts off the shelf that weren't intended to go together, and putting them together into a really well integrated system that works better than the sum of is parts, is exactly what they should be being taught. And a team that custom designs and makes every single part to work perfectly together is being taught an idealistic lie that they will never actually see in industry.

This is very poignant for me at the moment, being in the midst of applying for grad positions and hopping on a plane tomorrow for an interview with Ford (freaking excited, yes).

I wonder how much of my time spent designing components from scratch will really apply in industry, even at Ford (touch wood)? I'm far more certain that the skills I have, that they want, are wrapped up under teamwork, leadership, project management, composure under stress, finding cost effective solutions (hint hint) or working professionally with consumers (ie. sponsors)?

Our team is prety poorly funded by our university, but 'well' funded by our sponsors. Perhaps I shouldn't say it, but to hell with it for the purposes of this argument. University gives us $4k AUD, our sponsors give us about $16k. We do however, have a fantastic workshop with relatively free access to the machines, so I'll give them that much.

The point is that despite our uni not willing to help us with anything other than our entry fee, our team has managed to achieve and learn so much more than we expected. While we actually haven't purchased many off the shelf parts, we also haven't designed 3D printed titanium uprights or carbon fibre monocoques. But regardless of your uni, regardless of your funding or team size, you're still going to get the same key skills out of FSAE that industry and employers actually want. If you have to buy your IA, then I don't think you should be penalised for not examining the engineering behind it. You should know how to calculate it anyway from your university degree!

[Dunk Mckay]

You should know how to calculate it anyway from your university degree!

The key word there is "should". Most big companies now will have graduate schemes, often 2 years long, to take someone with a degree and turn them into someone with useful skills. This is because universities are failing to supply graduates that are ready to step into a proper role.
This is where the need for FSAE and other such competitions has come from. I was able to bypass the whole graduate scheme process and go straight into a proper role, and although I had some experience of a year's industrial placement (as do most nowadays) and had completed a Master course, if I had not also competed in Formula Student for a number of years, I do not think I would have been given the opportunity.

And it certainly wasn't my ability to design parts in CAD, run FEA or CFD simulations, or do in depth engineering calculations that got me the job. These are all reserved for specialist roles. No, the demonstrable skills that I had that were valuable, were Excel, Powerpoint, team work and time management. Excel spreadsheets, powerpoint presentation and meetings encompass 90% of what engineers do in big industry these days. And while there are the occasional exciting days (my high point so far has been driving one of our cars at 150mph round a test track), most of it is not what one would call riveting work. I'm sure there are some jobs that are, but we can't all do those jobs.

The challenge universities have is motivating student to actually want to learn those things. An excel spreadsheet assignment on it's own that doesn't actually serve any purpose other than to give you a grade feels pointless. If you give a single overall grade for a group assignments you are penalising the students that do all the work (and they will complain), and handing a degree to those that haven't got a clue. If you mark them individually they will do their own bit and the minimum amount of teamwork they can get away with.
The only way of getting students to really do those types of work, and properly, is to give them something motivating to work towards, and FSAE does that much better than any self-contained university assignment. But if the outcome of the competition becomes more and more based on factors outside of their control (such as workshop facilities, funding, useful academic staff, team numbers and experience), then that motivation will wane and along with it the skills FSAE graduates self-teach.

When the FS team I managed (1 of 5 team managers) finished FSG, we were well outside the top 10. But we had achieved our primary goal of completing every single event for the first time in 3 years, this put us in 24th place, closer to 1st place than to the 48th place the team had achieved the year before. We were proud of what we had achieved, and of what we had taught ourselves, we had simply learned our lessons on team work and project management too late in the year to be the top UK team, but early enough to do better than normal.
A lot of our technical knowledge we were able to pass on to the next team, who built on our design and built a quicker car still, but team skills and team management are not as easy to hand over and they failed to register for FSG. A year later and all of our technical work was thrown out the window, any team skills completely lost completely, the car didn't even make an appearance at FSUK and was not permitted to run at FSG. The success and failure of my old team, and probably of most, hinges on the team and project skills of those involved, but the focus is always on the technical side of things. Even though with a carry over concept the majority of the reasoning behind a technical decision can be passed down from one team line-up to the next. In design judging you could have someone in front of you that knows all the answers to the most detailed and probing of questions, because the guy/girl who came before them told them everything they needed to know, showed them the best design to use, etc. But if they've been able to pull together with their whole team and get a car designed, built and tested, then I think they deserve far more of a reward, even if their car hasn't been designed down to the nuts and bolts.

[Charles Kaneb]

As of 2016, I know that FCA designs the following systems to be made as "build to print" by a supplier or in house:

1) IC Engines
2) Body-in-White (almost all parts are stamped in-house)
3) Suspension systems (almost all parts supplier-made, but supplier "builds to print" or works with FCA to manufacture FCA design)

In addition, the vehicle dynamics calculations and setup are all done in-house.

I have heard from colleagues and counterparts that the trend right now is to move from "full-service supplier" to "build-to-print". This makes sense competitively; a supplier who has the contract to design the part as well as make it only has to do it well enough to not get canned and force a panic redesign/re-sourcing.

[Dunk Mckay]

That does seem to be a trend with the European manufacturers as well. Lots of talent stealing from suppliers.

Having said that, entire vehicle programme engineering is sometimes entirely outsourced, with only the design (aesthetic only) and high level stuff done in house. That doesn't really change the role of the engineer though, it just shifts it to a different employer.