Design Competition

[Richard Lewis]

Greetings all. I am hoping to start a little discussion here on the design event, with the hopes that maybe we can be heard and things can be changed slightly.

I attended my first FSAE competition in 2002, and was generally happy with things. (except the weather and how it was dealt with, but that is another topic) However, I was quite dissapointed with the way the design judging was done. Now I realize that it is the only subjective category at this competition and as a result, its most likely to see complaints. None, the less, here are some things I think could be improved upon.

1) Point system. I'd like to see a wider variety of points awarded for design. giving one team 150, 140, and then grouping 60 teams together with the same score doesn't tell those teams much.

2) Feedback. The teams (or stewards) should be allowed to look at the comments from the design judges after their score is awarded. At least in the design finals this is done. (via the mic)

3) Confusion in the tent. In my opinion there should be a very limited number of people in the design tent. 2-4 representatives from the team, and the judges. That is all. I had a hard time picking out judges from onlookers at last years competition.

Those are the big ones for me. I realize that for feedback we can try to track down the judges and talk to them, but that turned out not to be an easy task at all. Maybe judges can wear a big red hat or something next year... /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Richard Lewis]

Greetings all. I am hoping to start a little discussion here on the design event, with the hopes that maybe we can be heard and things can be changed slightly.

I attended my first FSAE competition in 2002, and was generally happy with things. (except the weather and how it was dealt with, but that is another topic) However, I was quite dissapointed with the way the design judging was done. Now I realize that it is the only subjective category at this competition and as a result, its most likely to see complaints. None, the less, here are some things I think could be improved upon.

1) Point system. I'd like to see a wider variety of points awarded for design. giving one team 150, 140, and then grouping 60 teams together with the same score doesn't tell those teams much.

2) Feedback. The teams (or stewards) should be allowed to look at the comments from the design judges after their score is awarded. At least in the design finals this is done. (via the mic)

3) Confusion in the tent. In my opinion there should be a very limited number of people in the design tent. 2-4 representatives from the team, and the judges. That is all. I had a hard time picking out judges from onlookers at last years competition.

Those are the big ones for me. I realize that for feedback we can try to track down the judges and talk to them, but that turned out not to be an easy task at all. Maybe judges can wear a big red hat or something next year... /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Dick Golembiewski]

The reason the points are awarded the way they are is that we have such a limited amount of time in the first round. If we don't have an open slot, we get approximately 20-25 minutes to judge your design. About the best we can do is come to a consensus on various categories. We put those on paper, and then have to move on to the next car. At the end of the first round, we then categorize each car we've seen into one of 4-5 groups. Group 1 advances to the semi-finals, all cars judged to be in the next tier receive the same number of points, etc. That is the most equitable way we have found to judge 120 cars in eight hours. Remember, we have 8 different design cues, with different judges in each cue. We have hard graders and easy graders. This system eliminates any advantage or disadvantage in being assigned to a particular cue.

We then get to judge all of the semi-finalists that evening. Like you folks, we put in a long day on Thursday. Many of us meet for breakfast at 6:00, are in the design tent by 7:00, and start judging at 8:00. This past may we didn't get out of the grounds until after midnight

[Dick Golembiewski]

(Continued)

As you may guess, that doesn't leave us much time to provide feedback. All of us are willing to do so, but you have to find us. That first day is far too packed for us to write down much in the way of comments.

I've provided many a feedback session. About half are to schools from my design cue, while the other half are for teams who know me from my posts or as a judge from previous years.

Advice: Make sure you know who your judges were and make a point of asking them to review your car sometime during the weekend. Many of us can be found wandering the paddock or watching cars on the track (or practice area). I make a point to concentrate on cars which are in the finals (when watching cars on the track), and usually seek them out to read their tires, etc., when they finish an event.

[Charlie]

I felt the same way after the 2001 competition. How can there only be 5-6 classes of cars below semifinals? Seems unfair to all the design work the teams go through.

But after talking to some judges this year, I understand why it is done that way. There is just no way for different judges to rate cars equally in a broader point range. The only fair way to properly rank without ties would be to have the same judge/judges do it, and that is simply impossible. The scope of the competition is just too large.

Paul Van Valkenburgh was one of our design judges, and we caught up with him the next day, He spent well over 30 minutes with us, and we very much appreciated his input.

Look at the point spread in the Design event. The focus is much more lopsided to the dynamic events. Design is for bragging rights, and yes, it is the point of the competition to have a well-designed car. But we can't really ask much more of the judges than we already do. They spend a lot of time rating the cars that make semifinals and finals. Focus on getting you car to that level if you want that kind of attention. (FWIW we didn't make semis last year either)

[Richard Lewis]

All good points. I guess the scope of this competition does make things very challanging.

Hopefully next year we will have a bit more time to hang around the design tent and learn to recognise judges, so that we can track them down when we see them... As many teams did, we had a busy 5 days just making sure our car could compete in all the events.

Thanks for the input guys.


-------------------------
UVIC Formula SAE Team
http://members.shaw.ca/drax77/UVICFSAEcar.jpg
http://www.engr.uvic.ca/~fsae