2017 Formula Student UK

[BeunMan]

Since it starts today:

http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/formula-student-2017-is-finally-here

They have an app:
https://fslive17.insightmobilecms.co.uk/splash

You can use the web page with a note: DONT USE KNOWN PASSWORDS as they are send plaintext to the server, even if it is a https page.
https://fslive17.insightmobilecms.co.uk/web/login
with username pw:
public@imeche.org/ silverstone

Which is nice.

Timetable: http://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/1-oscar/formula-student/fs_2017_eg_01_02_timetable_04.pdf?sfvrsn=2
As expected: Cost/Design/Business on Friday, Skidpad+Acceleration 09:00-12:00 GMT+1 and AutoX 13:15-18:00 GMT+1, Endurance Sunday.

[JurrienK]

Website with a lot of (unofficial) results:
http://fsstats.co.uk/index.php
Also live scrutineering status of cars.

[Z]

Website with a lot of (unofficial) results:
http://fsstats.co.uk/index.php
Very few cars under 200 kg. :(

But Lund did pique my interest.

http://fsstats.co.uk/images/FS2017/teams/7/IMG_2782.jpg

Clearly some ECU inspiration there. :)

(Edit: To clarify, a beam-axle rear, and DASDs all round.)

Z

[Fyhr]

Here is a decent overview of the axle.

Results so far:
8th design, 49 cost, 9 business, 7 skid (3rd best time 5.2x had cones), 15 the accel (poor for the car, has run 4.1), 4 Sprint.

Shoot any questions and I'll direct a guy this way.

We're going to Germany too.

[Fyhr]

A very unofficial points summary here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4HO3O6GTjFlclpkbkRPbUNtYlE/view?usp=drivesdk

[JulianH]

Sadly it was the expected level of competition.
Congrats to the winning team, probably Brimingham(?), but if we compare it to the amazing performances at FSEast, this is a really sad day for FSUK and for all Formula Student in Germany.

I fear that this divide could continue with the new rules being introduced at UK that probably will not match the "FS Rules" of the rest of Europe's competitions and the new Autonomous Class that is also different from FSG.

What do you guys think about a student/alumni-led discussion with the organizers of FSG and FSUK?
I think it cannot be the goal to have a (sorry) 3rd tier competition in the UK so that they have the whole track empty for "fun racing" in the afternoon of Endurance because there are not enough teams to show up... UK is supposed to be Number 2 in Europe and I would love to see the good teams coming back to Silverstone.

I know that the organizers say that they "don't care about Delft, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, GFR and Zurich competing" at their event but this is a horrible thing in my opinion. FS will suffer.

Maybe we could pull off some 5-10 bullet points of the "Future of FS Europe" before FSG and have a sit down with the two organizers?

WDYT?

[Pat Clarke]

Julian, I have to disagree, it was a great competition. Won narrowly by Cardiff from Birmingham and Karlstad.

Certainly, the high end cars from the continent were missed, but the top end of the UK cars was still very high!
(Though I do agree 'The pond was fairly shallow').

No-one is happy with the schism and I don't believe the UK people ever said they 'didn't care' about the high quality visitors.

Don't forget. the event is an educational event with a motorsport theme, so the actual cars don't matter much in the big scheme of
things as long as the event has been a positive experience for those involved. And I think it is safe to say it was.

Pat

[noah]

[QUOTE=JulianH;127513
I think it cannot be the goal to have a (sorry) 3rd tier competition in the UK so that they have the whole track empty for "fun racing" in the afternoon of Endurance because there are not enough teams to show up... UK is supposed to be Number 2 in Europe and I would love to see the good teams coming back to Silverstone.
[/QUOTE]

What do you mean when you say "whole track empty for "fun racing"? "

[JulianH]

Pat,

thanks for the feedback.

Can you please elaborate "in which way" it was a great competition?
To be fair, I only observed it from the outside, but some points that question the "greatness":
1) There were only 75 teams vs. >120 from previous years.
2) No "Central / Western Europe teams" which destroyed a bit of the "diversity aspect" of FS. It was basically a UK championship with some Swedish/Spanish support teams.
3) 13 teams finished all dynamic events... 13(!)
4) Bath was running on fire without anyone signaling them although there was an incredible amount of smoke coming out of the car.. looked rather dangerous.
5) I know that it does not really matter if the cars are awesome. And that it is about the learning experience of project management and so on. But I do some job interviews right now and what the "lower tier teams" learn in FS is just less than what they do in the Top Teams. Sorry to burst that bubble but just stating FS on your resume and telling me "a well we used last years car, changed the shifter knob and called it the new and best in the world" is not really engineering for me.
6) If I look at FSEast, there were 4-5 Electric teams and 2 combustion teams (2 from Munich, 2 from Karlsruhe, 2 from Stuttgart, Delft and Zurich) running competitive and incredible comparable times at the top. At UK, Bath was 2 tenths up in Skid Pad.. not really close.
7) I do not know it from the current IMechE leadership, but I had some long talks with Fiona back when she was managing FSUK and she bluntly said that they do not care about fast and good teams and rather want UK talent for their sponsors so it is best if Bath and Co look good rather then if they get whipped by some Dutch guys day in and day out.


noah,
there was an anouncement from FSUK/IMechE about "we only have 40 cars to run Endurance, therefore we are finished by noon, we create a new event for extra endurance as we have the track the whole day".
https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/formula-student-special-event---fastest-lap-endurance-style


Maybe there are just too many competitions. Netherlands, Italy, East and UK within ~10 days is just not so good.

[BeunMan]

Well some nuance:
It's still a learning event (for the students), though more British commonwealth than truly international at this point. Weather this is good or not depends on the ultimate goal of the competition and guessing by the commentary it's clearly to support the UK mainland in which I think it succeeds (anyway, Celtic cup? west midlands best? come on Sam ...).
Though seeing some of the pictures from the design finals does raise some questions and far more does the 'it's but a scratch' approach to smoking cars but that is not something happening for the first time and is unlikely to be the last time it happens.
Some teams from the 'European mainland' will probably come to fsuk in the future which mixes the things up again. There are simply too many competitions at the same time and pooling is always an issue ('oh, this team goes there, then so will we' approach).
Increased competition does create better management, team building and most of the time better engineering practices but if the goal is to simply let students get a taste of building a FS car then every competition (official or not) gets to that goal. But considering the marketing as the biggest (and best) event in the world the goal was clearly missed to outside observers though maybe not to people on site. Though my experience is that marketing and engineering does not combine very well and that might just be what is happening here.

Some less nuance:
At lease some people finally got their British/UK winner and considering the top three it is for what I have seen deserved, though laptimes were considerably slower than under wet conditions some years before on this circuit (not the old one). Can we now at least stop the 'best [fill part of uk/uk as a whole in here] team' approach since a British team won?

Good points for outside observers I saw:
- Video with commentary (though bitrate and mpeg2 artifacts are some concern but you can't have everything)
- More clear scoring (due to 'unofficial sites')
- App of some sorts
- No messy DQ's
Less good points to an outside observer:
- Big split in laptimes
- Running a car on fire (smoke == fire about to happen or already happened)
- Everything has to love the UK since it is the best

But it was good fun to watch and follow, just like FSEast and FSItaly (at the same time all together).

[Thijs]

...but the top end of the UK cars was still very high!
None of the three teams that always quibble over who is the 'Best UK Team' managed to finish endurance.
None of the eventual top 3 were in the top 30 last year. We shouldn't judge the teams from this year by their predecessor's performance, but that's still a remarkable statistic.
More telling: on a comparable track, the fastest UK teams drove pretty comparable autocross times to what they did last year... when the fastest UK team came 20th, being a bit over 6 seconds slower than the fastest non-UK team.


I don't believe the UK people ever said they 'didn't care' about the high quality visitors
Maybe not, but actions speak louder, and the organizers have proven uniquely unresponsive to feedback over the years.

That being said, I wish them all the best, I always enjoyed coming to Silverstone.

[theTTshark]

Honestly, I didn't even know that FStudent UK was happening....

[JulianH]

I fully agree with Thijs here. UK was always part of my FS experience and although it was painful to drive to Silverstone, I would not miss the experiences we made there.
The 3 "UK Top Teams" were rather disappointing although Bath probably would have taken the pot if they would have taken the Pot if they would have finished Endurance. Not by a big margin though.

I think Birmingham and Cardiff amazingly used the chance to be part of FS history and I applaud this.

Trent,
I think your problem is that you follow only the "well-known" European teams on Facebook, Twitter and Co and all of them did not show up at Silverstone ;)

[Ahmad Rezq]

1195

Z

This one from Cairo University - which is nice try and i think they could do it better. they participated in FSAE Italy but unfortunately didn't score at the design event because the team almost didn't attend the event.
The car performance was very good but they failed the brakes test so the beam didn't show in the dynamics.

[mech5496]

FSUK was interesting to say the least. Big players boycotting, different ruleset and mixed classes already make it different than most FS events, which IMO is a bad thing. If this continues to grow, the question will be "attend FSUK or all the other EU FS comps" due to the massive differences also in scoring.

Indicative of the weirdness of the competition was the fact that my team came 10th overall while missing all dynamic events except endurance. Mixed class (EV & ICs) meant that we also got 30pts more than the 2nd one in efficiency, a benefit hard to have in an EV-only event.

PS: Very interesting that Lund car, will have the chance for an up-close inspection in FSG. DASD; we have those too, and they are (a small) part on how we made it to the cost finals with an electric car in a mixed class competition :P

[Ahmad Rezq]

3) 13 teams finished all dynamic events... 13(!)

The scores are very low compared to other competitions even compared to the same competition in the previous years.

[JulianH]

The scores are very low compared to other competitions even compared to the same competition in the previous years.

That is just due to the fact that there was no Top Team at the competition.
Top Teams score high in every competition. For example at FS Spain Electric last year, Karlsruhe came in 4th at 865points. Just due to the fact that Delft, Zurich and Stuttgart were also high scoring (919-911-883) throughout every discipline.

It shows a lack of competitiveness of the event if you can "get away" with low scorings in some disciplines and end up high.

[Fyhr]

I can't wait to read your reaction to the FSUK autonomous plans once they officially surface.

Meanwhile, here's a DASD, it consists of a Cane-creek double barrel, a threaded piece of aluminium, a carbon tube, another piece of aluminium, some hysol adhesive, some shims, a third piece of aluminium, a spherical bearing, two bolts two nuts and some washers.
And here's Hertfordshires take on the idea too!

[Z]

http://www.fsae.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1195&stc=1

Z

This one from Cairo University - ... i think they could do it better...

Ahmad,

I think the overall direction is good.

If you can get them to listen to some advice (always hard!), then I suggest you ask them NOT to think about what brilliant new stuff they can add next year, but rather to find things on this car that they can DELETE.

The radiator/water-cooling system is a good place to start, given that plenty of good air-cooled engines out there. :)

And whatever (fewer) parts remain should then be made more "compact", because this is the route to stiffer, stronger, lighter, cheaper, ... FASTER!

Then earlier build finish, so more testing, so no failure in Brake-Test.
~~~o0o~~~

Pontus,

I have had difficulty checking the results. It seems that Lund did not finish Enduro? What happened?

Oh, and despite the "impossibility" of DASDs that many experts were claiming a few years ago, it seems that quite a few teams are now figuring out how to fit that short extension to the damper-rod. :)

Z

[Fyhr]

Pontus,

I have had difficulty checking the results. It seems that Lund did not finish Enduro? What happened?



We ran into overtemperature protection on the battery management system (yes for 12 V) on lap 19. Sad, but preferable to a fire.