2016 Formula SAE Michigan

[acedeuce802]

Figured it's about that time to make the thread.

Too early to nail down the weather predictions, but if everything holds it won't be as bad as it has in the past: https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/USMI0113:1:US

Rain on Thursday, cold-ish endurance. But that's almost a week away and it'll likely change.

Good luck to everyone, see you there!

[Westly]

Where is the best place to get coverage of this event? any live streams?

[Will M]

I would also be interested in a live feed.
I cannot check from here but it looks like GFR will be doing something on Periscope.

-William

[Moy Barajas]

Pics from Day 1:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/moybarajas/albums/72157667995233552

[Will M]

Wow, it has been a few years since I attend a competition but it looks like 90% of teams are running full aero.
Is that the case or is it just that the winged cars are the ones which got photographed?

-William

[dr. ill]

Design finalists and weight info I could find (in Kg). Some info is second hand so please excuse mistakes.

014 - Rennteam Uni Stuttgart ~176
003 - TU Graz Racing Team 164
012 - joanneum racing graz 211
052 - Gopher Motorsports - UMN Formula SAE 214
138 - Zips Racing 158
007 - NUS Formula SAE ?
015 - Wisconsin Racing ?
093 - HAWKS Racing e.V. ~205
023 - MSU Formula Racing Team 194?
130 - Formule ETS Montréal 146
002 - Gator Motorsports ?

The lightest car with more than 1 gear is GFR @ 147

[Moy Barajas]

Day Two Pics:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/moybarajas/albums/72157665886491863

[rmk36]

Live timing for today is available here:

http://drscca.org/livetiming/fsae/accel/
http://drscca.org/livetiming/fsae/skid/

[gtmsracer]

Wow that is some amazingly light cars. GFR is 147 kgs and has full aero too? I'm curious how they achieved that.

[gtmsracer]

Thanks for the links. any idea the link for autocross?

[Mbirt]

http://drscca.org/livetiming/fsae/autox/

[mech5496]

Singapore is doing well; design and now presentation finalist?! Wow!

[JT A.]

I heard a car crashed into a wall between skidpad and accel event, anybody have more info about that? Is the driver OK? Which team was it? Are they going to be able to repair the car for endurance?

[Moy Barajas]

Pics from today:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/moybarajas/sets/72157668369927765


North Carolina State went into the wall in AutoX, don't know any more than that.

[Paul Achard]

Does anyone have a link to the endurance live timing, if it exists?

[Mbirt]

I saw that teams were resorting to welding in whistle tips to pass the draconian noise test.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zUXow3d3-b0/hqdefault.jpg

I wonder how the course workers feel about them as flow rate increases under load?
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9R2hOlVqqek/hqdefault.jpg

[Mbirt]

Vacuum cleaner racing live on Periscope: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1eaJbwEvRmZxX

[walther]

Hey everyone!

I am the driver of the 78 car (NC State) that had the unfortunate accident right before the timing gate on my first timed lap (there was a red flag on my first lap).

For everyone that is curious, I am ok and sustained some bruises on my back and arm from the impact. Unfortunately the throttle stuck open and the car impacted the safer-barrier.

The front left a-arms were mangled and we worked through the night fixing the car for re-tech and endurance. We were successful and finished endurance (first time in 4 years!)

The team would like to thank UNC-Charlotte and Embry-Riddle for their kindness and support along with all the people that stopped by our paddock wishing us well.

-Collin Walther

[dr. ill]

The one thing that stood out to me was Stuttgart's cost score. $10502 adjusted cost is incredibly low considering the car. 3/4 carbon monocoque, carbon wheel rims, large carbon aero package, carbon suspension, 6 springs and dampers, AP calipers F/R.

Comparing to similar carbon cars:
ETS - $15495
TU Graz - $18847
J - Graz - $24424
GFR -$19607

Additionally, looking at Stuttgart's cost at FSG 15 (same car) with a few assumptions for low/high car cost comes out to ~$15000.

This represents a pretty large points swing, ~8 points, not enough to effect the outcome of this competition, but still I am curious if anyone else noticed this...

[MCoach]

Based on what it takes to build a car that's actually about $10k, I am very skeptical of Stuttgart's cost.

Tennessee Tech's car cost, I'm much less skeptical about. $5500, was it? That car was built for one reason, win cost. It had a carburated V twin Briggs and Straton, centrifugal clutch, 600 sprint car rear axle, wheel and drive assembly. It had no muffler, aluminum/ steel everything, American Racer tires, and still weighed about 600lbs.
It also had aluminum front and rear aero. However, I've never seen a car that wanted to tip over at such low lateral accelerations.

[dr. ill]

I heard the TTU car had an onboard pull start! Cool! Any vids?

If TTU didn't skew the cost score so much, Stuttgart's score would have been worth about 15 points, instead of 8 (still not enough to change the outcome of this event)

[Z]

Firstly, many thanks to Moy for his pics! :)
~o0o~

Regarding Cost Event, this remains only second to Design in its unfathomableness.

From my quick look at car specs;
* Cheapest car, Tennessee Tech, had a Vee-twin (admittedly B&S), spaceframe, some "black&round" 13" tires, WITH aero, for ~$5.5K.
* Most expensive car, US Air Force, had a 450cc-single, spaceframe, 10" Hoosiers, with NO aero (USAF???), for almost ~$32K.
Huh?????
~o0o~

A handy reference for car specs (but missing #3 Graz TechU?) is here;

http://www.fsaeonline.com/content/2016_Formula_SAE_Michigan_Event_Guide.pdf

Rather amusing/disappointing in these "engineering specifications" is the mixture of every conceivable dimensioning system. Yep, you name it, inches, millimetres, cubits?, kilograms, pounds, ... are all in there.

It reminds me of the Mars Climate Orbiter of 1998. Google this mission and you find phrases like,

"... project cost of around 1/3 billion dollars (~$1,000,000/kg of the spacecraft itself)...
... NASA using metric units in its system software...
...the MCO manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, using "pounds-force" in its software...
...intended orbital elevation of 226 km above Martian surface...
...minimum survivable elevation of ~80 km before atmospheric friction causes burn-up...
...time of "orbital insertion" rocket burn ... miscalculated...
...actual final elevation after rocket burn ... 57 km..."

Guess the result!

And the really funny bit,
"...several days before orbital insertion some ground staff noticed the discrepancies between calculated and measured positions and advised a course correction, but...
... these suggestions were dismissed..." :D :D :D

Will they ever learn?

Well, you only have to go as far as the second entry in above Event Guide to find,
"Univ of Florida
...
Wheelbase: 2950 mm (61 in)."!!!

Z

[mech5496]

Maybe it is time for publicly available cost reports as well?

[Bemo]

If you want to score well in cost, you need to understand how the cost event works, you don't need to build an actually cheap car ;-) The difficult task is to have all parts with all materials and all processes listed as it is much harder for the cost judges to check if your numbers are correct than to find parts which are just missing. Therefore the cost event never really worked to reward teams who build simple and therefore cheap to manufacture cars.

Regarding GFRs weight. The just have less parts than most other cars in the field. Direct acting dampers, no ARBs, small engine without fancy stuff like adjustable runner length, no shitload of electronic gadgets. For me it's no surprise, there car is that lightweight. The bigger surprise is why their car is not much cheaper in cost than Stuttgart's ;-)

[MCoach]

If you want to score well in cost, you need to understand how the cost event works, you don't need to build an actually cheap car ;-) The difficult task is to have all parts with all materials and all processes listed as it is much harder for the cost judges to check if your numbers are correct than to find parts which are just missing.

...it is much harder for the cost judges to check if your numbers are correct than to find parts which are just missing.

Having all the parts listed correctly, but with deflated costs for everything are not supposed to be how this event works. Let's not make it a race to the bottom.

[theTTshark]

Having all the parts listed correctly, but with deflated costs for everything are not supposed to be how this event works. Let's not make it a race to the bottom.

Too late, that race has been happening for awhile now.

[MCoach]

Too late, that race has been happening for awhile now.

I'm well aware, but I can still stand my ground and insist this is not racing where "whatever it takes" is encouraged to get ahead.
This is supposed to be an educational event to teach good practices and students to learn what it takes to efficiently balance their cost/performance envelope.
In the real world, it is obvious that this type of creative accounting has been well rewarded, but leads to situations that companies land themselves into like Enron and Volkswagen.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjmjqlOPd6A

[Thijs]

Hi All,

I'm sure that others have noted as well that GFR's overall 4th place is a pretty dramatic break with tradition for them.
Ever since they started in 2010, they have (amazingly) won every endurance they managed to finish.
(Equally impressive, they've won every single overall event whenever they finished the endurance)

So for them to finish 7th in the endurance, almost 5 seconds a lap slower than TU Graz is a whole new experience.
Any insights as to what happened here? GFR's previous car was on average 4,5 seconds a lap FASTER when racing the same TU Graz car in Germany last year.
New drivers? The average lap times of the two drivers were very different, despite being quite similar at previous events.
Or was something wrong with the car/simply not enough test kms?

cheers,

Thijs

[Mitchell]

If you want to score well in cost, you need to understand how the cost event works, you don't need to build an actually cheap car ;-)

This needs to change, along with efficiency scoring.

[MCoach]

So for them to finish 7th in the endurance, almost 5 seconds a lap slower than TU Graz is a whole new experience.
Any insights as to what happened here? GFR's previous car was on average 4,5 seconds a lap FASTER when racing the same TU Graz car in Germany last year.
New drivers? The average lap times of the two drivers were very different, despite being quite similar at previous events.
Or was something wrong with the car/simply not enough test kms?
Thijs

Phil wasn't driving at this competition.
https://www.driverdb.com/drivers/phillip-arscott/


Actually, Dr. ill, since you're here. What's the story on that?

[JustNutsandBolts]

Shows you how much of it is actually up to the drivers...so much for a "design" competition.

[Swiftus]

Well I think I can answer a few questions. First, Phil didn't drive at comp this year but he did take a wack in testing and the new crop of drivers are just about as fast as he is, so I wouldn't drop the onus of on track speed on the driver change.

If you look at autox, driver 1 went out and set safe laps and driver 2 only got to set 1 lap since the organisers ended the event while he was staged for his second run. So, his first lap of autoX is what was counted.

Then, looking at the times plus the track conditions, at the start of the GFR run the track was very wet. Very Very wet. By the last 4 or so laps of driver 2's run the track was much drier and the racing line could have been called 'damp'. In the 'damp' conditions the tires were coming alive and set one of the faster laps of the day - Graz still ~3 seconds faster. The wet tire choice for MIS was an intermediate wet rather than a full wet and both drivers admitted it was like driving on ice while the track was wet. The tires couldn't warm up and they weren't shedding enough of the standing water which was on track.

As race engineers, the team made the wrong call opting for intermediate wet tires rather than full wets. Live and learn, right?

[MCoach]

I can share your sympathies there. I watched the Kettering boys go out on slicks just as it started to hail. unkind words may have been muttered. The struggle is real. The track was declared "damp" up to the point they red flagged it. It actually looked better conditions when they flagged it than when they let all the cars slightly before and after Kettering go out on dry tires.

[Mike Cook]

1000's of students have their ideas criticized in every imaginable - when will it be ok to ask the organizers of this event why we continue to have this even at a location and time of year with such terrible weather? Rain, snow, hail, tornadoes, I've seen it all there.

And if you want to make the competition less about driving, you should probably make the course very rudimentary.

[Thijs]

Alright, thanks for clearing that up.
I had assumed that GFR had been on track at the same time as the eventual endurance top 3 teams since they were the four fastest teams during autocross, so rain didn't immediately come to mind as the most probable explanation.

Back to a previous topic:
Bemo, considering that you've been involved in the organisation of FSAE events, as a rules guy no less, I'm wondering if people have misunderstood what you were trying to say about how to approach the cost event.
You appeared to be making a case for creative accounting. Was that really the point you were trying to get across?

[Bemo]

I just wanted to make a statement regarding the current situation in the cost event. I didn't say, it's a good thing, that it works this way. It's just the explenation how those results are possible.

In 2009 the cost rules were completely revised. Before there were no cost tables, instead you had to show invoices or catalogue pages for purchased parts and just assume a machining and labour time for manufactured parts. Back then the situation was even more stupid. At some point we handed in cost reports with a total cost of less then 6000$ without receiving any penalties and without being extremely cheap comparing the competition.

The current rules were made to improve the situation and make the total cost of the reports more relating to the actual cost of the car. In my opinion this will never really work as it is not realistic to really go through the entire report at the event. You will only be able to pick some parts and check them. Overall you will score better if you cheat at every single part to get the cost down and take the penalty for the three or four parts which are checked at the competition. Therefore my opinion is, that giving away points for the total cost of the car should be skipped as it will always be unfair and result in a competition about creative accounting. I would prefer an event which really focuses on a very detailed and complete report showing the real costs (if there is no points penalty, there is no reason to cheat at this number) and add some real case scenario questions similar to what is already implemented.

[Swiftus]

The finalized results of FSAEM 2016 (http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/results/) were posted. A little bit of a shuffle but nothing major in the final results standings.