Two simple rules to improve results. [Archive]

Dunk Mckay

03-12-2017, 06:12 PM

So I've been giving advice to my old team, and on occasion members of other teams if I strike up a rapport with them at comp.

I've also spent many a Sunday afternoon watching car after car breakdown, either at Silverstone or watching Hockenheim live on Youtube.

Everyone is unhappy about the amount of teams that breakdown in the grand event. It is, to some extent embarrassing, and to listen to the commentary at these events, it is expected.

But no-one is actually doing anything about it.

I mean seriously, no-one. Sure the IMechE will say they run the "Learn-to Win" event, and FSG have a technical debriefing for team members coming back next year, and there's Pat's corner, and the 'Learn and Compete' book (best attempt so far, but no longer available and needs updating). But these have been going for years no, things aren't getting better.

Some will argue it's up to the teams. It's always been up to the teams to build a car that works! But the current rule book makes them build cars that don't!

So I've had enough. I have two simple rules, that I believe will make a significant difference to the situation.
(Not that I think these will ever be implemented under the current regime, but hey ho).

New Rule Number 1:
-When weighed, your car must have a minimum mass of 200kg.
10 points will be deducted for every kg under this threshold.

New Rules Number 2:
-All teams have the option to submit an advanced video of their running car up to 30 days ahead of the start of the competition.
20 bonus points will be awarded for submitting on the deadline date, for each additional day before this deadline an additional point will be awarded, up to a maximum total of 50 points.
The video must show the car completed with all bodywork and include clips demonstrating the presence of all safety features (driver harness, head rest, impact attenuator, brake over travel switch).
A member of your academic staff must sign off to say that all systems demonstrated/shown in the video are indeed functional and the final versions intended for competition.

The problem with 90% of teams that DNF, or worse, DNS at comp, is that they worry too much about the wrong things. Chasing fractions in performance instead of reliability and timeliness.
Offering a minimum weight will take some of the pressure off weight saving, so corners won't be cut where they shouldn't be.
Offering Bonus points for being able to demonstrate a running car in advance of the competition (but about as late as any good team should be looking to have a completed car), will add even more emphasis on the time pressures this sort of project entails.

A few preemptive arguments.

-Why 200kg?
200kg is about right for a basic space-frame non-aero car, that doesn't break the bank and is relatively easy to manufacture.

-Most of the teams that break down don't build cars less than 200kg as it is.
This is true. But they'd like to. Most of these teams are in the 200-250kg region. Currently each year they talk about making their car as light as possible, so the next year can go even lighter, and ultimately make that 175kg car. If they know they can't go below 200kg, they won't be pushing so hard to cut mass out of every single system.
A lot of teams in the 175-200kg region, with mostly well built cars breakdown more than they should (you know who you are). They go from top 10 at one comp, to bottom half the next. They are inconsistent because each year they try to shave that little bit extra weight to make their car that little bit faster. Ultimately they probably end up weighing the same because they fixed reliability issues with weight in one area, while doing the opposite in another, continuing the cycle.

-But if there's no longer a drive to save as much weight, won't it make choosing an engine easier? Everyone will just run 4 cylinders! This competition is supposed to be about having total freedom of design choices.
Firstly, I don't think they will, I've seen plenty of singles and twins over 200kg, especially full aero cars.
Secondly, as for the total freedom of design choice argument, I think that's a bit ridiculous. It's an engineering competition; real world engineering is flooded with restriction and limitations. Yes, it's good to give lots of freedom so all the cars aren't the same, but we already have a pointless maximum displacement rule, which limits choice for no good reason. As I've said I don't think this will limit choice, perhaps some teams will sway a different way, but in the end haven't 4cylinders' proven to be more reliable anyway? Isn't that what we want?

-Bonus points mean a team could theoretically score more than 1000
Yes, so? Team with most point wins. How does that change anything?

-Demonstrate break over-travel in a video? You could just film someone hitting a non-wired in switch, with someone off camera hitting the master switch to cut the power. What about all the safety features, they could just mock them up so save time.
Yes, but that would be cheating, and for so little gain (how long does it take to wire in a single switch? Not 24 hours). Plus they've had a member of the academic staff sign it off; in most cases, if they were found to have lied this would have severe consequences for their job, they wouldn't take the risk.

-But what about dry vs. wet weight? What if some teams have empty tanks and no oil?
I'm not interested in discussing the semantics of this, that's not the point. Ultimately you have to be over 200kg at all times during the comp, be that in scrutineering, before design judging, or in parc ferme after endurance. Heck, it wouldn't be hard to have some roll on roll off corner weights set up at the entrance/exit of each event (although that might be excessive).

rory.gover

03-12-2017, 06:46 PM

Build a 150kg car, put 50 kg of tungsten right below the CG. Better yet, have it adjustable so you put it rearward and high (maximise long. load transfer and attempt to lift front wheels) for acceleration, and then low and under CG for every other event.

I think the intent here is fine, though I believe it would just introduce a different fine-tuning objective.

BillCobb

03-12-2017, 07:03 PM

Allow me to add, based on my experience, that choosing a smooth driver/operator can be an important factor in vehicle durability. Someone who is hard on the steering, throttle, brakes, tires and suspension springs will cost you in long runs. The reward(s) for longevity are big for ANY product design.

Pat Clarke

03-12-2017, 08:28 PM

Dunk, it has been my experience that most of the cars that break or don't start are already over 200kg.
Any minimum weight rule is flawed because of the various car designs. A composite, 10" car with a single cylinder engine vs
a spaceframe, turbo 600/4 on 13" wheels and with a full aero package can not be bunched together.
Those choosing a lightweight, low power engine do so to save weight...don't ask them to add 50kg of ballast and become instantly uncompetitive.
Several competitions, including FSG, already have the requirement to submit a video of the running car.
The old dodge of submitting a dry car (even to the extent of empty batteries) was identified long ago.
At FSG there are penalties if your car weight changes significantly during the event...and they do additional weighing!

Remember, FS/FSAE is an engineering competition with a motorsport theme, not a motorsport event.
The intent is that you make your mistakes and cockups before you are inflicted on some poor employer.
That seems to work well as the lesson learned by all those members of the DNF teams is KISS!

Pat

JulianH

03-13-2017, 12:13 AM

Fully agree with Pat. (Could be the first time I think ;))

The 200kg rule kills the "Delft cars". Even if you can put heavy stuff very low in the car, you will see the massive power downside of a single-cylinder. I think they won't be competitive anymore.
I think that kills a lot of the possiblities.

The "present your car X days before competition" is a great rule. I like how it is used in FSG. Maybe it is possible to be a more strict on this and give out penalties.
What I don't like with your rule is that it would promote even shorter Engineering cycles, less imagination and more "carry over". Teams should push it also between the years!

Julian

JT A.

03-13-2017, 07:11 AM

I agree with the pre-competition video idea. I have heard that the competition in Japan has some kind of rule about that and it has been successful. The points bonus is an idea that I haven't heard before, but I think it would be a good thing.

Minimum weight rule, I don't think will be effective. As others have said, a big proportion of the cars that fail endurance are already over 200kg. The problem with it is, being 200+kg does not guarantee that all the weight has been budgeted appropriately into every critical part for equal & sufficient safety factors. There's just no way around the fact that ultimately, if you want to see higher endurance success rates, it depends on the teams to do better engineering. A single minimum weight regardless of engine type, chassis type, wheel size, presence of wings, etc, is very arbitrary too. A car that's 190kg could add a 10kg wing package to meet minimum weight, does that make it any more likely to complete endurance? No, likely the opposite. A 200kg minimum weight would also kill some design freedom and make certain concepts uncompetitive, which I think is a bad thing.

Dunk Mckay

03-13-2017, 08:02 AM

I'm not denying that a 200kg weight limit make certain designs uncompetitive. It absolutely does. My argument is: so what?

The aero limitations opened up a number of years ago, all of a sudden you had to have aero to be competitive.
They've been constrained back a little since then, but other than by default, I don't think it's possible to win a competition without a proper aero package.
That's a a change that basically ruled out any teams that didn't have the resources (money, skills or manpower) to build a design concept with an aero package.

So "killing" certain design concepts is no justification not to change things.
If anything, in this case, it would probably level the field a little. Decent smaller engines are harder to come by, especially for teams in certain parts of the world.

Additionally, based on 200kg it only really kills the the design concepts of teams that currently reiterate the same successful design every year. If the teams really are as good as their car, and not just resting on the laurels of those that came before, then changing their concept shouldn't be an issue.

Pat, as I stated in my opening post, the cars that fail the most are indeed already over 200kg. But these teams have all been lead to believe, by the culture of the competition, that mass is really important. I don;t know of many officials doing much to dissuade that idea. Weighing in immediately before Design judging at FSG for example is extremely misleading. All else being equal, and within a reasonable mass range (180-250kg) a kilo is worth maybe 1-2 points at comp, based on dynamic events. But in design judging it can really depend on the judges; I don't think any DJ would award points for intentionally having a heavy car, but many would penalise you for not trying to be as light as possible.
At least with some sort of limit, the discussion does from: "Why didn't you try to have the lightest car possible?" to "Why didn't you aim for the 200kg limit?" Which I think is a much more interesting conversation.

Also from the whole ballast point of view. The question becomes: "I see you can built a very lightweight car. But is ballast really the best use of the remaining mass available?"
(I can think of a few ways that would increase performance much more than ballast that are currently legal).

If we really are saying that allowing design freedom is an untouchable objective, second only to safety requirements, then there are pages and pages of rules that need to be stripped away. Rules that are far more restrictive than a minimum weight limit, that don't offer new, different challenges but simply close doors on different opportunities and bias the competition towards teams with more resource who build the same car year after year.

The 200kg mass limit wouldn't need to be fixed either, it along with a few other specific variables (e.g. aero packaging) could be adjusted every couple of years as a matter of course. So no team would be able to sit back and relax with their carry over concept, simply tweaking it for each minor rules change.
In some cases this does play into the hands of teams with the resource to invest in new development every year. But on the flip side, on occaision, a cheaper, heavier, simpler car, with no aero, would be given a fighting chance.

VFR750R

03-13-2017, 08:02 AM

Narrowing down the number of ways to make a bad car sure seem enticing, but when teams still put rod ends in bending, a weight rule or first drive video won't prevent failure. Time will find them and won't be kind.

Swiftus

03-13-2017, 09:08 AM

I am a fan of requiring a video some time before the competition. However, the idea of 'bonus' points really doesn't end up working. All you've done is move the deadline to the time of maximum bonus points. So instead of 30 days before the competition, teams will have their cars done 60 days before the competition. That may increase reliability, but it doesn't create bonus points. It just makes the competition out of 1030 points rather than 1000.

I don't have the time right now (a couple weeks and I'll come back to this) to examine previous year's results, but it would be interesting to see endurance completion rates at competitions that require video of the car driving beforehand to competitions that don't. That metric would be the one to use to justify such a requirement, right?

Claude Rouelle

03-13-2017, 09:51 AM

Dunk,

You do not get it!

F= Ma. For a given lateral acceleration the more mass the more force, therefore the more compliance (and less driver control and confidence) and the more effort of each suspension members, chassis etc..

To avoid deformation and possible rupture you have 2 solutions.

1. Make the chassis and suspension stiffer which add more mass which add more force which add more causes for compliance and possible rupture. That is the ugly crescendos towards disaster
2. Design smart. A good distribution of the tire forces and moments on the suspension elements and the chassis (just as an example think about the tire lateral force acting on a wishbone that has one arm perpendicular to the chassis and the other at 45 degrees or on 2 arms that are both at 45 degrees) will prevent concentration of forces and there fore decrease the need for heavy components. There is a reason why design judges ask students to exhibit the load path studies (forces on each suspension elements for different load cases: skip pad, braking, acceleration, combined longitudinal and lateral acceleration etc...)

At 2011 FSG I judged 2 cars that had exactly the same concept; electrical 4WD one was 80 KW the other 82 KW, no big difference), no wings, tubular chassis. One was 145 Kg the other 230 Kg. More than 50 % of difference for the same concept.
When I asked the 230 Kg car team why their car was over 50 % heavier for the same concept, their first answer was "but we lost 30 Kg compared to last year" ...which did not answer my question.
I pushed them to come with a better answer. They told me that the car was heavier "because it had more batteries" I asked them why they needed more batteries and the answer was that with the same amount of batteries than the 145 Kg car they could not finish the endurance.
The question then became why do you have more energy consumption and the answer was ".....because the car is heaver!!!!...."

The heavier a car is the heavier it will have to be. The lighter a car is the lighter it can be.

If a rule about weight should be created it would be that car over 200 Kg should be penalized.

It is possible to make car that is light, stiff, aesthetic, easy to manufacture and maintain. To do that you need to
a. inspire your self from nature. God is the best designer; n egg with a shell of 0.3 mm thickness can sustain a force of 450 N in its vertical axis? Have look at the FEA of a tree branches and roots fibers....
b. Form follows function. 1 Functions and then 2 Form, not the other way around. And that is one of the traps in which many, many students fall: they start designing the car before having a complete list of the functions that the part is supposed to fulfill.
The typical example is the team that starts designing the chassis without having determining where there suspension pick up points will have to be. You will often see on that type of car the suspension points or the rocker or damper attachment right in a middle of a tube... which create compliance.....that you can wrongly fight with stiffer and heavier tubes.

Designing an heavy car is going against all the efforts that the automotive and aircraft industry is trying to reach. More energy consumption. more recyclability issues. Not what a Design competition is supposed to achieve.

As far as the video way before the competition it is a rule that is already applied in Germany, Japan and India.

sidkash14

03-13-2017, 01:59 PM

Remember, FS/FSAE is an engineering competition with a motorsport theme, not a motorsport event.
The intent is that you make your mistakes and cockups before you are inflicted on some poor employer.

Pat

Yep! This statement is so simple that people often forget what it actually means.

I think we often get lost in the thought of purely focusing on the competition itself, rather than the larger purpose the competition is serving - Aero/Auto Industry.
I'd rather have the students screw up in FSAE, than screw up on a large vehicle that's getting into mass production.
FSAE is probably one of the best opportunities students get to try and fail (several times over). The 'failure' part is critical for learning. I don't think we should mitigate failure by curbing the challenge of learning.

Just my $0.02

/Sid

Charles Kaneb

03-13-2017, 10:21 PM

I am wholeheartedly opposed to the nerfing of the mechanical design aspect of FSAE. Even if you eliminated the things-breaking-and-falling-off problems, you'd still have oiling, cooling, fueling, electrical, and no-start problems.

200 kg for an FSAE car is like 1000 kg for an F1 car. It eliminates any need for aggressive engineering or prioritization. You could have a nice Suzuki 645cc vee-twin engine in a steel tube frame with no tube smaller than 1"x0.065", driving through an all COTS driveline, with 7/8"x.065" suspension arms hanging your hub/brake/upright hardware off the sides, and wings that you can use to throw the car onto the trailer at the end of the day.

Beyond anything else, there are races for two kinds of 80kg-100kg vehicles about this fast that have no vehicle DNFs in a field of thirty or forty. The motocrossers have the advantage of racing carefully-engineered consumer products, but the karters don't...

Charles Kaneb

03-13-2017, 10:25 PM

A speculation: I think a 150kg maximum weight would result in a higher finishing rate than a 200kg minimum would.

03-13-2017, 10:31 PM

Dunk,

Thank you for breaking the recent boredom. Felt like sitting in a morgue.

Unfortunately, I disagree with both your suggested Rule changes. You have the right intent, but have overlooked the core problems (given below).
~~~o0o~~~

First, to briefly address the posts so far.

Yes, the level of failure is a disgrace. It is now, and has been from the beginning. Such an easy challenge to meet ("...build a small car ... drive 30 kms..."), yet so many FAILURES. Something seriously wrong.
~o0o~

Why is nothing being done?

Well, plenty is being done, but in the WRONG DIRECTION. Take last year's Oz-comp where the organisers handed out a half-dozen Speciality Awards to the no-hoper losers!

"Yes, Fat-Johnny, you did only manage a half-metre in the long jump in our under-9 Athletics carnival, ... SO HERE IS A GOLD MEDAL!"

Rewarding incompetence does not fix incompetence. Quite the opposite.
~o0o~

Dunk's "New Rule Number 1: When weighed, your car must have a minimum mass of 200kg."

Will such a mandated minimum mass make the cars more reliable?

NO WAY! The cars will become even worse. The teams will simply pile on top of their current unreliable junk another 10, 20, 50 kg of even more unreliable crap.

Again, see last year's Oz-comp. After a disastrously unreliable Euro-tour with their 2015 car, Monash decided to fit their 2016 "get-back-to-basics" car with an ... electro-pneumatic-CLUTCH-control! This "let's shoot ourselves in the foot, AGAIN..." mentality delivered them their first NON-1st-place at FSAE-Oz in eight years.

And there are countless other examples of overcomplicating this simple problem that will just get worse if students have to find some way of ADDING extra mass to the car.
~o0o~

Looking at this the other way round, is a lightweight car inherently UNreliable?

Of course not. I have been pushing the ~150 kg Brown-Go-Kart concept for a dozen years now, primarily because it offers a very cheap, and extremely RELIABLE, way of getting top-of-ladder. If it ain't there, it can't break! But very few takers. Remarkably, this avoidance of the BGK-concept is despite the fact that the few teams who have moved in that direction have also been very successful (eg. RMIT back around 2006+, and GFR more recently).

(BTW, my latest thinking, worked out in considerable detail, is an "all-steel" car at 120-140 kg. This either as "cheapest-ever" car (ie. with brand new engine costing <Aus$300) that would be capable of top-five at most comps, or as a "very cheap" car (ie. with a better, but still inexpensive, engine) capable of top-of-the-world. But try to find a student who will believe that a cheap, steel-fabricated-whatever can be as light as, or lighter than (!), a 3-D-printed-titanium-whatsit.)
~o0o~

Dunk's "New Rule Number 2: All teams ... to submit an advanced video of their running car... bonus points ... up to a maximum total of 50 points."

Will this incentive of gaining a few extra points from an early-finished car help?

Again, NO WAY. The current point structure offers teams a total of 425 points from Enduro/FuelEff (ie. nearly half of total!). A moderately competent team should easily pick up 300+ of those points, or around 1/3 of total points on offer. Has this MASSIVE points inducement helped raise the finishing rate in Enduro? Clearly not.
~~~o0o~~~

So,
Q1. What is the true, root cause, of this atrocious unreliability problem?

A-1a. LACK OF NECESSITY! (Too much food!)

As with Fat-Johnny above, the vast majority of students these days have grown up in an "...every kiddy gets a gold-star..." environment. The vast majority of FSAEers have NOT THE LEAST INTEREST in winning the comp. Or even in scoring well. Yep, just ask them.

To be blunt, most students are in FSAE to have a "cool" time. They want to play with expensive, hi-tech, toys, all of which are payed for by someone else (ie. me, the taxpayer!). And, most importantly, they all know that regardless of how bad their FSAE car is, they can go-a-job-hunting next year with a CV that reads "... I wuz in FSEA last yir, so I ar a rilly gud unjeneer, so i deserv a rilly gud job, so gimme lotsa munny!...".

Sadly, just this attitude is promoted by the FSAE organizers themselves, which compounds the problem. (I advise employers to be VERY SCEPTICAL of applicants with "FSAE" on their CVs. Most of them are freeloaders!)

A-1b. PATHOS!

Without a shadow of doubt, the vast majority of the students' "design" decisions are PATHETIC!

[Trivia Note: (Yes, a thousand++ years ago all small boys learnt this as part of the Trivium.)

* "Logos" decisions are made by the brain. These decisions are difficult, long-winded, and involve many boring numbers, and "logical" stuff. Worse yet, most often this line of thinking results in "aporia" (= "dead-end"), and the whole, BORING, process has to be re-started from some different angle.

* "Ethos" decisions are made by the heart. They involve a bit of above and below. (This thinking pumps adrenaline into your system, so technically comes from the kidneys (= "renal"), but its effect is to get your heart racing.)

* "Pathos" decisions are made by the stomach ... and regions further south! Such "...gut-feeling..." decisions are very quick and easy to make. Oh, sooo easy! In fact, most people are NOT even aware they make them. "Now, what happened to that huge chocolate-mud-cake that was here? Hmmm, someone must've eaten it?"
End Trivia]

This most significant root problem boils down to the fact that the majority of the students have their testicles in the driving seat, while their brain is fast asleep in the back-seat. (Face it, this comp is male-dominated.) The resultant overwhelming number of testosterone-driven (ie. pathetic) decisions swamp any logos thinking. Well, with the very rare exceptions of some small teams with a few "older heads" on board, or else very tight control by a "logos"-tical supervisor.

Without such damping-down of the hormonal urges, the young boys just want to run around crashing into stuff, looking cool, doing all sorts of hi-tech-ery, and thus impressing the girls, or their peers, or even more so the DJs, or in the long term, any future employers. Nothing new or unusual here. Watch any nature documentary and see the young males stupidly strutting-their-stuff during rutting season. Same-old, same-old.

But it ain't engineering! Just look at the pathetic results.
~~~o0o~~~

So, finally,
Q2. How to fix the problem?

A2. Well, hormone suppression treatment would probably be socially unacceptable. And not necessary anyway, given that this problem has been around for millenia, and can be reasonably controlled by social pressures. In short, tell them to stop goofing-off!

The lack of necessity is possibly harder to counter, but at the very least the "...every kiddy gets a gold star" approach should NOT be supported, as was done with the deplorable "Speciality Awards" mentioned above. The opposite approach should be taken. Any team not finishing a dynamic event should have their report card stamped, in big red letters, "FAILED!". These reports should then be made readily available to prospective employers.

Furthermore, DESIGN EVENT SHOULD BE SCRAPPED!

The "prestigious" DE is by far the biggest distraction to the testosterone-overdosed boys. This is the stage upon which, right from the beginning of the year, most students see themselves "strutting-their-stuff". This pathetic urge to impress the DJs ovewhelms any logos thinking. This is crystal clear. Blind Freddy can see it.

So, redistribute DE points with +100 points going to Cost (with those points based on a realistic cost of building the car, not on "neatest correct entry"), and +50 points to Fuel Economy (based on actual fuel usage over the Enduro, not using the silly speed-biased formula).

With no DE, the students' only opportunity to strut-their-stuff, in order to satisfy their hormonal need to impress the girls, their peers, or anyone else, is to build something that actually works. If the students want to look good, if they want to be seen as "players", then they have to build a car that actually turns its wheels.
~o0o~

But will DE ever be dropped?

I doubt it. The fact is that DE is there for the (pathetic) benefit of the DJs, NOT for the betterment of the students' education. This is obvious when it is looked at closely...

But I have said much above that should be allowed to sink in. I will leave the DE/DJs' failures for another post.

Z

JT A.

03-14-2017, 09:13 AM

So "killing" certain design concepts is no justification not to change things.
If anything, in this case, it would probably level the field a little. Decent smaller engines are harder to come by, especially for teams in certain parts of the world.

Of course it would level up the field. Kill off all the design concepts until there is only 1 left (make FSAE a spec series) and the field would be more level than it's ever been. The question is, why would you want this for an educational design competition? This isn't racing. There are no fans that want to see an even race. There are no competing OEM's funding the series that all want to see their brands win. The goal of this competition was never to have all the teams finish as close together as possible, nor should it be. The goal was to give students and engineering challenge, and then see how well their design compares to other teams in a competitive environment. If there is a huge gap in how good of a job teams do, the points/results should reflect that.

Additionally, based on 200kg it only really kills the the design concepts of teams that currently reiterate the same successful design every year. If the teams really are as good as their car, and not just resting on the laurels of those that came before, then changing their concept shouldn't be an issue.

Teams reiterating the same design over and over is an entirely separate issue than the original topic of "how to get more teams to finish endurance". I agree with you in spirit, that teams have been able to successfully use the same formula for too many years, and trying to shake it up would be a good thing. And if they really are as good as their past results indicate, they will adapt and be just as successful again. But prescribing the design of the car in the rules is not the way to do it. Leave the design of the car as unregulated as possible, and change the event format or point allocations. Then see how the designs change in response. Make the acceleration distance twice as long. Make skidpad only 1 direction, and teams aren't told which direction until they enter they dynamic area, then they have 5 minutes to adjust and get in line. Revamp the cost event to make it more representative of the actual cost of the car. These kind of changes will make teams change their designs & adapt if they want to be successfull, but they have to use their own intelligence to figure out how, instead of just "the rulebook says we have to design our car to this concept now, so that's what we'll do".

Also I get the sense that you're targeting specific teams / a specific concept with this rule idea. Maybe you're a little bitter that they've won so much with "the same car". But take a look at how many teams reiterate the same concept every year and DON'T win. They keep making 4 cylinder, 13" tire, 200kg cars every year despite getting their butt kicked on a yearly basis by a better concept. They're re-iterating just as much as the winning teams, they're just reiterating an inferior concept and doing a worse job of it. It doesn't make any logical sense to try and target the teams that are reiterating a good concept and winning, and force them into an inferior concept (allowing the teams that already use an inferior concept to just keep doing what they're doing) in an attempt to make everything more level. Let's say hypothetically we have 45% of the teams that keep carrying over concept A every year, 45% of teams keep carrying over concept B every year, and 10% actually trying significantly different concept changes. why do you think it's better or more fair to arbitrarily decide that concept A needs to be shaken up and forced into designing concept B to just to prove that they can do something other than copy the same car every year? But the teams that have always built concept B just get to keep carrying over their design. What is that proving? Why not shake up the competition in a way that makes EVERYONE re-evaluate their concept?

Claude Rouelle

03-14-2017, 06:03 PM

The focus of this thread slightly evolved from the weight - reliability relation to the reasons why so little number of cars finished the endurance.

For me the main reason of lack of reliability is not low weight (if anything it is the other way around; heavy cars are less reliable). It is simpler than that: most of the teams spend too much time and allocate too much relative resources in concept, simulation, drawing, manufacturing and assembling their car and not enough in testing. Period.

Formula one teams with as much a 1/2 billion $ budget and as much as 800 (mostly experienced and skilled) people still manage to break things in the recent 8 days of Barcelona tests. But there are still Formula Student guys who think that their car have a great chance to be reliable at the competition with practically no testing.

Porsche, Toyota and (until last year) Audi LMP1 teams do perform as many as 7 rehearsals of 24 hours (in fact they run as much as 30 hours for each rehearsal) ahead of Le Mans 24 hours race. Applying the same ratio, it means that a FS team should do 7 times the endurance, that is about 200 km, without problem, before coming the competition.
However that is comparing professionals with students... 500 Km of testing seems to be a bare minimum. But that wont' happen if the car is finished 2 weeks before the competition (if any - some cars are still being assembled in the paddock the day before of the competition)

When I asked students how much test they performed before the competition 80 % of the time I have very vague answer such as “x days” and when I ask them how many hours, how many laps, how many km they really spent on the test track running, I don't get an answer.

Even worse most of them do not have any written record of what did happen during these tests; some don’t even log the number laps ran.

Here is a bit of advice for testing planning and report As design judge, I would like to see test report that includes at the minimum
Date
Weather condition and noticeable change during the day. A 300 $ weather station could be useful
Track and air temperature before and after each run.
Starting setup
What is the test plan: what are we doing today? You rarely won’t achieve all the test goals but you cannot start a test day without a plan. And that is the problem; I know too many FS teams that go to the test track with the goal of “running the car” with no other details…
Cold and hot tire pressure, cold and hot tire temperature (these measurements should be systematic every time the car leaves and come back to the pits)
Time at which the car left and came back to the pits
Number of laps per run
Each lap time
Driver subjective feedback
Setup change
After the test an engineering report that combines driver subjective data and car objective logged data analysis
Conclusion: what went well / what did not go well / why / how can we improve / next action plan. This part of the report should include the car failure analysis and the way the team work together

Last advice: have a plan B (and ideally a plan C) for each plan A for each part of the car. Example: your front wheel hub break. OK, bad drawing, bad manufacturing, shit happen that what this competition is about. 2 solutions A) you go home you redesign the hubs, reorder the material (you would be luck to have it next week), machine again, possible heat or surface treatment . you easily loose 3 to 6 weeks. B) you fit last year upright / hub / caliper and you loose just a few hours. Was that in the plans?

03-15-2017, 05:50 AM

CASE STUDY 1.
============
(One of far too many.)

About 5 years ago I would ocassionally drop-in to one of the local FSAE teams. During one visit late in the year, the car was finished and had already covered a few miles. The car was up on a table so I shook the wheels and noticed significant play. I traced most of the play to the wheel-bearings, which, on closer inspection, were of the 68xx (ie. "thin-ring", or "extra-lite") DGBB type.

I suggested to the team members that there are much better ways of doing wheel-bearings, namely with same overall mass but with much higher load capacity and 1000x the lifetime. I added that their current setup was due for a catastrophic failure very soon, which might cost them many points at comp.

Their response, almost sung in chorus, was,
"Well, it's a racecar. That's what it's supposed to do!"
Then something about Colin Chapman and,
"...real racecars fall apart as they cross the finish line...".

Indeed, at a later test-day one of the bearings did "let go". It ripped a corner off the car. So, by the time the new wishbones were made and fitted, and other damage repaired, there was no more time for testing.

The important point is that this team is extremely well resourced. Fantastic workshop, great tech-staff, and a big bundle of cash put on the table each year (from me, the taxpayer!). But ever since their first comp in 2001 they have been perennial mid-fielders, with many, many DNFs.

For example, at 2016 Oz-comp they had a very similar car to the one from 5 years ago. Same wheel-bearings. Same potential performance (= piss poor). And they FAILED TO COMPLETE A SINGLE DYNAMIC EVENT.

Nevertheless, they all seemed quite happy. Smiles all round, joking, having a good time. And then at the Awards Ceremony ..... they received their very own "Speciality Award"!
"Yee-hah! This is toooo easy! Didn't even have to do all the hard work of driving the car around and around..."

And no doubt many of them are now in well-paid jobs, and "boldly advancing society's progress into the future"... (<- or make up your own meaningless modern-day waffle).
~o0o~

These piss-poor design efforts, and the atrocious unreliability that follows, will not change until this matter is addressed head-on.

Teams that bring cars that regularly fail to complete dynamic events should be condemned for what they are, namely PATHETIC. They should be PUBLICLY SHAMED, not rewarded. And their team-members should be discouraged from working in the engineering field, and advised to try something else.

(To clarify, I am not talking about teams that get a puncture on last lap of Enduro because they drove over someone else's broken bits. I am talking about the real no-hoper teams, who are easy to identify.)

Z

Bemo

03-15-2017, 06:08 AM

After quite some time finally an interesting discussion again :)

Like most here I don't see any need to Change rules to achieve a higher finisher rate. In my opinion the reason for most failures are that teams set their focus wrong. During the last years I had conversations that are frightening. As others already mentioned, you get almost half the total Points in Endurance and Fuel. So not finishing those Events make any decent position impossible. But teams still focus on everything except reliability. How many points do you earn by the weight saving of a smaller battery and a thinner starter cable and how many do you lose if the car doesn't restart in driver change? There you go.

I also have to agree to most of Z's post. I often get the feedback that I'm too harsh with the teams when giving feedback. But in my opinion if someone messed up, it isn't a big problem. That's what FSAE is about. But they need to realize they messed up to learn anything from it.
Two or three years ago I had a discussion with a team at FSG who's car was a disgrace. The whole thing was just poor. After the suspension failed during brake test, the event was finished for them (it was no surprise that this would happen). Afterwards the team continued to moan about their bad luck and that now they wouldn't have to possibility to show the big potention the car had. I guess they didn't learn anything. Because to do so they would have had to accept that they didn't have bad luck and their car didn't have any "potential". Without realizing that, there can't be any improvement as they will just do the same all over again next year and they will have "bad luck" again...

A couple of days ago I saw a documentary about the SpaceX challenge for student teams who had to build pods for the hyperloop. The whole thing was a disgrace. They had to build pods which where supposed to be accelerated to 350km/h by a sledge and the finish the distance as fast as possible. There was only 1 out of 50 teams which actually finished the distance. Most teams already failed because their pods wouldn't fit on the rails and similar bullshit. Still they would tell the participants the usual "everyone's a winner stuff". At least to half the teams they should have said "You wasted a shitload of many because you were uncapable of fulfilling the least requirements which were given. You fucked it up."

The task is supposed to be challenging and if a team performs poorly there must be an adequate margin to those who perform well. That's it.

I took part in 10 FSAE competitions and we failed twice to finish endurance in the last lap. In the first moment I was devastated by our "bad luck". But with some distance and after properly analysing what went wrong, the only correct conclusion was, we messed up both times. Stupid mistakes led to failures, end of story. I definitely learned more from that than I would have by finishing all 10 Endurances.

Will M

03-15-2017, 12:34 PM

Because of the incremental nature of changes in FSAE I must assume that the organizers are meeting their goals. If the goal is to students to learn from their mistakes before going to an employer then less than half the cars completing endurance and all those ‘wasted’ tax dollars could be a good thing. I always learn more from my mistakes than successes and I would say FSAE is about 70% project and team management, 29% engineering, and about 1% racing.

But if was desired to increase the completion rate then I would proposes the two ideas below. They could be implemented together or one without the other.

Idea 1: Junior FSAE
In the past I have recommended that students and new teams pursue Baja SAE instead of FSAE. Baja teaches the same project and team management lessons but at a lower cost, lower physical risk, and lower risk of not completing the car.

So I would propose a junior FSAE class. There would be a spec engine, only the regular frame rules (no AFR), and a prohibition on certain materials (carbon fiber, titanium, ectera). This series would still teach the important lessons of FSAE but at a cost and risk level like Baja. In many ways Baja already is this series but not all of us like that much mud . These cars would compete at the same events as the regular FSAE cars but in a different class, much like other professional racing series. I would also propose some mechanism where teams could move from one class to the other, Maybe limit regular FSAE to 50 teams (in the USA) no limit for the number of junior teams. Then at fixed intervals (every 3 years?) the bottom 10 regular FSAE and top 10 junior FSAE teams would swap classes.

Idea 2: Many small events
Most FSAE events have a huge number of teams, so you need lots of space and lots of volunteers. So organizing an event is difficult and costly. I think that a greater number of smaller events could be easily organized. Almost every weekend all across the USA there are autocross events held in parking lots and run by a few volunteers. Why could FSAE not do this? There are FSAE alumni all across the country and with the help of organizations like the SCCA there could be “tryouts”. These events would be small (10 to 20 teams), short (probably just a Saturday), and would only have three events; a technical inspection, an informal design review, and then several hours of autocross. Teams would need to complete the autocross in 200% of the fastest time in order to compete at a larger event. We would not need the top level people from FSAE to attend but it would be good for some representative of SAE (not necessarily FSAE) to be there to officiate. I am not sure how the insurance would work but if the SCCA seems to have figured it out. This would also allow more people to volunteer since the events would be much closer to home and only one day long.

Thoughts?

-William

Claude Rouelle

03-15-2017, 04:15 PM

William

FSAE / FS rules are already too complicated. Class 2 and now Junior FSAE...? You are a student for only a few years: you do not need many intermediate steps. What are you afraid of?

The best way to learn how to swim is to jump in the pool; give yourself some challenges and figure out how to solve them.

Limiting yourself to a tubular chassis and simple material should be your choice and should depend on your team ability to reasonably put together means and goals; it shouldn't be imposed by any rules.

Will M

03-15-2017, 08:22 PM

Claude,

My time in FSAE is short but the team's body of knowledge is large.
That is why the same teams, in pretty much every collegiate sport or competition, stay near the top or bottom.

From the scorn that is heaped on the cars on even mid field teams it is clear that pretty much everyone is dissatisfied with the current state of things.
Teams that show up with a non-competitive unreliable car one year tend to do so year after year.
Teams rarely continuously improve and I would bet that some of the ‘top’ teams are heavily dependent on momentum.

A well run organization team tends to remain well run.
A poorly run organization tends to remain poorly run unless acted on by an outside force.

If the goal is for them to learn then we should not be so upset when they fail; that is how they will learn.
And the students will learn the same key lessons if their car is a carbon fiber dream or a 500kg mess.
FSAE is mostly about engineering project management.
Students dump time into suspension and chassis design and then never use it; while the lessons about how to organize a team will last their entire career.

So you are correct that the best way is to jump in cold water.
But that also means most teams will never improve beyond their current level of performance.
If you want more teams to compete at a high level or even just finish endurance then a solution with intermediate steps is needed.

It is not the individual students that need to improve; they are already learning the correct lessons.
It is the teams as organizations that need to be pushed to do better.

***
What did you think about the other idea of having a mini event a few weeks before the large competitions?

-William

Kevin Hayward

03-15-2017, 10:54 PM

I did an informal game theory study of my own a few years back having a look at the trade-off between reliability and performance (if they were mutually exclusive). The results were pretty clear.

If you are looking for wins larger competitions favour chasing performance over reliability. In fact good engineering judgement would lead you to choose performance over reliability.

Simply imagine that you have a 2 team competition:

Team 1: 49% reliability, 51% performance
Team 2: 51% reliability, 49% performance

The possible results are:

Both teams finish (~25%) team 1 wins
Both teams fail (~25%) no team wins
Team 2 finishes, team 1 does not (~25%), team 2 wins
Team 1 finishes, team 2 does not (~25%), team 1 wins

The team with the slight performance advantage wins about twice as often as the other.

I won't go through the full study, but you can find an ideal trade-off to maximise chances of winning. It gets a lot worse for larger competitions. In a small competition a decent strategy is to focus on reliability and wait for the others to fail. In a large competition the odds are against everyone else failing.

This plays out in real life. In a small competition a reliable, but lower performance car can take podiums reasonably regularly. In these comps it is smart engineering practice to bank these results. In larger comps there are no podiums for the reliable but slower cars. What Claude would say is poor engineering in a comp like Australia is way off base as these teams are being rewarded for reliability. Similarly suggesting it is bad engineering practice to focus on performance rather than reliability in larger comps is also flawed.

I appreciate that this simple study is heavily flawed and that reliability and performance are not mutually exclusive.

...

If you want to encourage reliability you need to reward it (or punish unreliability). This should be as direct as possible. Weight limits, videos, and increased cost scores are indirect ways to encourage reliability. A more direct way would be a reliability score component.

My idea would be a reliability multiplier for the final score. Any missed heats would decrease it from 1 downwards. That way all of your events (including design) are directly reduced by low reliability. Intuitively this makes sense, even if a car is well designed, well marketed, and low cost if it doesn't work it is a bad product. As soon as your car is able to do all of the heats then all of the points are on offer, This means no change to the winners, the best teams will still be the highest performing reliable teams.

There are some things you can do to reduce the focus on performance, such as changing the Tmin multipliers for Autocross and Endurance, but I don't think that really helps the competition.

Kev

03-16-2017, 06:36 AM

AWARDS CEREMONY SPEECH.
=========================
Spoken by President of Organising Committee.
=================================

(As I would like to hear it.)

"Well, another year, ... and another COMPLETE DEBACLE! What is the matter with you young people!!!? This is not a difficult problem! Build a small car. Drive it 30 kms. That is all we are asking of you. So, how is it possible that so many of you TOTALLY STUFF-UP SUCH A SIMPLE TASK!!!?

[...More general observations follow, then...]

Now I better get onto some specifics.

Let's start with you lot over there, Team-Useless. You no-hopers have been bringing near exactly the same car to this competition for as long as I can remember, at least five years now. Five years ago you managed to get through Acceleration and Skid-pad, and only then did your wheels fall off. But this year you FAILED TO FINISH EVERY SINGLE DYNAMIC EVENT! DISGRACEFUL!! PATHETIC!!!

And don't you clowns in Team-Cock-Up start sniggering, because you're even worse. Couldn't get through Scrutineering because the foot-box template didn't fit? Which IMBECILE was responsible for that? Come on, stand up so everyone can see you...

[...More detailed analysis...]

On the up-side, we are fortunate that the Committee has at last adopted the "Will M Relegation Rule". So all you tail-ender buffoons can go off and play your silly games in F-Baja, or Formula-Sewing-Machine, or whatever. You're not coming back here until we've seen that you've pulled your fingers out!

And so we get to the mid-field teams. Yep, you lot, Team-Plod, Team-Dawdle, and the rest of you pretenders.

Yes, sure, you all finished all the events, and you all managed to crack that piddling average speed of 50 kph in Enduro. SO WHAT? BIG DEAL! You're NOT here to simply repeat what every half-competent team has done before you. Just copying last year's successful cars is NOT ENGINEERING! You are here to PUSH THE ENVELOPE!

[...More such encouraging words to the mediocre teams...]

So, finally, we get to those teams that came first in the various events. And I should remind all of you that NO ONE REMEMBERS WHO CAME SECOND! Second is just the first LOSER!

Anyway, the names of the first placed teams are pinned to the noticeboard, and they can pick up their trophies on the way out. [Mumbles->] Whose stupid idea is this "trophy" thing, anyway?

So, that closes proceedings for this year, and...

[Prez gets nudged by his assistant and handed a message.]

Oh, yeah, well, one more thing. Seems that there has been some lobbying from the so-called "progressives" on the Committee. They say we should give more, ...ughhh..., "praise" to the first-place getters. So, here goes. In the words of the great Rugby League coach, Jack Gibson, I say to those teams that came first in the various events,
"Yuz done what yuz was asked to do".

Right, that's it for this year. And for those of you coming back next year, there'll be HELL TO PAY if you don't lift your game!"
~~~o0o~~~

:)

Z

(PS: You only "learn from your mistakes", when the mistakes HURT.)

JT A.

03-16-2017, 12:17 PM

Z, I have a lot of respect for your design philosophies and engineering / physics knowledge.

But if your management / motivational ideas were any good, you'd be getting paid a lot of money to lead engineering projects. There's a reason you're just yelling at college students on an internet forum instead.

noah

03-16-2017, 01:04 PM

Last advice: have a plan B (and ideally a plan C) for each plan A for each part of the car. Example: your front wheel hub break. OK, bad drawing, bad manufacturing, shit happen that what this competition is about. 2 solutions A) you go home you redesign the hubs, reorder the material (you would be luck to have it next week), machine again, possible heat or surface treatment . you easily loose 3 to 6 weeks. B) you fit last year upright / hub / caliper and you loose just a few hours. Was that in the plans?

Claude,
Just curious, are you suggesting teams should maintain the same basic kinematics/ upright design each year, or are you suggesting that even if you have to jury rig it to work, and the handling is now shot, just running/testing the car like that is better than not running at all during the redesign process?

- Noah

Claude Rouelle

03-16-2017, 03:47 PM

Will,

You are looking for outside-in solutions for a minor problem that can be solved easily with some honesty, objectivity and an inside-out attitude.

You might find some advice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1n-rgqSTyY

As far as mini event(s) a few weeks before the competition I suggest you to start thinking about it once you will be able to run 10 endurances without any problem; that would be a good intermediate step to gain confidence and avoid waste time and money, and embarrassment.

Claude

Claude Rouelle

03-16-2017, 03:59 PM

Noah,

No I did not say that.

OK you destroy your from hubs and now it's gonna take at least 6 weeks to order new material, re-machine etc... During this time your engine guys stupidly wait to tune the ECU on real conditions (not on the test bench anymore). Could be that you have an issue with your drive shaft CV joint that you won't know about only at he competition... too late. And your drivers are terribly missing training time.

When you face that kind damage control and you need track time, do you think that 500 mm difference in VSAL or 50 mm of roll center height or 20% or Ackermann difference is still a #1 priority?

Look at the large picture!

Claude

noah

03-16-2017, 06:34 PM

Claude,

I completely agree with you. I just wanted to make sure I was on the same page. Problems similar to this are very familiar and is something my team is dealing with right now. I just wasn't sure if you were advocating for utilizing last years parts for competition or just as a stopgap measure. (Also, test bench ECU Tuning. Ha...!)

Noah

Will M

03-16-2017, 06:44 PM

Will,

You are looking for outside-in solutions for a minor problem that can be solved easily with some honesty, objectivity and an inside-out attitude.

Claude

Alright, we aren't on the same page and clearly aren't going to get there.
To me this is an issue of structure and incentives.
The teams and students are acting rationally and are unlikely to change without outside pressure.

I graduated too long ago to pick a fight, but clearly nothing has changed and the FSAE leadership is OK with the status quo.

-Wiiliam

Claude Rouelle

03-16-2017, 07:03 PM

Claude Rouelle

03-16-2017, 07:11 PM

Naoh,

Not necessarily last year part but in any case a Plan B and ideally a Plan C. For each car part.

Claude

03-16-2017, 07:43 PM

Kevin,

In a small competition a decent strategy is to focus on reliability and wait for the others to fail.

That is, in fact, the strategy that Steven Bradbury's (very cunning Chinese!) coach used.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/65/20/7a/65207af9ab736909f5ce619ee2c1c8eb.jpg

I reckon Wollongong's Oz-2016 win was pretty much the same thing.

Which raises another point, "If you ain't in it, you can't win it."

Methinks you guys at ECU missed a great opportunity there at Oz-2016!
~~~o0o~~~

JT A.

Z,
...if your management / motivational ideas were any good,...

The motivational approach I posted above is the guaranteed-good way of getting the best results. That is why it is always used whenever there is an overwhelming NECESSITY for those results.

But today there is an over-abundance of food, so no real necessity for anything. So hordes of useless teams in FS/FSAE that bring cars that fall apart on the start line. Or before.

Obvious, really.

Z

(PS. Kev, also found this one, which I thought you might like. :))
http://pedestriantv-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images%2Farticle%2F2013%2F06%2F27%2Frudd_bradbury. jpg

StefStam

03-17-2017, 06:54 AM

If you want to walk, firstly you need to run a bit

lctromnml

03-18-2017, 11:09 AM

Will,

Need OUTSIDE pressure to succeed? I have employees who build pressure for themselves, on their own. THAT is Inside-Out solution. These are people who know that if they are not part of the solution they are part of the problem. If I build pressure on them that is because something is going wrong and thankfully that should and is not happening very often.

You got side track in your management analysis. If you think you need pre-mini events to build pressure so that you car becomes reliable in real competitions, then I feel there is a great chance you and your team need to first create some abilities to believe and yourself/themselves and from there create a action plan.

Again 10 endurance runs without any failure on your own test track. Then you can get out and face the world with much, much more confidence. Any pre-event with other teams (mandatory or informal) before that would be a waste of time, energy and focus.

You are right FSAE/FS design judges do not change: we need to continuously tell some students (or ex-students) like you to kick your own butt!.

Create your own structure and your own incentives. Do not wait for somebody else to do it for you.

I think "pre-mini-events" are important for having a successful season. What's it worth to run 10 or even 50 endurance runs on the test track, if your car is not rules compliant and you then start to make significant changes on the "real events"?
This is exactly what happens to many teams at FSG each year. Several teams missed one or more dynamic disciplines and only 6 (!!) electric teams were able to finish the endurance. At least 4 of those teams that finished attended at least one "pre-mini-event".

Despite the advantage, that you already had a scrutineering and can make the changes to get the car fully rules compliant before the "real events", the whole team learns the structure and the procedures of an event.
The next big advantage is, that you can estimate the performance of your car much better and then adjust the focus of what has to be done. If you run against some of the best teams mid of june and have 5s off-pace, you should focus in the performance. If the speed is good, you can focus on reliability.

My team attends at least the ZF Racecamp almost every year. In the 4 years I am with the team now, we missed it only once and this year was the worst of our team's history. The guys from Delft travel more than 600km every year, just for this "pre-mini-event".
And you can regularly see, that teams that perform good at these pre-events also perform well on the real events. We also use this event as a team building. There are always some team members who continue working twice as hard after returning from the race camp.

In comparison to the industry, you have no possibility to make pressure on the manufacturers that you are highly dependent on. In every season, there are some parts that are delayed 4-6 weeks and these are often parts (e.g. planetary gearbox) where you cannot have a Plan B or C or D.
It's often difficult enough to find anybody who is able to manufacture the part. My experience is, that a pressure from outside can help a lot. We just tell the new team members that the first event is at date X and the car has to be running until then, so they have to plan their season that everything is finished one month earlier.
This is way easier than telling that there is an imaginary date X where the car needs to be running in order to have a successful season. Those are still students in their first or second year and not experienced engineers.

Claude Rouelle

03-18-2017, 01:17 PM

Whoever you are Mr. lctromnml (not worth to introduce yourself?....)

I somewhat agree with you on the pre-inspection training...but...

I am not qualified to give you a clear opinion on inspection, other people know this exercise better than me, but what I know is that often the issues met in inspection are due to either a lack of knowledge of the rules by students and/or some procrastination of the students to ask the rule committee (the rule committee, not the FSAE forum!) questions that would eliminate their doubts on some specific matters.
Also I am not sure that all car issues that will be spot by official scrutineers at FS / FSAE events will necessarily spotted by "amateur" scrutineers.

What I can also tell you is that in Formula Bharat (Bharat is the former name of India) students have to send dozens of pictures ahead of time of all car details including pictures of templates inserted in the chassis. They also have to send a video of the car starting on its own, accelerating, braking, locking all 4 wheels in braking and the driver exiting the car in less than 5 seconds. I am proud to say that I initiated this process. Pictures and videos are analyzed by experienced judges and scrutineers and the team are aware of issue to be fixed ahead of the competition.
It makes the job of scrutineers and students easier. Indian FS car are still way behind in terms of performance and reliability but their slope of progress is the best I know. I am sure these pictures / video submission as well as coaching from several design and cost judges as help the Indian students.

Student Formula Japan has the same procedure although less intense. Their percentage of endurance finish is the best. They sacrifice innovation for reliability. I bet the documents submission is part of their car reliability reasons.

Now you will ask why aren't other organizers doing this? I do not know; you have to ask them. I did it for Formula Bharat because we (students, organizers, judges) got in several informal conversations on how Indian FS cars design and performance and reliability could be improved and I gave my suggestions. They were definitely the the kind of team that need the most guidance. Maybe it will come a time that such guidance won't be necessary at least for experienced teams.

But there is also a limit of the pre-event assistance that the organizers have to give to students. Students are supposed to be responsible adults and should be able to take themselves by the hand. It is their initiative that will make a good and reliable car.

What about getting around your car (this year car, last year car, next year car drawings) with all team members and objectively and unemotionally ask yourself what could go wrong in tech or in reliability. And come with an action plan.

There will be more results coming from that inside-out approach than an outside-in pre-event "solutions". But that requires communication, leadership, ownership. objectivity and honesty. That is the less visible cause where the great team are getting their performance from. They have learnt how to stop whining and start winning.

*****

Coming back to the initial topic of this thread: shame on you, on your children and on the children of your children for the next 20 generations if you show up at any FS / FSAE event with a car that weights more that 200 Kg.

tromoly

03-18-2017, 01:31 PM

Coming back to the initial topic of this thread: shame on you, on your children and on the children of your children for the next 20 generations if you show up at any FS / FSAE event with a car that weights more that 200 Kg.

Back in 2013 we had a car weigh 460 pounds / 208 kg, shame on us.

That same car is one of only two times in the last decade that school has finished every single event at Michigan, and we placed low-50s overall. Shame on us?

The problem isn't as simple as saying "too much weight!" or "test more!", there's lots of internal things (knowledge transfer, school limitations, student involvement) that cause cars to fail that is never apparent. Some school will never change and are content with building cars that would look right at home in 1993 competitions, it's just the way it is.

Claude Rouelle

03-18-2017, 01:44 PM

I do not see any reason why a team that made a car at 208 Kg in 2013 could not make car at 200 Kg (440 pounds) or less in 2017. Can't lose 8 kg in 4 years? Take a subscription to weight watcher!

Will M

03-18-2017, 04:04 PM

noah

03-18-2017, 08:51 PM

I think "pre-mini-events" are important for having a successful season. What's it worth to run 10 or even 50 endurance runs on the test track, if your car is not rules compliant and you then start to make significant changes on the "real events"?
This is exactly what happens to many teams at FSG each year. Several teams missed one or more dynamic disciplines and only 6 (!!) electric teams were able to finish the endurance. At least 4 of those teams that finished attended at least one "pre-mini-event".

Despite the advantage, that you already had a scrutineering and can make the changes to get the car fully rules compliant before the "real events", the whole team learns the structure and the procedures of an event.
The next big advantage is, that you can estimate the performance of your car much better and then adjust the focus of what has to be done. If you run against some of the best teams mid of june and have 5s off-pace, you should focus in the performance. If the speed is good, you can focus on reliability.

My team attends at least the ZF Racecamp almost every year. In the 4 years I am with the team now, we missed it only once and this year was the worst of our team's history. The guys from Delft travel more than 600km every year, just for this "pre-mini-event".
And you can regularly see, that teams that perform good at these pre-events also perform well on the real events. We also use this event as a team building. There are always some team members who continue working twice as hard after returning from the race camp.

In comparison to the industry, you have no possibility to make pressure on the manufacturers that you are highly dependent on. In every season, there are some parts that are delayed 4-6 weeks and these are often parts (e.g. planetary gearbox) where you cannot have a Plan B or C or D.
It's often difficult enough to find anybody who is able to manufacture the part. My experience is, that a pressure from outside can help a lot. We just tell the new team members that the first event is at date X and the car has to be running until then, so they have to plan their season that everything is finished one month earlier.
This is way easier than telling that there is an imaginary date X where the car needs to be running in order to have a successful season. Those are still students in their first or second year and not experienced engineers.

Ictromnml,

How many parts are you guys having someone else manufacture? I understand maybe if you are buying something with a long lead time like wheels or differential components, but normally that lead time is accounted for when ordering. On another note, I think the ability for teams to be able to attend a mini-event says a lot more about their funding than anything else. I agree with Claude on his points regarding inspections. Going to a pre event isn't really feasible for my team. Even if it was, I would argue that it would be much better to spend the days/money related to traveling on hard testing back at home base (for my team at least).

Noah

JulianH

03-18-2017, 10:08 PM

Love the conversation!

A couple of points:
Noah,
why is a Pre-Event not possible for you? Just make your "own" Pre-Event. We did that at least twice before the first competition every year.
Just spend some time with Alumni scrutineering the car, run through a Design Event and Presentation and then take the Car through every discipline. It helps.

Claude,
we cannot optimize for all things. And it seems you are suggesting this.
Yes, running a car in 10 enduros before every competition is a nice thing. But nearly all members from eg. Zurich are new every year. So a) we cannot push all deadlines much earlier, otherwise we would build the same car every year and b) they need to "feel" the pressure of an event otherwise mistakes happen.
We usually see a massive improvement in "team performance" and "game time genes" at the second event compared to the first one.(That's why we always went for FSUK before FSG and FSA...).
You cannot "practice" these things properly. And here we are not the Audi's and Porsche's of this world that have experience in these situations.

A pre-event helps best possible to simulate this scenario and that's why we always pushed to make the ZF Race Camp. Travelling a day to Friedrichshafen was always worth it! Don't know why anyone would have a problem with this. Gas for the team for this trip should not make or break your budget...

I like the picture stuff from India. Don't know if we have enough manpower in scrutineers to handle e.g. FSG with those pictures.

Dylan Edmiston

03-18-2017, 10:41 PM

Coming back to the initial topic of this thread: shame on you, on your children and on the children of your children for the next 20 generations if you show up at any FS / FSAE event with a car that weights more that 200 Kg.

I guess my teams 2nd place car at FSAE-M is no good.

Though I do wonder what the weight sensitivity to lap tone is. Maybe we could have been 1st...

noah

03-19-2017, 03:57 AM

JulianH

03-19-2017, 06:40 AM

Formula North is a "real" competition; not a mini-event.

ZF Race Camp is just a nice help for all ZF sponsored teams. As written above, I really like this event, it helps to "calm" the team members that never experienced competitions, you have a lot of fun and see how the others are doing it.

Can you tell me why you think that your team would be not able to participate in such an event? Let's say it would be ~4hours drive from your university (which is probably the average time that it takes all ZF Race Camp teams to come to Southern Germany).

03-19-2017, 07:17 AM

Why do students participate in FSAE?
I think you will find that the internal goals of FSAE teams and students are not aligned with the goals [of] the FSAE leadership.
So yes, in this case external pressure is required to readjust their priorities.

Will,

The answer to your question above, as I see it, is in the mini-essay below.

However, I have no idea what "...the goals of the FSAE leadership" are. For the last 30 odd years they have certainly NOT appeared to be interested in improving the teams' reliability, because they have provided very little "external pressure" to fix that problem. In fact, in Oz last year they rewarded the unreliable teams!
~~~~~o0o~~~~~

HOW TO MOTIVATE A DONKEY.
=======================
Traditionally, you use the "carrot and stick" approach. Depending on circumstances, you can use one, or the other, or a bit of both.

For example, if the donkey is starving, then dangling a carrot in front of its nose works great.

But if the donkey has just gorged itself on a basketful of carrots, and you hang a second basketful of carrots in front of it, then, for obvious reasons, the donkey thinks, "Are you kidding..., I'm about to explode!".

And he sits down and moans about how bloated he is.
~~~o0o~~~

CASE STUDY 2.
=============
For the few years around 2006+, RMIT was the top team in the world. Then they fell in a big hole, and have never recovered.
~o0o~

Two years ago RMIT-C came to 2015-Oz-comp with an as-close-to-mini-F1-car as you could imagine. Full-CarbonFibre-monocoque, CF-wishbones-with-push/pull-rods&rockers, longitudinally-mounted (ie. F1-style) turbo-charged 85+ hp Yamaha Genesis/Phazer engine (WITH 3-D-printed-titanium-exhaust-manifold), followed by a bespoke 4-speed-CF-cased-gearbox, followed by a viscous-LSD, ... and many other shiny things.

Suprisingly, given the lightweight-twin engine, their claimed mass was a rather portly 185 kg (though probably more, see below). But with all this bling abounding, who cares about some objective numbers? Certainly not the Design Judges, because they gave them,
Design Event points = 140.. Yep, second-place in DE!

And how did this smoking-hot, mini-F1-car perform on track?
Well, TOTAL Dynamic points = 54.4!

So, all things considered, a complete success!

Huh? Why?

Because, as one RMIT-C Team-member explained just a few days after the competition (see 2015-Oz-comp thread),
"Seriously the aim of all this is to ... get a job [and] Two of our members ... have landed employment off this project..."

Clearly, the "carrot" in FS/FSAE is to "get a job". That is most easily done by producing a lot of generally useless, but very shiny, junk, which impresses the DJs enough to give you very high points in the prestigious DE, which then puts you at the front of the queue for that high-paid job.
~o0o~

So, with the 2015 Team-members well rewarded with carrots, which direction do you think the 2016 Team-members were motivated to take?

Well, they arrived at 2016-comp with an all-but-identical car to the 2015 car. The only obvious change was that it had one less gear. And, somewhat confusingly, despite their spec-sheet claiming a mass reduced to 175 kg, the scrutineers' scales said it had porked-up to ~215 kg (both w/o driver).

So, with the mass comfortably above Dunk's suggested minimum, did this mean they had built a much stronger car, with the aim of increasing reliability and thus completing all Dynamic events?

Nope. Their TOTAL Dynamic points = 45.1. Worse than last year.

But Happy Days, again!

Their Design Event points = 136.9. Just a smidge below last year's.

Surely good enough for a walk-up-start at any top-paying job.
~o0o~

So, ... with the 2016 Team-members given another basketful of motivational "DE carrots" to munch on, in which direction do you think the 2017 Team-members will go?

Will they focus on the boring complete-all-Dynamic-events reliability? Or on the get-a-high-score-in-DE bling, and then off to that dream-job next year?

Z

(PS. Claude, I agree 100++% with you that the teams should do a great deal more testing. But try convincing them of that! I might post another mini-essay soon about some of my futile efforts to convince teams of such. :()

Dunk Mckay

03-19-2017, 10:21 AM

Dunk,

You do not get it!

That's not very nice Claude. I was merely proposing a thought experiment.

What I do get, is that most teams break down because they made X part 'too thin' , and didn't have time to test it properly because they spent it all trying to save even more weight. You've said as much in your "Test, Test, Test" post.

I am playing devil's advocate a little, because I know a lower weight limit does not solve the root cause of the problem. But to do that means somehow forcing the team to do thing s like full FMEA's, proper timing plans, etc. Which would make the whole competition very unappealing, especially when most engineering students call it: "Formula Stupid, that competition where all the cars break down."

Remember, FS/FSAE is an engineering competition with a motorsport theme, not a motorsport event.
The intent is that you make your mistakes and cockups before you are inflicted on some poor employer.
That seems to work well as the lesson learned by all those members of the DNF teams is KISS!

I am currently in the position of said 'poor employer'; often supervising new graduates at work. There a lot of lessons that I want them to have learned. But FSAE students don't go away saying, oh we should try to implement better failure mode avoidance. They talk about fixing that one thing and then making their car "lighter, more powerful, faster, etc, AND more reliable."

I had a 12 month industrial placement leading up to my final FSAE year. During which time I did a ton of research and spent most of my lunch breaks on here and slowly learned not to focus on mass over reliability, mostly thanks to Big Bird's wise word. We went from a DNF team to finishing all events.

Sometimes to learn something people just need to be told. Then they start asking and understanding why.

Dunk,

Thank you for breaking the recent boredom. Felt like sitting in a morgue.

Your welcome, this was partly my intent.

Any team not finishing a dynamic event should have their report card stamped, in big red letters, "FAILED!". These reports should then be made readily available to prospective employers.

Competition results made available online already do this.

The problem is, I was in a team with really good engineers, but I also with some people that should be banned from ever doing engineering professionally.

So looking at the result of the whole team doesn't help much. If the standard deviation within a team is high, then you have no idea what you're getting.

Furthermore, DESIGN EVENT SHOULD BE SCRAPPED!

The "prestigious" DE is by far the biggest distraction to the testosterone-overdosed boys. This is the stage upon which, right from the beginning of the year, most students see themselves "strutting-their-stuff". This pathetic urge to impress the DJs ovewhelms any logos thinking. This is crystal clear. Blind Freddy can see it.

[...]

With no DE, the students' only opportunity to strut-their-stuff, [...], is to build something that actually works.

I don't think DE should be dropped, but changed to: Engineering Event. The work 'design' has far too much association with aesthetics, an not how something actually works, or why.

I'd like to see it broken into two parts, the Specification and Validation sides of the system V. Starting at a high level, of how they believe they can perform at comp, all the way to what each individual part specification. Then back up through how they they tested their engineering against all their performance targets, and ultimately how they performed at the competition.

The DE purports to do this already. But there is no true attempt to check any of the validation work, if simulation and testing is not done properly, then the results of these a worthless. There is no way of checking these have been done properly, except.... dynamic events. All you have to do is run the design event at the end of the weekend, AFTER all dynamics event and you have all the validation you need.
You can compare their predictions to what they achieved. First you judge if their targets/predictions were fair, considering their resources, then you compare these to their actual performance, and have a discussion about why their not the same (be it a large or very small difference), and score according to their understanding.

Dunk Mckay

03-19-2017, 10:22 AM

Here is a bit of advice for testing planning and report As design judge, I would like to see test report that includes at the minimum
Date
Weather condition and noticeable change during the day. A 300 $ weather station could be useful
Track and air temperature before and after each run.
Starting setup
What is the test plan: what are we doing today? [...]
Cold and hot tire pressure, cold and hot tire temperature [...]
Time at which the car left and came back to the pits
Number of laps per run
Each lap time
Driver subjective feedback
Setup change
After the test an engineering report that combines driver subjective data and car objective logged data analysis
Conclusion: what went well / what did not go well / why / how can we improve / next action plan. This part of the report should include the car failure analysis and the way the team work together

Why not include this as part of the DE submission? We require that teams designs the car themselves and judge them on this, so why not require that they test their car as well?

Because of the incremental nature of changes in FSAE I must assume that the organizers are meeting their goals. [...] I always learn more from my mistakes than successes.

If they are meeting their goals, then those goals are not about satisfying employer requirements.
Learning from mistakes is great, but first you have to know what that mistake was. I fear this is rarely the case. Teams will just correct the one thing that went wrong and come back the next year and something else will break. The mistake was not the design of the car, but the way in which they went about engineering the whole project.

The best way to learn how to swim is to jump in the pool;
This is great if you're being watched by an expert swimmer. But pretty reckless to do on your own.
(Academic staff are rarely expert swimmers).

If you want to encourage reliability you need to reward it (or punish unreliability). This should be as direct as possible. Weight limits, videos, and increased cost scores are indirect ways to encourage reliability. A more direct way would be a reliability score component.

My idea would be a reliability multiplier for the final score. Any missed heats would decrease it from 1 downwards. That way all of your events (including design) are directly reduced by low reliability. Intuitively this makes sense, even if a car is well designed, well marketed, and low cost if it doesn't work it is a bad product. As soon as your car is able to do all of the heats then all of the points are on offer, This means no change to the winners, the best teams will still be the highest performing reliable teams.

Now this is an idea I can really get behind, and the sort of thing I was hoping to get out of this discussion.

What I can also tell you is that in Formula Bharat (Bharat is the former name of India) students have to send dozens of pictures ahead of time of all car details including pictures of templates inserted in the chassis. They also have to send a video of the car starting on its own, accelerating, braking, locking all 4 wheels in braking and the driver exiting the car in less than 5 seconds. I am proud to say that I initiated this process. Pictures and videos are analyzed by experienced judges and scrutineers and the team are aware of issue to be fixed ahead of the competition.
It makes the job of scrutineers and students easier. Indian FS car are still way behind in terms of performance and reliability but their slope of progress is the best I know. I am sure these pictures / video submission as well as coaching from several design and cost judges as help the Indian students.

YES. THIS!!

What about getting around your car (this year car, last year car, next year car drawings) with all team members and objectively and unemotionally ask yourself what could go wrong in tech or in reliability. And come with an action plan.
This is Failure Mode Avoidance, a standard industry tool I know well, and there are much more rigorous ways of doing it that just standing around the car (although that may come into it). The problem is that most team's don't do this, and unless something changes about the competition and it's rules they will continue not to. We can say it's their responsibility all we want, but at the end of the day, it's our responsibility as educators to make sure their are learning to use the right tools, if they could do that on their own there would be no need for FSAE in the first place!!

Coming back to the initial topic of this thread: shame on you, on your children and on the children of your children for the next 20 generations if you show up at any FS / FSAE event with a car that weights more that 200 Kg.
This is exactly the sort of comment that is such a problem. Someone as respected as yourself saying something so judgmental of teams with 200kg+ cars is going to make those team bias their decision making towards low mass, and sacrifice reliability. They will make that mistake, where they otherwise wouldn't have because "Claude Rouelle said we had to be sub 200kg. So logical engineering decision making be damned, we'll just make sure we hit that target."

In the last 10 years the two most successful cars my team ever made weighed 250kg, and 225kg. The first was our best ever finish at competition, and the second saw the biggest jump in reliability and results for a number of years. The long term goal each time was to refine those concepts to reduce weight. But, too much focus on weight due to a design judge comment after the 250kg car landed the team with a 200kg car that wasn't any quicker and broke all the time. Following the 225kg concept (ran for 2 years), the team vision fell apart due to new management; they wanted to earn the praise of people like yourself and mandated a super lightweight car. They were the worst year in our team's history.
(I could make a joke here about the reasons people no longer want to listen to experts, #Brexit, but I won't).

But my team aren't the only example. I've spoken to so many teams who go on about getting a sub 200kg car. It's an obsession that needs to be removed for this competition to progress. Sub-200kg might be the right thing for most teams if done properly, but that needs to be a result of proper engineering decisions.

I tell you what, if my team are ever in a position of doing really quite well, and have a car that weighs 199kg, as unlikely as you may claim that to be, I'll make sure they add 1kg of ballast, just for you, Claude. ;)

Claude Rouelle

03-19-2017, 12:33 PM

Dunk

Lost of verbal diarrhea, tentative of justification, pretty pessimistic views, lack of YES WE CAN / WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN attitude, not very useful.

But you give me chance to elaborate on an important point

You wrote : "What I do get, is that most teams break down because they made X part 'too thin". Nope that is not that is not necessarily because the parts are too thin. The goal is to maximize tire grip AND reduce forces on each suspension and chassis part with smart design. It is all about how you distribute the tire forces and moment on your uprights, suspension, chassis etc... That is why design judges ask students to demonstrate both choice of materiel and shape of chassis and suspension elements tanks to load path calculations. Working on the part thickness will improve stiffness and reduce compliance....which will increase the forces on car parts (F= MA). Vicious circle. Think about the way a force of 450 N can be applied on a 0.3 mm egg without breaking it.

LOW MASS DOESN'T SACRIFICE RELIABILITY: WITH SMART DESIGN LOW MASS DOES IMPROVE RELIABILITY!!!!!

****

"In the last 10 years the two most successful cars my team ever made weighed 250kg, and 225kg" BS. What does it prove? Ask your former team members what they would have done if they would have had the choice to add or remove 10 Kg? How come we have several reliable winning cars circa 150 KG or less? (and do not tell me that is because they have bigger budget; I will ask back: do they win because they have budget or do they have budget because they win?)

******

"Why not include this as part of the DE submission? We require that teams designs the car themselves and judge them on this, so why not require that they test their car as well?" Again Outside-In solution. It is up to the team to do it. Inside-Out. Do organizers and design judges need to hold the hands of 17 - 24 years old?

*******

Claude

Claude Rouelle

03-19-2017, 12:54 PM

Julian

I am not suggesting to optimize everything. Your team design and run very competitive, light and most of the time very reliable cars. Every time I (and other judges) speak with your team members in Design (often in finals) it is a pleasure to see your knowledge and enthusiasm. You may have many assets starting with your excellent university (although we have to wonder why some even more prestigious with bigger budget universities such as MIT or Harvard or Cranfield do not show up - or if they show up perform poorly in FS - I have my opinion - but that is another debate) but I guess that despite you have nearly new team members every year, one of the main reasons your team is often on top is that you have an organized system of transmission of information from one year to another.

Here is my point: Big or small budget that is what many teams seem to be missing: they do not seem to have learnt from mistakes from previous years.

lctromnml

03-19-2017, 07:49 PM

Whoever you are Mr. lctromnml (not worth to introduce yourself?....)

I somewhat agree with you on the pre-inspection training...but...

I am not qualified to give you a clear opinion on inspection, other people know this exercise better than me, but what I know is that often the issues met in inspection are due to either a lack of knowledge of the rules by students and/or some procrastination of the students to ask the rule committee (the rule committee, not the FSAE forum!) questions that would eliminate their doubts on some specific matters.
Also I am not sure that all car issues that will be spot by official scrutineers at FS / FSAE events will necessarily spotted by "amateur" scrutineers.

My name is Simon and I have been with the Running Snail Racing Team (UAS Amberg-Weiden) for four years now (I have done the software for the cars).

Of course the scrutineers need to be qualified. And yes, many issues met in inspection are avoidable. In the last year we did not have any issues in scrutineering at all, but the reason for that was mainly because those who where responsible did it in their second or third year. Normally, most of the people are in their first year and they make mistakes. Pre-events are helpful in these cases.

What about getting around your car (this year car, last year car, next year car drawings) with all team members and objectively and unemotionally ask yourself what could go wrong in tech or in reliability. And come with an action plan.

There will be more results coming from that inside-out approach than an outside-in pre-event "solutions". But that requires communication, leadership, ownership. objectivity and honesty. That is the less visible cause where the great team are getting their performance from. They have learnt how to stop whining and start winning.

I totally agree with you on that inside-out-approach, but there is no reason not to do both. In fact, many of those great teams actually attend pre-events (e.g. AMZ, Delft, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, ... the ZF Race Camp).

What I do get, is that most teams break down because they made X part 'too thin' , and didn't have time to test it properly because they spent it all trying to save even more weight. You've said as much in your "Test, Test, Test" post.

When I talked to the teams I got the impression that many break downs also happen because of battery issues (BMS, empty, heat), electronic problems, sensor problems (electric cars) and failed attempts to restart at the driver change, leaking fluids, other engine or clutch troubles (combustion cars).

However, when talking to teams that suffered mechanical break downs (too thin parts etc.) most of those teams were way below 100km of testing, many of them did not test at all and did parts of the car assembly. A weight limit would not change very much in my opinion, because those teams would still do their first meters at the competition and fail.

The best solution to improve results and reduce mechanical break downs is IMHO just to force the teams to do more testing. So as you suggested in the first post, a vehicle status video where the team must prove that the car is running properly would be great for every competition. However, I would not give additional points for teams that are able to provide the video, but instead just exclude all teams that fail to provide it (about one month before the competition).
Those teams can be replaced with teams from the waiting list that were able to build a running car. FSG does this already (although until last year, you could apply for an exception). This should be communicated to all of the teams and would built a lot of pressure to get the cars running in time. Also I feel that a team that failed at the registration quiz but was able to built a running car deserves it more to take part at a competition than one that succeeded at the quiz but did not build a running car in time.

It would be interesting to see, how testing corresponds with reliabilty/success. At least for my team, there is a clear dependence:
2013: ~600 Test-Kilometers before the first event, 1 pre-events, 3/3 Endurance finished (6th FSUK, 7th FSG)
2014: <100 Test-Kilometers before the first event, 0 pre-events, 0/3 Endurance finished (17th FSG, 15th FSA)
2015: ~150 Test-Kilometers before the first event, 2 pre-events, 1/3 Endurance finished (24th FSG, 3rd FSH)
2016: ~600 Test-Kilometers before the first event, 3 pre-events, 3/4 Endurance finished (4th FSG, 1st FSH)

DougMilliken

03-19-2017, 10:54 PM

... The DE purports to do this already. But there is no true attempt to check any of the validation work, if simulation and testing is not done properly, then the results of these a worthless. There is no way of checking these have been done properly, except.... dynamic events. All you have to do is run the design event at the end of the weekend, AFTER all dynamics event and you have all the validation you need.
Have been enjoying this thread. A bit of history, when I started design judging (c.2000) in Michigan, Design Finals were Sunday morning after Dynamics were over. By then, only about a dozen judges were left to talk with 3-5 FSAE teams and look at their cars. After talking with the teams, we sat in a circle and came to a final ranking by simple vote or consensus. Reliability played large in our decisions.

When the schedule was shortened to remove this final event on Sunday morning, I was quite vocal in my objections.

Someone may have a better explanation for the change, my understanding was that shortening the event by a day was a large cost saving. It may have been part of the move to Michigan International Speedway, which is (I think), quite an expensive facility to rent and use?

N.Tsuji

03-20-2017, 01:42 AM

Student Formula Japan has the same procedure although less intense. Their percentage of endurance finish is the best. They sacrifice innovation for reliability. I bet the documents submission is part of their car reliability reasons.

Here in Japan, we have several pre-events. Pre-events consists of scrutineering and dynamic events. Attendance is not mandatory, but many teams attend 3 times a year. Once in spring, usually shortly after their shakedown test, once in early August, and once in late August. The competition is held in early September.

Recently, we also do some scrutineering seminar for teams. In the seminar, scrutineers teaches students about the scrutineering, and answer to students' questions.

We also award all the teams who completed all the static events and the dynamic events.

We might be too indulgent with the students. We might be helping them too much. But, we are not satisfied with the rate of DNS and DNF. The Japanese car industry do care about reliability ;)

03-21-2017, 08:20 PM

Dunk,

Thanks for your considered replies. I was afraid we overwhelmed you.

I don't think DE should be dropped, but changed to: Engineering Event...

The end result would be the same.

I will briefly restate my case for dropping Design Event (or a renamed "EE"), in case I was too subtle in previous posts.

I see DE as a massive inducement, effectively a "basketful of the juiciest carrots imagineable", that pulls the students away from building a boring, reliable car, and towards building an unnecessarily complicated high-tech marvel of modern engineering ... that cannot turn its wheels. The RMIT-C car of recent years is just one of many such examples.

It might be argued that Design Event only offers 150 points worth of carrots, against the 600+ carrots on offer from the Dynamic Events, so its "negative pulling power" is not excessive. However, the students clearly see "success in DE" as having a much greater influence on their future job prospects than "success on track". I say "clearly" because in my face-to-face discussions with students, whenever I urge them to "...simplificate, because it adds reliability!", I am most often met with sceptical looks, then "But, ... how will that go down in Design?". It seems that all design decisions must first pass the "...will it impress the DJs?" test.

Furthermore, "success in DE" requires working in a comfortable, indoor environment, in front of a CAD screen, drinking coffee or energy drinks, and eating pizza. Yes, there are many hours of this "work" to be done, but it is EASY work that most students enjoy. On the other hand, as noted many times in previous posts, "success on track" involves much TESTING. This requires much loading and unloading of trailers, changing of tyres, standing for ages in scorching-sun or freezing-rain, getting grit in eyes and grime under fingernails, and generally being completely knackered by end-of-day. In short, the "success in DE" type work is by far the easier option.

So, the "success in DE" carrots are both much tastier ($s!), and also a lot easier to reach, than the "success on track" carrots.

So the donkey naturally walks towards the DE-carrots, and away from the on-track-carrots. Water flows downhill.
~o0o~

The above is my summarised case for dropping DE from the competition.

Now, if this was a discussion about "how to build our next car", then the above arguments should be responded to in a WELL-REASONED manner, namely using "logos". It would NOT be good engineering to simply accept a pathetic (from "pathos", remember) argument to keep DE, such as, "I just like it. Call it a gut-feeling ... but, it has to stay.".

(By analogy, I note that exactly these sorts of pathetic arguments are almost always used by students to "keep the 600-four", or "keep the push/pullrods&rockers + ARBs", and so on, rather than trying to reason their way to a simpler, more reliable solution.)

So, below is a brief example of a logos-like approach to deciding this issue. (And, yes, the full logos approach is even more long-winded, boring++. Sorry!)
~~~o0o~~~

COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS of DESIGN EVENT.
=====================================
COST of DE.
==========
1. Large number of officials (the DJs+) are needed for many hours. In terms of man-hours, DE probably accounts for more than any other single event.

Even in a small competition like Oz, almost 40 DJs and assistants are required for a full day. (And at 2016-Oz, almost all the DJs then spent ANOTHER ~8 hours quibbling over whether ONE team should lose ONE point because their 2016 Design Report was almost identical to their 2015 DR.)

2. DE is a distraction that interferes with the students' ability to build a car that can complete the dynamic events.

This is by far the worst "cost". This point can be debated, but if true, then it means DE is a huge impediment to the students' education. By analogy with a car's performance, DE is an anchor that is slowing down the education of the students.
~o0o~

BENEFITS of DE.
==============
1. Hmmm? ......... The DJs like it! (Why else would they spend a whole day quibbling over ONE point?)
~~~o0o~~~

In anticipation of some counter-arguments to above.

1. "But, DE gives the highly talented and experienced DJs an opportunity to give hugely beneficial advice to the students."

So, why, after ~30 years of such advice, are there still so many DNSs and DNFs?

Clearly, any such advice is NOT WORKING.

IMO, this is because the DE format is ill-suited to giving such advice. Not enough time, wrong pedagogic setting, too many cooks giving contrary advice, etc.

Furthermore, any "teaching" value that is claimed to exist in DE can be implemented, much more effectively and cheaply, elsewhere and in other ways.
EG 1. The recently out-of-work ex-DJs can educationally critique each car during scrutineering. Quicker, less "costly", more effective.
EG 2. Claude, or any other ex-DJs, can give such "design critiques" of ALL the cars, with ALL the students attending, at any convenient time during comp. Much quicker than the full day of DE, with much more coverage as all students get feedback on all cars.
~o0o~

2. "But, DE gives some DJs a great opportunity to sift through the many students, in order to find the better ones to whom they can offer jobs."

FS/FSAE is supposed to be about the EDUCATION of young engineers.

The competition, ITSELF, is NOT a "Careers Fair"!

If companies want to hire students, then they can pitch their "We Want You!" tents somewhere adjacent to the competition, but in a way that DOES NOT DISTRACT THE STUDENTS from building a car that WORKS.
~o0o~

Well-reasoned Cost-Benefit type counter-arguments for keeping DE are welcome.

Z

(PS. Again, apologies for above long-winded logos. Sooo much easier to go with those quick-and-easy gut-feelings, innit! :))

BillCobb

03-21-2017, 09:59 PM

While I enjoy these dissertations from future Employed Engineer hopefuls, let me add a simple comment as a wake-up call to those still looking for an education:

There is NO WAY a manufacturing company of ANY product would host a Design Review after a production submission has been built and released for use. Design reviews are held at the minimum monthly and often weekly until ideas and concepts start to harden and flow from design GOALS.
Even the Formula Sewing Machine top management would want to review, comment, direct, criticize, fund, explore parallel Alternate Solutions, and review timing of such a deal.

This begs for a DE event to be held by FS BEFORE cars would be built and shipped. Concepts, drawings, part lists, costs, durability projections, materials, headcount, sourcing, powertrain, safety, emissions, noise, competitive assessment and a bunch of other pertinent Product Engineering 'Features' could/should be submitted for DJ-ing and when laugh track is quiet, a Team would be authorized to proceed. In my day, that's what a Faculty Advisor did. Anybody remember that for the very first ever event, it was a requirement that a car make it through the PG car wash intact ? That tidbit caught a few as I distinctly remember.

Maybe this means that the DE Review is done for the next year's cars. Maybe its done via Skype, Power-Point or papyrus or stone tablets. But, students who march into a Product Proposal meeting with Marketing execs having a 'finished' product on the table will quietly be sent out for training to make good onion rings. I've seen a few of these cats come and go.

As for testing, there are quite a few avenues for this topic: Free body diagrams, plastic models, scale models, computer multi-body models, mules, alpha and beta full size hardware. ALL intended to estimate loads and displacements of the critical parts and players in a machine. I'm reminded of the 1982 GM F-body front strut tower design review. ADAMS was used to design adequate structural integrity of this architecture. Sure, the prototypes lived through all the max pot hole events in the durability schedule. All those wonderful rainflow fatigue counts were within spec and nothing broke. But did anyone notice that the front strut mounts were dimpling the front hood and sheet metal ? Took a while, but loads AND displacement constraints must be reconciled.

One more thing, stuff you 'engineer' has to meet 'foreseeable misuse' sign-off. If your driver misses a shift or hits a cone, what does a Damage Report going to tell about what to expect and how to proceed.

Seems to me that there could be some reordering of these reviews. Let's see the design intent first, then try to build it. Have mass targets, speed and brake constraints, analysis and a Bill of Process (that's what it's called) which shows the lawyers you have been educated. If 'you' says it's too complicated or too time consuming or too much work, rework your team to be more efficient. Otherwise as far as the Industry is concerned, you are just playing in a sandbox.

MCoach

03-22-2017, 04:19 PM

Rule 1: Allow 2 stroke engines up to the same cc limitation as the the four strokes. (they are all restrictor limited anyway, right?)

Rule 2: Allow down to 6" diameter wheels.

What could possibly go wrong.

Claude Rouelle

03-23-2017, 01:03 PM

Not sure a 2 stroke engine would pass the emission test at Student Formula Japan...

MCoach

03-23-2017, 01:41 PM

I challenge you to get me and a 2 stroke powered car to Japan and we shall see about that.
Some barriers to entry are trivial.

Claude Rouelle

03-23-2017, 02:58 PM

Barriers to entry? Which barriers? To entry where? Student Formula Japan plays by the same rule as US FSAE and I can confirm that many foreign teams are very welcome and I can attest they are treated equally to any Japanese team many team are welcome.

By the way they have a public combined design review and final that is unique, run by Ono Massa, probably the most experienced engineer and best design judge I ever met, and is very useful to ALL students

Claude Rouelle

03-23-2017, 03:01 PM

2 more pics

MCoach

03-23-2017, 03:51 PM

Claude, you just said:

Not sure a 2 stroke engine would pass the emission test at Student Formula Japan...

It sound like you think two strokes would struggle to qualify to enter the FS Japan competition based on their emissions output.
Sounds like a perceived barrier to me.

Claude Rouelle

03-23-2017, 05:10 PM

MCoach

03-23-2017, 05:51 PM

M Coach, Yes that is what I meant and in total honesty and ignorance (I am not an engine guy and even less a 2 stroke engine guy) I have to say I could be wrong. Just walking in the street of Indian or Vietnamese cities made me doubting the emission efficiency of 2 stroke motorcycles. But I am open to some education here. I also have to say that my post was somewhat irrelevant as FSAE rules do not allow 2 strokes engine.
In any case if any new engine type had to be allowed in FS/FSAE I think hydrogen/fuel cell should be the choice. Providing of course (back to the beginning of this thread) the car weights less than 200 Kg!

There are some amazing personal watercraft and snowmobile two stroke engines available these days that I would readily consider for a power source for these cars. Emissions have come a long way with direct injection and active valve technology. They really are a world away from the Indian used engines you mention.

To expand on the argument for my rules 1 and 2 now that my hook has caught a big fish:

Two stroke engines have the ability to reduce complexity and weight of these cars. Many are lightweight and easier to work on. This would allow for lighter cars, as well as potentially less DNFs.
It is my opinion that some of the light weight cars could be running even smaller tires than the 10" wheeled choices used now. No one uses 8" wheels because the tire compounds are substandard.
6" wheels are the next step down, have significantly wider compound selections (even greater than the 10,13" choices) and the packaging constraints would readily push students towards simpler construction.

Would everyone go this direction? Not necessarily. Just like everyone hasn't converged to a single design direction already.
Currently today there are teams that use up to 15" wheels and engine displacements of 250cc up to the limit of 610cc. Some teams are also planning to push right up to the new limit as well.

The two stroke engines would potentially come at a cost of decreased fuel efficiency and power under the curve. Leaving it up to teams to decide if their power/weight requirements overrule their fuel efficiency and packaging requirements.
The 6" wheels would allow more compound choices but at the risk of no data available currently and a substantial loss of longitudinal contact length and potentially overall grip.

Both of these options are also available at lower costs than their counterparts for the budget minded.

I think opening rules to allow the cars to safely become lighter and simpler through lighter weight and simpler choices would help DNFs so the students can take the weight out of one more location. Rather than feeling confined to running certain choices such as the 13" tires and sport bike motors and then desperately trying to hit weight targets by running carbon monocoques, carbon suspension links, and undersized hardware.

apalrd

03-23-2017, 07:51 PM

Some notes on emissions:

Hydrocarbons are formed due to rich clouds (or homogenous rich mixture), which are usually formed in 2 and 4 stroke engines by running fuel rich. They can also come from short-circuiting of the fuel air mixture through the cylinder, which tends to happen on 2-stroke piston ported engines with aggressive port designs. And finally, they can come from misfire.

Carbon monoxide is formed due to incomplete combustion, usually because of a rich cloud, and generally also appears in 2 and 4 stroke engines running rich.

Nitrous oxides are formed when there is excess oxygen and high temperatures, this requires lean combustion or stratified combustion. It is most prevalent with Diesel engines and turbine engines as they are stratified, but can be produced by other engines too.

Soot is formed when there is a very large excess of fuel in the combustion cloud, and carbon particles form. This usually happens with extremely poor mixing or stratified combustion (especially Diesel, which inherently has a rich cloud as the fuel spreads out before ignition), but I have seen a Briggs roll coal too.

**************

In 2014, the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge emissions event winners were as follows:
#1 emissions - SUNY Buffalo - 952cc IDI turbo diesel
#2 emissions - University of Idaho - 800cc DI 2-stroke SI
#3 emissions - Kettering University - 600cc PFI turbo 4-stroke SI

The point is that the engine calibration has a much bigger effect on the exhaust emissions than the combustion cycle. A modern 2-stroke or 4-stroke powersports engine will have roughly the same emissions, with slightly more HC from the 2-stroke.

**************

I think that engines in FSAE should only be limited to either fuel or air flow, and left otherwise unrestricted in size and design. Fuel restriction would be ideal and allow lean/stratified engines of similar power (including Diesel and turbine engines which inherently flow more air for the same power), but air restriction is much easier to implement. The rules change to 710cc makes that limit less relevant, which is overall a great thing.

cajunboy

03-24-2017, 12:01 PM

2 stroke for the win! Kawasaki h2 750 w/ big fat expansion chambers all the way! or rg500, or nsr, or i could go on all day.. actually, at UTA's autocross weekend a couple years ago a guy had a formula car w/ a rotax 2 stroke. looked killer w/ those chambers on it. not sure the displacement on it.

tim_pattinson

03-30-2017, 02:46 AM

Here's a slightly less radical suggestion:
Each team's Design score is scaled by the percentage of dynamic events they finish. (DQs counted, but not DNFs.)
An exception can be made for teams that want to compete as "Class 2" (statics only).

Here's another suggestion:
Hold Design after Endurance.
If your fancy system doesn't fail, great - you can boast about your unicorn-powered turbo 2-stroke hub motors.
Otherwise, a constructive discussion can be had on what went wrong and why.

Claude Rouelle

03-30-2017, 02:27 PM

Tim,

Be realistic

- You would have to wait the end of the endurance to run the design final? Ask the organizers what they think about that.
- You can have a very well designed an manufactured car that fails in endurance for a stupid reason (shit happens) as stupid as a flat tire and for that it could not not win design....? What objective measurement will you use to weight that?

The solution is less point in dynamics and more in static. Many judges have been asking for that. The racing virus and focus at all cost on the performances instead of the knowledge behind the performance has been taking away the goal of the FSAE founders and the spirit of engineering learning that students can / should show in design.

I still do not get the relevance of Class 2. UK is the only organization that does that and I wonder why. Either you build and run a car or you stay home.

Bemo

03-31-2017, 02:37 AM

In theory it would be a good Thing to have the design Event after all Dynamic Events. This would give the judges the possibility to observe the cars on track and later discuss what they observed with the students. Also failures could be discussed and evaluated. The Problem is that as an organiser you want to Keep the whole Event as short as possible as the rent for the venue and Hotel rooms for judges and volunteers are the biggest cost issues. The critical path in Terms of competition Duration are the dynamic Events. If you have 40+ Teams you will Need two entire days to run the dynamic Events. Before that you Need enough time for scrutineering. You can run the Static Events parallel to scrutineering but not parallel to the Dynamics. Having the design Event after the Dynamics would essentially mean to have one more competition day than at the Moment. This is impossible for most Events.

In General I'm biased towards the design Event. In my opinion it is a great Thing in theory. But in reality it is a highly subjective way of scoring. Very often you have judges coming from Event Sponsors who aren't even familiar with the rules. In my opinion at the Moment the students already tend to do a lot of complicated stuff for the design Event and Forget to build an actually working car. Therefore I'm not a friend of increasing the Points of the static Events as this would encourage this trend even more.

DougMilliken

03-31-2017, 02:34 PM

In theory it would be a good Thing to have the design Event after all Dynamic Events. This would give the judges the possibility to observe the cars on track and later discuss what they observed with the students. Also failures could be discussed and evaluated. ...
As I posted earlier, no theory, this was reality! It was standard procedure for Michigan with 120 cars entered (100+ arrived), for many years. I don't know the actual history, but it's quite possible that Carroll Smith created this schedule, along with all the other work that he did to elevate the status of Design.

Michigan Design Finals were Sunday morning after Dynamics were over. The last couple of years before the change to current schedule, this was held at a General Motors facility at the Warren Tech Center -- 3-to-5 Design Final cars/teams in the big lobby early in the morning and the remaining ~dozen Design Judges caucused before lunch. This was followed by a banquet lunch and prize-giving in the large corporate cafeteria for everyone that was willing to stay (wild guess, 500-1000 people). There was no need to rent the expensive facility for Dynamics on Sunday.

I believe that this is the right way to do it. It will take a lot of effort to regain what has been lost, but it is possible!

Claude Rouelle

03-31-2017, 03:49 PM

I think Doug has a point.

03-31-2017, 09:39 PM

Claude,

You have me baffled.

You say,

I still do not get the relevance of Class 2. UK is the only organization that does that and I wonder why. Either you build and run a car or you stay home.

I agree with you completely. If the car doesn't run, then stay home. Yes!

But just prior to above quote you said,

The solution is less point in dynamics and more in static.

Huh? Doesn't this move the whole competition TOWARDS Class 2?

The ultimate extrapolation of your "solution" IS Class 2. It is NO Dynamic points, and ALL Static points.
~~~o0o~~~

As a by-the-way, we have now finished the third month of the Australian FSAE season, so more than a quarter of the way through. Over these last 3 months I have spent significant time talking to several of the Oz-teams, all of which FAILED TO TURN A WHEEL at 2016-Oz-comp.

The talking from my side was mostly along the lines of,
"Very easy to get top-5 here ... just keep it simple ... but MUST finish car early ... then LOTS OF TESTING!"

The response from the students is nodding of heads to the "...top-5" part, then sceptical looks and evasiveness on the rest. Nope, they are certainly NOT at Uni to learn how to load trailers, and all that other "hands on" stuff. Nope, they seem to be thinking, "This is an ENGINEERING DESIGN competition!!!.

And, indeed, in the current FSAE RuleBook we find,
"ARTICLE 6: DESIGN EVENT...
Comment: Teams are reminded that FSAE is an engineering design competition...".

But (!) this is despite the fact that the RuleBook opens with,
"ARTICLE 1: FORMULA SAE OVERVIEW...
A1.1 ... Competition Objective ... challenge teams of university ... students to conceive, design, FABRICATE, DEVELOP and COMPETE with small, formula style, vehicles."

(My extra emphasis. And elsewhere in the Rules is also mentioned the importance of good Project Management, meeting deadlines, and all the other necessaries required to have a car that turns its wheels.)

Clearly, the overarching goal of FSAE is a lot more than just having a FSUK-Class-2-style "...engineering design competition".

Anyway, my prognosis is that the teams I am talking to will, yet again, FAIL TO TURN A WHEEL at the 2017-Oz-comp. The lure of Design Event is simply too great. So much easier to sit in front of a CAD screen, doodling all sorts of really cool stuff, dreaming of how impressed the DJs will be with all that brilliant bling...

Z

MCoach

04-03-2017, 03:47 PM

The ultimate extrapolation of your "solution" IS Class 2. It is NO Dynamic points, and ALL Static points.
~~~o0o~~~
Z

There are two types of people in this world -- those who extrapolate from incomplete data.

John_Burford

04-03-2017, 05:24 PM

Caroll Smith held design finals after endurance was completed starting in 1996. I think that changed when Jay O'Connell took over lead design judge in 2004.

Detroitsaab

04-05-2017, 01:53 PM

I do not post much in here but this topic of design before/after dynamic events hit a note with me.

From my experience in design at both MIS and Lincoln for the past 6 years, I have seen good things and bad. I believe design should be after endurance for many reasons which have been commented on here as well as a few others. Yes some cars in design finals do not finish endurance, sometimes for uncontrollable reasons but I believe that is far and few compared to all the failures I have seen. I have seen teams who were in design finals fail for basic issues such as parts falling off because they weren't bolted down correctly, over heating due to not taking the hot temps in Lincoln into account, having major failures too such as suspension arm failures or engine failures. If you are a design finalist car, you should NOT be having these failures as much as I have seen.

Based on MIS and Lincoln for the past 3 years, the amount of design finalist teams that have not finished endurance is 50%. Half of what is considered the best designed cars in the entire competition aren't finishing a 22 km race? There has to be either something wrong is the way the design competition is scored, what the judges view as winning cars, or something else but I believe putting design after endurance would bring this number of design finalists that don't finish endurance way down.

It is frustrating as a competitor too to see your hard work be graded so low in design, and even still scoffed at in design review even when your car finishes higher than other team's who were considered 'the best.'

I hope to see the organization of the events change so that this can be taken into account.

Jonny Rochester

04-06-2017, 10:39 PM

I propose a new rule. (It's so simple, you'll love it).

Design judges have to bring their own FSAE car to comp.

Billzilla

04-07-2017, 07:44 PM

I propose a new rule. (It's so simple, you'll love it).

Design judges have to bring their own FSAE car to comp.

That would be rather interesting!

John_Burford

04-07-2017, 09:43 PM

You're on. We call it Texas Autocross weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D5CN2wT-gk

04-07-2017, 10:07 PM

Jonny,

That is exactly what Geoff Pearson suggested way back in February 2013 on the "Fantasy Car" thread.

http://www.fsae.com/forums/showthread.php?6433-Fantasy-Car&p=16636&viewfull=1#post16636

Here is the gist of Geoff's thinking:

"I've always had this desire to build an "Anti-Technology Special":
- Steel spaceframe
- Swing axles F&R
- Direct acting shocks
- Pitman arm steering
- Spool
- 10" aluminium wheels
- air-cooled single cyl engine
- carbureted
- balsa bodywork (with a nice baltic pine stain)
- No aero
- No carbon
- Something made of dried kelp

Objective - build the simplest, lowest parts count, lowest process count car possible within the rules...
I reckon it would be a good challenge, cheap, easy to build, and I'd love to see how close you could get to the front with it..."
~o0o~

A few pages later Geoff added:

"Re: the intent behind the Anti-Technology Special
...
The purpose would not be to prove that the fastest / best / sexiest racecar in the world would be aircooled, have [swing-axles] and would look like a rabbit hutch on wheels. Rather, I would love to build it just to set a benchmark for everyone. Give ourselves a modest budget and arm ourselves with a modest workshop (mig welder, lathe, tool box, wood saw etc. - a slightly upmarket farm shed), and do our best to build an honest little racecar.

The rules of engagement would be something like this:
- Gather a team of, say, six competent people, each with full time jobs
- Define time limits - e.g. no one person may spend more than two hours a day, or ten hours a week total, on the project
- Define budget - e.g. investment pool of $2000 each
- Define standards of behaviour - e.g. tools down when any of the following are on the telly: Bathurst 1000, any MotoGP, Classic Restos, Blokesworld
- Define material and process boundaries - e.g. no materials or processes allowed that were not available to an engineer prior to 1948
- No calculators or computers allowed - slide rules only
- Plans to be drawn up on drawing boards, in correct third angle projection

Design, build, test and develop the car within a twelve month period, then take it to the local FSAE competition and put it up against all the university-entered, over-designed wonder-cars. I doubt it would win, but I doubt it would finish last either. A decent amount of time testing and driver training, and it would set a very useful benchmark for performance - the definitive FSAE performance baseline. Now that would be educational."
~o0o~

To summarize Geoff's goal:
Six blokes, twelve grand, working weekends only, to set a benchmark of "minimum performance" that all University Teams should be able to beat.

To which Geoff added:

"And any team that finished behind the ATS would be sentenced to six months barn construction service in their nearest Amish community - just to make sure the lesson was learnt."
~o0o~

Back when Geoff was running the show here in Oz, I am sure something like that ATS would have happened. But nowadays there are no indications from the Oz-Officials that they are interested in that sort of educational approach. In fact, just the opposite, with their "Speciality Awards".

However, if the officials here ever decide that "education" really is THE priority of FS/FSAE, then I will quite happily build such an ATS. I will build it myself, for less than six grand, and let any ex-Oz-FSAEers drive it for unlimited laps in Autocross, and one stint in each Enduro. (Hey, I want to have some fun too!)

But (!), I would insist that Geoff's last quote above be slightly altered to:
"...any team that finished behind the ATS would be sentenced to crawl the length of the track on their hands and knees - just to make sure the lesson was learnt."

This, of course, would include all teams that DNS Enduro!
~~~o0o~~~

A SMIDGE MORE SOCIAL COMMENTARY.
================================
About 3 weeks ago I provided a "Cost-Benefit" type analysis of why Design Event should be dropped from the competition. I then asked if anyone could provide a similarly rational, well-reasoned, C-B type analysis that came to the contrary conclusion, namely that Design Event should be kept. After all, I might have missed something in my reasoning?

Well, the subject quickly changed to two-stroke engines. Then there was a longish period of silence. Then the discussion restarted with talk of how DE could be altered slightly, for example by holding it after Enduro.

But NOT A SKERRICK of cold, hard, boring, rational, "logos"-tical type discussion of the merits, or otherwise, of DE.

Nothing unusual here. Just the same old decision making via pure pathos.

WHAT THE STOMACH WANTS, THE BRAIN MUST GIVE!

Jonny, I am sure you have seen a lot of this in the last 3 years. For example, when your team "decided" that it MUST switch from that slow-old-single, to your awesome new, tyre-shredding-600-four.

Ahhh, what could have been. A better "engineered" version of your 2014 car would have won last year!
~~~o0o~~~

Want better "educated" young engineers? Drop DE, and let me bring an ATS!

Z

Jonny Rochester

04-08-2017, 12:47 AM

Just last week, I had to get UTAS 2014 car (brown go-kart with single, but too wide, no plenum) back on 4 wheels, because it's going to our museum. No joke.
Our 2015 car (and 2016) was a huge progression, and I wouldn't go back. UTAS 2015 had very few bells and whistles despite the 4cyl, and was basically reliable.
UTAS16 was much better again (10", good steering feel, aero, launch control) but as you would predict, some of the bells and whistles started to fall off it.
Personally I do want our 2016 car (and so does other people, see driver swap thread) with better engineering and quality so bits don't fall off.

But... I'm told that would be too easy, so UTAS this year are "tyre shredding" 2-rotors of electric power, with more than just a few bells and whistles required for basic operation.
What could possible go wrong? It should be more powerful than all the petrol cars because when I ask, I'm told "80kw".

But as Bill Heslop says "You can't stop progress".

The conundrum. I believe I can build a car that doesn't fall apart for 22km. I'm old, I've trade experience, I built too many of the parts on our FSAE cars, and I've been able to predict our own failures.
If I work to fix the little things, other students will just rest on that and work harder to introduce new unknowns. I just have to make sure the 2 parts I make for it are perfect, and walk away from
responsibility of finishing endurance.

Eventually we all get old, and we pick the best era that relates to our own capabilities and we build a historic racecar in the shed from that year. (For me it's a Group A Corolla Levin, 1985). But I
do believe we should allow current students to participate in engineering of the current day.

Perhaps finishing endurance is not what the young students want or need? Maybe the need to (be seen to) participate in the current technological push is a bigger driver?

Rex

04-08-2017, 09:31 AM

You're on. We call it Texas Autocross weekend.

Well said! If you want to see the different paths that design judges, tech inspectors, and other ex-FSAE folks take with their personal FSAE cars after the competitions are long-since over, look no further than Texas Autocross Weekend. Simple non-aero cars that are well-driven, 600lb aero cars with all the electronic gadgets that are well-driven, and current year FSAE cars that are well-driven are typically all represented in the top 10 finishing positions of each course throughout the weekend. Notice a common theme? :)

Texas Autocross weekend proves what most of us only figure out much later in our racing enthusiast "careers"; any car can win if it's well-executed and well-driven. REIB vs sphericals, featherlight vs 600lb, 10" vs 13" wheels...all of these work fine from a car performance standpoint if you simply finish the car early then burn up a bunch of tires finding/fixing the weak points AND training your drivers.

JulianH

04-08-2017, 12:24 PM

That would be rather interesting!

I think I would have some nice cars for that ;) Granted the batteries are probably not good enough to last 22km anymore but I would bet our 2012/2013 cars would still run Top10ish in AutoX ;)

Charles Kaneb

04-13-2017, 07:14 AM

If I'm ever selected as a design judge, I can bring my Briggs kart, to sweep the courses before the FSAE cars go out, and lay down benchmark times. Its chassis is older than some of the students competing, and it has eight (8) horsepower.

If you lose to it, you will have to go to the practice track and drive it. That will teach you by experience what Claude and Z try to tell you about the virtues of a low center of gravity, light weight, and simplicity of operation.

mech5496

04-13-2017, 09:20 AM

That would make a GREAT rule

Alumni

04-17-2017, 05:24 PM

1.) Endurance starts with the fastest cars and works backwards. As they finish, design finalists are re-evaluated. If for some reason a finalist wasn't able to run auto-cross, use an educated guess based on skid-pad and accel times to slot them in so they're finished with endurance by lunch. If they didn't finish accel, skidpad, or the finalist honestly qualified in the afternoon, find new design judges.

2.) Fix the design event. I've said it before and here it is again. It should go something like this: "Here's a picture and load analysis of a perfect hub. Here's the compromises we had to make and why. Here's what is actually on the car." Design judge will evaluate student on knowledge of "perfect" hub and whether or not compromises are reasonable, INCLUDING cost and manufacturing ability of the school. I really like the aforementioned "Engineering Event" since oversized rod-ends in bending are never good design, but there are certainly cases where they can be a perfectly acceptable solution (ever try to build a budget car that needs to be easily serviced in a third-world country? We aren't all Germany here folks...)

3.) All schools are required to hold their FSAE teams in the same regards as their football teams in terms of marketing, performance, funding, and continual improvement.

JulianH

04-18-2017, 02:12 AM

1) I don't like a "reverse grid" in Endurance. Spectatures will just leave, nobody watches the middle pack anymore it's really sad.
We had that in Spain once when they ran C class from slow to fast and then E class from Fast to slow. After the Top 5 E-Cars finished Endurance, everybody left. That is really uncool for the slower teams and reduces that "magic moments" of a Final 5.
I know that this is the "show part" of FSAE but I, especially as an alumn, like this part :)

I actually don't think that "finishing Endurance" is necessary for a Design Event.
All failures that we had in Endurance are not really related to car design but were mostly human error or a buy-part getting killed:
FS Italy 2009: That was not really E85...
FSG 2010 somebody forgot to lock the battery packs correctly
FSUK 2012: We had a faulty bearing in the gearbox
FSG 2016: Set wrong tire pressure

So yes, we had like 4 DNFs out of 20-ish Endurances. But was our "engineering capability" better in the 16 other events? I doubt that... (of course you can argue that "better engineers" would have designed parts better so that it is not possible for stupid humans to make mistakes, but the "same design" was used in the other events as well but it was just more properly handled)

2) Fix the Design Event. Sure. I like it. I always tried to judge the knowledge of the students about the parts that they designed. I scored a team very high that had a bad Aero design but they knew why it was bad and had just limited resources and could show that their money was spent better on other stuff of the car. That is good stuff "already" in the Design Event.
I think Alumni of FSAE make for better judges that the typical Automotive Industry judges because they are of course more impressed by the fancy laser sintered upright...

3) We are not all USA here folks... Universities in Europe don't have "sports teams" and they don't give a cr.. about any of their student projects.. they like the free publicity of a World record or a Title at FSAE but otherwise, no support at all.
FSUK

Alumni

04-18-2017, 07:29 AM

JT A.

04-18-2017, 04:29 PM

I agree that a reverse grid kills some (okay, a lot,) of the fun in watching endurance, but seems like a better compromise to me than design finals before the race. Really I'd like to see an extra day added back in to the competition if for no reason other than allowing teams proper time to set-up their car for each event rather than having to use the same set-up for accel and skid-pad. A parc-ferme system could be used to force teams into only making minor and quick suspension adjustments rather than trying to rebuild things they should have sorted weeks prior. In addition you wouldn't have to juggle tech and static events.

Also, some sort of allotment for simple minor repairs during endurance would go far, but is virtually impossible to define. It's done in Baja, so not impossible. Maybe something like you get one replacement tire, a handful of zip-ties, and can reconnect electrical connectors/toggle main power so long as the car is able to exit the track and drive to the repair area under its own power. 2 minute penalty regardless of how quickly you preform the fix. One stop only.

I agree with most of your ideas, except for allowing extra time for setup changes between skidpad & accel. There is enough time already, if you have the adjustments planned out and have practiced them once or twice. My last year as a student I changed damper settings, tire pressure, camber, wing flap positions, ride heights, front & rear toe between skidpad and accel. Other years we were more disorganized and unprepared, and we could only manage to change tire pressures and wing flaps. But in my opinion, that's the way it should be. Teams that come prepared, and designed a car that is quick to service / adjust, get to take advantage of it. Teams that are unprepared and designed bad adjustment systems have to run the same compromised setups for both events.

If anything the rules should do more to reward quick adjustments & penalize teams that can't. For example, change skidpad so that teams only run it in 1 direction. Each team is told which direction when they enter the dynamic area, and they have 5 minutes to change their car setup before they have to push the car in line and stop working on it. It rewards teams that 1) Understand asymmetric vehicle setup and can think outside the typical FSAE box to optimize their car for a certain direction 2)Designed a car with quick & easy adjustments, and 3)Were organized & prepared enough to practice the setup changes before the event.

Alumni

04-19-2017, 06:13 AM

I agree with most of your ideas, except for allowing extra time for setup changes between skidpad & accel. There is enough time already, if you have the adjustments planned out and have practiced them once or twice. My last year as a student I changed damper settings, tire pressure, camber, wing flap positions, ride heights, front & rear toe between skidpad and accel. Other years we were more disorganized and unprepared, and we could only manage to change tire pressures and wing flaps. But in my opinion, that's the way it should be. Teams that come prepared, and designed a car that is quick to service / adjust, get to take advantage of it. Teams that are unprepared and designed bad adjustment systems have to run the same compromised setups for both events.

If anything the rules should do more to reward quick adjustments & penalize teams that can't. For example, change skidpad so that teams only run it in 1 direction. Each team is told which direction when they enter the dynamic area, and they have 5 minutes to change their car setup before they have to push the car in line and stop working on it. It rewards teams that 1) Understand asymmetric vehicle setup and can think outside the typical FSAE box to optimize their car for a certain direction 2)Designed a car with quick & easy adjustments, and 3)Were organized & prepared enough to practice the setup changes before the event.

I don't disagree, my thinking is more along the lines of nudging teams in the direction of doing so. I could have worded it better.

Throwing a wrench in the works for some events as you mention could be interesting as well. I'm not sure what events you could add (split-mu braking anyone?) but it'd be cool to see some more options that competitions could choose from like baja. Announce which events you'll run a month before competition.

Charles Kaneb

06-08-2017, 08:59 AM

A little preview of what you can do with eight horsepower.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFku5vz9EXY

It won't go to Lincoln this year for logistical reasons.

MCoach

06-08-2017, 09:40 PM

Charles,

On a similar note, the simplicity, speed, and insanity of Outlaw Karts have captured my heart recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8MBIK1V06cts

06-10-2017, 12:19 AM

Charles,

I especially like the vibrant shade of brown you have chosen for the paint job! :)

Your video certainly shows that quick laps on twisty tracks are more about corner speed than horsepower.

Can you give us some overall specs of the kart, perhaps to help students doing overall concept simulations?

For example (just in round numbers):
1. Overall Mass (with or w/o driver), and Rear%.
2. Track-width, Wheelbase, and CG-Height.
3. Engine Capacity, Power (8 hp, but at crank, or wheel?), and Peak-Revs.
4. Overall Gear-Ratio (crank/wheel), and Rear-Tyre-OD.
5. I assume Aero-DownForce (CL.A) is close to zero, but any idea of CD.A?

Students can then plug these numbers into their simulator (or download something like OptimumLap), and then try to justify the need for a ~100 hp turbocharged-tyre-shredder to power their car!

Students can assume same tyre-Mus on both types of car. Or, more realistically, a higher Mu on the LIGHTER, smaller-engined car.

Z

06-10-2017, 01:10 AM

Charles,

On a similar note, the simplicity, speed, and insanity of Outlaw Karts have captured my heart recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8MBIK1V06cts

MCoach,

Some specs on these would also be good.

Better yet, bring one to Lincoln!

Z

MCoach

06-10-2017, 06:52 PM

MCoach,

Some specs on these would also be good.

Better yet, bring one to Lincoln!

Z

They are very popular with the top level national racers when they have a spare moment to do so.
They are also very popular with drivers trying to advance into sprint cars as they handle very similarly.

Specs:
Mass: Minimum kart and driver weight is 450lbs (204kg) total (with fuel).
Track width: adjustable from about 38-46" (965 - 1168mm), depends on kart manufacturer
Wheelbase: adjustable from 41-43" (1041 - 1092mm)
Rear Gear : 13-15 tooth drive gear, 23 - 75 tooth driven axle gear
Engine: Open class, 550cc 2 or 4 stroke engine (both have same displacement), typically make 85-100hp (63 - 75kW) at the crank. Peak rev is typically 8-12k rpm.
Tires: different for each corner and variable from slick or treaded and 11x5-6 to 12x9-6 (diameter x width - wheel diameter)
Brakes: One rear brake on the rear axle and one left front wheel. The right front does not use a brake.
Frame: standard oval racing offset chassis with a cage made from 3/4" x 0.083" tubing. The cage is sprung from the kart via 4 valve / die springs at each corner.
CG:I'd estimate the CG is 55% left side weight, and about 12-18" (457mm) high due to the wing height, driver height, and upright driver seating position.

Aero:
CLA and CD are hard to quantify but there is also attention to CLS that is needed.
Most people are familiar with coefficient of lift and coefficient of drag, but many are not familiar with coefficient of side force or literally Fy from aero forces which this generates a lot of.

Either way, it is a single element giant wing with asymmetrical end plates. Throw some numbers in simulation.

The wing is adjustable in angle of attack via a push-pull cable from the driver and is directly mounted to the cage. This in effect means that the chassis is unsprung mass, but the wing and roll cage is sprung mass.
Interestingly changing these springs change how the karts fundamentally handle.

Cost:
The top-of-the-line open kart chassis is available for about $4500 without motor. Race built motors tend to run $1-5000 depending on the quality and reputation.
Used, these karts can be found for $2-8000 with motor.

Charles Kaneb

06-12-2017, 05:57 PM

Z,

Quick stats on the kart, in English units because that's what my tape measure uses.

1) With driver, 150# front, 222# rear, 60% rear. Without driver 182#.
2) Front overall width 45 1/4", rear overall width 51 1/2", wheelbase 41", c.g. height estimated at 6". Measurement of CG height difficult due to small value and unwillingness to get dumped on my head on my garage floor.
3) 12.5 cubic inch displacement, clutch engagement at 3300 RPM, 8 horsepower (crank on pessimistic dynamometer at Briggs and Stratton) at 5500 RPM, redline 6100 rpm.
4) Single reduction by chain drive, 15t driving sprocket concentric with crankshaft, 59t driven sprocket concentric with rear axle. 34" rear tire circumference WHEN STATIONARY.
5) With downforce-generating bumpers and sidepods removed, I lose about 15# and am about 0.5% slower than without. CdA is about 5 square feet, estimated from speeds at a different track.

06-13-2017, 09:22 PM

MCoach, Charles,

Thanks for the specs.

I would really like to see students simulating the above cars, on typical Autocross tracks, to compare laptimes with the super-uber-mini-F1-style cars of their dreams.

Then, of course, the students should also factor in Cost, build-time, and reliability, to see which is the more sensible direction to go ... assuming they WANT TO WIN!

Hmmm..., thinking, thinking... idea!!!
~o0o~

Claude,

How would you feel about hosting a "Virtual FS World Championship"?

Teams would logon to your website and use OptimumLap to design a car, which then sets a laptime on a given Autocross track. Only one entry allowed per registered FS/FSAE Team.

The tricky bit is that each car is also assessed by a secret formula that gives it a score for "Cost/Build-time/Reliability", with lower score = better. This discourages the Teams from choosing minimum mass + maximum power +++, etc. Typically, a 100 hp engine is much more costly (and raises minimum selectable mass), than a 10 hp engine. Uber-aero-numbers have longer development time than middle-of-road numbers, so are more "costly" because less testing time, and so on. But exact details of the formula are not given, reflecting the fact that even professionals struggle to predict exact costs and finish times when "pushing-the-envelope".

Then, at the end of the year, or end of a given "competition period", the secret "Cost" score is added to each entry's laptime in seconds, and lowest total score is crowned "OptimumG's Virtual FS World Champion"!!!

The Cost-formula is now revealed, to show students how stupidly expensive they were in their design decisions. The next year (or next comp-period) the track is changed, setting a different "problem" to be solved, and the "Cost" formula is tweaked to reflect those different conditions.

This idea may need thinking through? Maybe..., build it, test it, improve, repeat?
~o0o~

MCoach,

BTW, yes, those aero-sideforces certainly are useful. I see some big opportunities here that no team has yet exploited.

(Big hint: Flat-plates are nowhere near as good as cambered-aerofoils. And vertical cambered-aerofoils that can switch camber from left to right-side, as needed, are ancient prior-art.)

Z

Tim.Wright

06-14-2017, 04:19 AM

Erik - such a virtual FSAE thing already exists: VI-Grade Virtual Formula (http://www.vi-grade.com/index.php?pagid=event_det&eid=73)

tim_pattinson

06-14-2017, 04:35 AM

Here's an outline for the "OptimumLap Virtual FS Champion 2018"
Suspension - Whatever's light. It's not modeled anyway so it just needs to connect the tires to the chassis and have them somewhat straight and vertical. All aluminium A-arms since it only needs to do one lap.
Chassis - Rules minimal spaceframe, mild steel
Engine - 80kw and flat torque from 2000-10000rpm, because I said so. Weighs 30kg.
Aero - Literally drives upside-down at 20km/h

You get the point.. without extensive validation (how? who?) this would be unfeasible. Who's going to check that the CAD density for steel isn't half what it should be.

One way you could make it work is to provide formulas for each part e.g. Engine is 0.75 kg/hp. You can buy a 1kg weight decrease for $1000
Of course once you settle on an acceptable set of numbers teams will cry out "Our engine is 20% lighter and 20% more powerful and we bought it for $1000 off Ebay".
Chances are something like this would be won by a simple script to search all possible configurations for the fastest/cheapest car - might take a week to compute but expect a couple of teams with the same setup

Maybe this still has value in showing there's more than one way to win, but it would require a lot of work to make an evenly balanced competition.

06-14-2017, 05:37 AM

Tim W,

Looks like I'm six months late.

Nevertheless, that VI comp seems similar to what I had in mind. Except it seems to be E-car only (I just had a quick look?), and it misses the important "Cost" component/discouragement (see below).

(And what happened to Adelaide? You came dead last!)
~o0o~

Tim P,

Read my paragraph beginning with "The tricky bit ...", and continuing with "This discourages the Teams from choosing minimum mass + maximum power +++ ...reflecting the fact that even professionals struggle to predict exact costs and finish times when "pushing-the-envelope"...".

The SECRET Cost formula I suggested is aimed directly at Teams who start the year dreaming of,

Engine - 80kw and flat torque from 2000-10000rpm, because I said so. Weighs 30kg.
Aero - Literally drives upside-down at 20km/h
... with these Teams invariably ending the year with a non-running car that scores zero dynamic points (ie. the core theme of this thread).

So, to do well in the Virtual contest, Teams have to be REALISTIC (perhaps even conservative) in their choice of mass, horsepower, aero, etc, lest their unexpected, but exorbitant, Cost-overruns cripple them.

Z

tim_pattinson

06-14-2017, 09:03 AM

Z,

How do you propose setting up this magic formula?
Historical data? - doubt it would be any use as I'd judge the skills of the team more important than their car concept.
A table of parts with costs and probabilities of failure? Still assumes that each team is essentially the same.

FSAE is more execution-dependent than design-dependent in my opinion. Take all the aero-13" wheel-cbr600 teams and plot their results. And all the Emrax-spaceframe-no aero teams. And probably the AMK 4wd, practically-drives-itself teams. I doubt you can find a winning concept, at least in AUS.

There are plenty of simple cars that fail as well as complicated ones. I doubt there's a real correlation in Australia.

From 2016 Aus scores. Teams that score higher in Cost tend to finish more dynamic events. However, R^2 = 0.23, and I'd wager that can be explained by cost penalties and cost task. Remove Western Sydney Uni, and the R^2 goes down to 0.18
1182

I think the lesson is that teams need to select a concept which is achievable with their budget, organisational skills and engineering skills. I'm sure Delft and AMZ etc could build great brown go karts, but i doubt they'd be more reliable, and definitely wouldn't score more points.
If you know you can pull off an ambitious concept, do it. If you don't - don't. That's what I think teams are lacking.
For example a certain team that designed half an EV, toured a 2015 car and built a 2016 car, another which built a (purple) EV and an IC, and one that built a (red) IC with wings and a fancy gearbox. All of them didn't do as well as they wanted to.

06-14-2017, 09:27 PM

Tim W,

I have looked a bit more at the VI-Grade comp, but it is taking me ages to download some of the stuff. So ... can you fill in some of the details?

The VF2017 Rules/Regs seem straightforward enough, only 4 pages! :)

The idea of competing in Accel, Skidpad, and Autocross events is also good, because it makes it harder to "optimise" a single vehicle design.

I also agree very much with the inclusion of a FUEL EFFICIENCY score (essentially a "Cost" on OTT designs), because it again makes it harder to find an "optimum". Just chasing maximum horsepower or biggest wings becomes counterproductive.

Question: I noticed that there are "cone penalties", so is this a "Driver-In-the-Loop" simulation? Something like the video games (GTA?)?

If so, then great, because that is the type of VD sim that I am now developing (slowly, in spare time). But my general proposal for a Virtual FS comp could also use the more conventional "computer drives the car" simulator.

I would also be interested to hear any other interesting details of how this went.

Anyone from Adelaide care to comment?
~o0o~

Tim P,

I sense much confusion in you.

It would help if you listen to (or read) what others have to say, and then CONSIDER such, before blurting out comments like "...doubt it would be any use...".

But you did get this bit right.

I think the lesson is that teams need to select a concept which is achievable with their budget, organisational skills and engineering skills.
Which is the theme of this thread.

Selecting "the right concept" is also the reason for doing good simulations, in that it is pointless aiming for an exotic, super-spec, car, when the sims show that a much simpler and quicker-to-build car, is very nearly as fast. And it uses less fuel, so it wins on points anyway!

Z

FrederikWe

06-15-2017, 03:49 AM

Dear Z,

I took the numbers of the Briggs Kart and did a Optimum Lap sim. I assumed a pretty flat torque curve with a maximum of 11 Nm. Coefficient of friction longitudinal was 1,5, lateral was 1,6. I estimated the downforce at 0,3 m² ClA.

The competitor was an average European Top10, all-wheel-drive, carbon everything, full aerodynamic package car with this specs:
car with driver: 265 kg
driven type: AWD
Engine: AMK DT5
CdA: 1,5 m²
ClA: 3 m²
tire radius: 0,225 m
longitudinal coefficent of friction: 1,4
lateral coefficent of friction: 1,5
torque peak: 112 Nm
peak power: 80 KW
Final drive: 13

I did a simulation of all FSG Dynamic Events, except that the Wet Pad was a Dry Pad.

Results:

Briggs Kart:
Skid Pad : 4,5s
Acceleration: 9,8s
Autocross: 87,5s
Endurance: 104,5s/lap

E-AWD:
Skid Pad: 4,8s
Acceleration: 3,4s
Autocross: 69,9
Endurance: 75,3s/lap

The lower CoG and track width were unregarded, because of point mass calculation. Both would surely play in favor for the kart. For a event points calculation i assumed the Kart setting the top time in Skid pad. The other top times were estimated with Delft-ish times. Efficiency was not considered.

In total the dynamic points for the Kart are: 108/575 (because for everything except skid pad it received only the points for completing)
The E-AWD dynamic points are: 493/575

Just looking at those numbers and looking at the speed plots I see, that the disadvantage in traction and weight of the E-AWD is almost completely compensated by downforce. So what makes the difference between those two is the amount of power the E-AWD is putting out. But interpret it for yourself. 1184
I don't think a Kart could be somewhere near competitive. I agree that the simplicity and radical reduction on necessary parts only is something many students can learn from Karts when they have super fancy electrically adjustable titanium blade ARB's in mind. But a Kart itself would be nothing which could win anything (let alone all the modifications which had to be done to make it rules compliant).

Also adressing the other points you stated:

Cost: A lot of the parts we use came in through sponsoring, In our experience, it is pretty hard to find a sponsor which purely gives you money. It is way easier to get materials, parts or machining time for free, than cash. So the best materials/parts we can get for free will make their way into the car. If there is somebody that will make us titanium bolts, I don’t see any argument why we should not say thank you and take them. They do the same job and safe almost a kg on the car even though they would be ridiculously expensive if bought. On our teams savings account they cost zero.

In case there are two or more possibilities to choose from, for example a cheap and heavy cardan joint and an expensive fancy motorsport joint or in a another example different qualitites of carbon fibres, where you would have to compensate the lower mechanical abilities with more material to pass the SES, I do a simple “return of investment” calculation. When technical features are comparable and it comes down to costs vs weight, I have a number what every saved gramm is worth to us. This number depends on our overall budget and varies from year to year, for example 1€/gramm. This would mean that if we could save 10 kg on our existing design through higher quality/lighter material, it would be worth 10.000€. This is not based on actual numbers, just to give an impression of the way of thinking.

To be able to fund your car it is a game of give and take with your sponsor to keep them on board. When I think about what we can give them I have a list of 4 points:
- Good results and a neat looking car, so they see their logo well represented
- Impress them with the performance of our car on sponsor driving days, to activate the emotional side
- Impress them with knowledge and state of the art technology so they might want to invest in you
- Co-development of new technologies/materials/software they also benefit

My point is, if you build a, like you call it, kind of mini-F1-style car you get access to sponsors who will help to make this possible for you. So this is not a cost question. If you have the option to use high-tech materials and electronics which give you a competitive edge you take it and say thank you. The weekend racer idea is dead. At least in Europe the majority of the teams is purely performance/innovations driven.

I was just talking real money in the last three paragraphs, because I think the majority of FS people would agree that cost report money doesn’t mean anything. The number in your cost report doesn’t have anything to do with real costs and also has no parallelism to the real costs. But that’s a different story. FSG realized, that letting students calculate the costs of their vehicle in a report which takes 45 min to print and therefore is impossible to be thoroughly inspected by the judges is pure bollocks and only promotes fiddling the figures.

Build-time: Having a top level aero kit doesn’t need to stretch your development time in my opinion. The top aero teams did not get there in one year. It is usually a “let’s take lasts years aero and increase downforce or efficiency closer to our target values” kinda approach. Like probably all teams, we have a design freeze. This marks the freeze of airfoils to be able to send the mold data to our manufacturing partners. While this happens, further optimizations of aero balance, AoA, gaps, vaines, plates and gurneys can be done without risking trouble in the overall time table.

Reliability: I’m not quite sure how you judge the reliability potential of a concept, but a pure comparison of weight to power seems a bit too easy for me. In don’t have any statistics to back this up, but if I look at the DNF’s at events I would guess that it’s above 50% a CAD/manufacturing/assembly issue. So the initial concept was perfectly fine, it was just mistake of one person not doing their job properly, like bolts which weren’t properly fastened, stress raising edges, bad welding, wrong positioning of BOTS, aero positioning out of the designated areas, wrong power limits at e-cars, wrong engine mapping resulting in too much noise. Also for e-cars a lot of electrical issues were the cause for DNF’s, which don’t have anything to do with weight.
Personally I would much rather try to keep the reliable and good performing parts from last season and only do detail work on them so you can shift focus on parts with bigger issues to really optimize reliability and performance. In think it’s often the missing work on the details like tolerances, friction, deflection and all the little small side effects nobody thought of, which can cause a good concept to not work as it should. For us this was often the case when we tried something completely new or to radically optimize systems which were already good.

- Freddy

tim_pattinson

06-15-2017, 06:47 AM

Freddy,
Care to post your OptimumLap files?
I'd be interested to add in a 2wd EV and aero IC car
If you don't want to give up the track files we can use this one:
1186

theTTshark

06-15-2017, 08:06 AM

Well done Freddy. I think you've hit the nail on the head right there.

MCoach

06-15-2017, 03:05 PM

Freddy,
Care to post your OptimumLap files?
I'd be interested to add in a 2wd EV and aero IC car
If you don't want to give up the track files we can use this one:
1186

If these are added, add 4wd IC car. You'll like what you see.

Downforce > all. The power is just there to get you from one corner to the next.

06-15-2017, 09:48 PM

Freddy,

Thank you very much for bringing numbers to the forum.

What I find most interesting is how "close" the Briggs-Kart is to the E-AWD. The Briggs has LESS THAN ~7% of the power, but is still ~70+% as fast as the E-AWD.

Also worth pointing out that a very simple kart frame can take much more power and still work well. MCoach's Outlaw-karts (specs given earlier) have similar power to your E-AWD, but significantly less mass. And I recall seeing somewhere that these karts sometimes run the Jawa speedway bike engines (= 500 cc air-cooled single with 80+ hp)...

So, could you run one more kart simulation, with power somewhere between Charles' 8 hp Briggs and MCoach's 80+ hp Outlaw? :)

What I have in mind for the engine is the JUNIOR JAWA. This is a 250 cc, sleeved and short-stroked, version of the "Senior" Jawa, intended for under-16 year old boys starting speedway racing (the t-shirt reads "No brakes, no gears, NO FEAR!").

The conservative specs on this engine are 30+ Nm up to ~10 krpm, giving 30+ kW (many quote ~45 hp), and 12 krpm redline. This engine has "bare" mass ~25 kg, so make the total car+driver mass = 200 kg (up 30 kg from Charles' car). This should cover the bigger wheels, mandatory safety stuff, etc., of FS cars.

If I were to build this car (which I am sure could go under 130 kg dry in "all-steel" version), then I would fit it with a two-speed gear-box, with low GR = ~15:1, high = ~9:1 (for the typical R = 225, 10" tyres). If you want to do it as a single-speed kart, then maybe GR = ~12:1.

My simulations of the 2-speed JJ-engined car, with ~65%R, suggest it can get just under 4 seconds in Acceleration, depending on set-up details such as ride-height, anti-squat, etc. A turboed version of the JJ (which has the same bottom-end as the 500 cc Jawa, so can take the same power), should comfortably beat the 3.4 seconds you have for the E-AWD (ie. ~80 hp JJ in a RWD-only car).

Lastly, since 2005 I have always pushed the "brown go-kart, WITH AERO-UNDERTRAY". As MCoach repeated above, the whole point of building a simple (= "no-bling" = "brown"), lightweight (= "go-kart" style) car, is that the lower the mass, the more cornering-Gs can be leveraged from any given level of aero-downforce.

So, to start with some conservative, round numbers, could you model this car with CD.A = 0.5 m^2 and CL.A = 2 m^2. I reckon a lot more DF can be had with a good undertray, and possibly less drag (for less Fuel usage). But that might entail a bigger "Cost" risk. Chasing higher numbers first time around means more time taken for design, and more fiddly aero parts to make, so much later build-finish, so less time for durability testing, so bits start falling-off at comp, so (maybe) LOSE MANY POINTS.

(I was going to have a long rant about "Cost" = "Risk". No time now, but deep thinking students might want to read Sun Tzu's "Art of War", Chapter 4.)

Anyway, the above "2-speed Junior-Jawa FS-car/kart with aero-undertray" would be relatively easy and cheap to build. And it should also have exceptionally good fuel economy.

But ... HOW FAST IS IT? :)

Z

rory.gover

06-15-2017, 11:02 PM

Z's JJ does FSAE-A 2016 track at a 86.7 sec pace (with equiv. R25Bs 10" on 8" wide rims). Fuel consumption is estimated 0.144 L/lap. Concerns here are the 2.0 m^2 to 0.5 m^2 ratio (L/D = -4, okey dokey), as well as the added complexity of a non-integral gearbox and turbo doesn't seem to me as typically "brown".
http://i.imgur.com/dhi5Mkt.png

Interestingly, the single speed 12:1 ratio does a 86.9 sec lap, even though limited to about 77 km/h, and fuel usage plummets to below 0.13 L/lap. With a more readily achieved L/D (~2), results don't get too much worse.
http://i.imgur.com/Ix2OzzH.png

These are pretty well comparable with the numbers you get from a 190 kg (+ driver) with a big single or twin with more achievable aero targets. Fuel mileage may vary. N.b. you need a well-trained driver to get these results, the sim is spec driven rather than design driven etc. Didn't take into account that JAWA burn Methanol, so there's that.

Tim.Wright

06-16-2017, 11:02 AM

Charles Kaneb

06-26-2017, 05:59 PM

Freddie,

Thank you for the simulation. Looking at the output graphs I notice two things:

1) I do not think I'd bring a 15/59 gearset to a competition featuring courses like that. I'd aim to hit the rev limiter at the end of two or three of the straights. Would a 15/64 reduction, giving me about 10% more acceleration, change anything?
2) Even in <30 km/h corners, my kart is shown to have no cornering speed advantage. The point-mass simulator uses a single low-speed maximum lateral acceleration figure to represent all effects on the car (grip losses through roll and weight transfer, the need to use the grip to perform work to change the rotational kinetic energy on turn-in) etc. 1.5g is in concession-kart tire territory; on a "green" surface I get 1.9-2 g midcorner. Can you plot sensitivity to this?

Even if a FSAE car built along these lines can't use an MG Yellow tire, the tires used for a light car are very load-sensitive and on something that light would be well over 1.5 warm.

Sincerely,

Charles

FrederikWe

06-27-2017, 02:20 AM

Charles, Z,

sorry for just making one statement and then stop replying to the thread.
I'm quite involved with the Setup of our 2017 car and right now pretty busy with fixing understeer Problems.

If i find time, i'll update the results with some other cars and also your finetuning of the Kart.

BillCobb

06-27-2017, 10:31 PM

I'm quite involved with the Setup of our 2017 car and right now pretty busy with fixing understeer Problems.

This refers to a FSAE car or your Kart ? If it's the FSAE car, a discussion about this situation would be interesting to the Peanut Gallery as well as the players.

06-30-2017, 09:39 PM

... I'm quite involved with the Setup of our 2017 car and right now pretty busy...

Freddy,

Take your time.

I know exactly how you feel. (Sighhh ... now to repeat yet again details of rising/falling-rates on other thread...)

Z

noah

07-30-2017, 03:31 PM

Tim W,

I have looked a bit more at the VI-Grade comp, but it is taking me ages to download some of the stuff. So ... can you fill in some of the details?

The VF2017 Rules/Regs seem straightforward enough, only 4 pages! :)

The idea of competing in Accel, Skidpad, and Autocross events is also good, because it makes it harder to "optimise" a single vehicle design.

I also agree very much with the inclusion of a FUEL EFFICIENCY score (essentially a "Cost" on OTT designs), because it again makes it harder to find an "optimum". Just chasing maximum horsepower or biggest wings becomes counterproductive.

Question: I noticed that there are "cone penalties", so is this a "Driver-In-the-Loop" simulation? Something like the video games (GTA?)?

If so, then great, because that is the type of VD sim that I am now developing (slowly, in spare time). But my general proposal for a Virtual FS comp could also use the more conventional "computer drives the car" simulator.

I would also be interested to hear any other interesting details of how this went.

Anyone from Adelaide care to comment?
~o0o~

Tim P,

I sense much confusion in you.

It would help if you listen to (or read) what others have to say, and then CONSIDER such, before blurting out comments like "...doubt it would be any use...".

But you did get this bit right.

Which is the theme of this thread.

Selecting "the right concept" is also the reason for doing good simulations, in that it is pointless aiming for an exotic, super-spec, car, when the sims show that a much simpler and quicker-to-build car, is very nearly as fast. And it uses less fuel, so it wins on points anyway!

Z

Sorry I'm late, but a little on the Vi-Grade Competition. My team participated last year and full disclosure is partnered with Vi-Grade for software access. It was a very enjoyable competition, although it was hard to get members engaged as most were focused on the physical car (I was the only one from the team who directly participated.). The program has DIL capability, my team and I are are working on fully implementing it. The competition itself does not use dil, the cone penalties are for the car driving off the designated path. If you (or anyone) has any specific questions about that competition feel free to ask.

Noah