about the design report

[JM-Cho]

hi guys.
My team aim to FSAE competition for the first time this year. So I don't know how to prepare the design report.
Would you mind tell me how to prepare the design report and what I have to do

대한남아

[JM-Cho]

hi guys.
My team aim to FSAE competition for the first time this year. So I don't know how to prepare the design report.
Would you mind tell me how to prepare the design report and what I have to do

대한남아

[All Wheeler]

We got each member of our team to prepare a few lines detailing the specifications of their systems. For example:
Suspension:
*configuration
*Motion ratio
*Spring rate
Drive system:
*layout
*Final drive ratios
*what differential used
Chassis:
*Space frame or monocoque
*gusseted or not
*Expected Torsional rigidity
Engine:
*What type
*What control system
*Any modifications
Steering
*What configuration
*Steering ratios
*How much Ackermann

etc etc
Our team manager then edited and arranged the information into a section on the overall specifications and system design, and then each section separately.
Hope this helps a bit.
Dou

[All Wheeler]

Why does this thing keep leaving off the last letter of my name?
Doug

[All Wheeler]

It didn't just then!
Doug

[JM-Cho]

Thanks for your answer.
That was so much help me
Good luck to your team.

대한남아

[PatClarke]

I know I have said this before, but I am going to say it again.

Your Design Review is the document that tells one group of engineers (The judges) what another group of engineers (the team) are trying to achieve.

Believe me, from a Judge's point of view, this document is CRITICAL!!!

Judges read the DRs before they see the cars. The DR is your first opportunity to set a good impression of your car into the judges mind. First impressions count. I promise you that without a good DR, the chances of getting into the design semis is limited indeed.
I wrote an article on this subject for the Australian newsletter a while ago. (Go to the Aussie site and find the newsletters. They are still posted)
The worst sin in the design review is to prattle on about nothing in particular, and to speak down to the judges. Thery don't want to know what you have done, they want to know WHY you did it. They can see what your car is, particularly from the required drawings. This tells you you should have extremly legible drawings, preferably line art, and with all the working details shown where possible. Don't muddy the drawing up with anything more than minimal dimensioning. The rules don't require an isometric drawing or individual drawings of components or assemblies, but the good DRs have them. Remember the old saying 'A picture is worth 1000 words'?
The Judges hate statements like "We optimised the suspension geometry" Or "The best compromise was made in..." Etc. They want to know what compromises you have made, and more importantly..Why those compromises were made.

I know I harp on on this, but I have spent 17 hpurs sitting on an Airplane reading shi**y DRs, and it's no coincidence that the good reviews came from the winning teams.
PDR

I thought I made an error once, but I was mistaken

[Hsoj]

Suddenlee (Pat),

since each team is required to turn in the design spec sheet with the dr, do you recommend hindering how much spec info you put into the actual report and concentrate mainly on design philospy and compromises? Do the design judges want to see all that stuff again is does it just become redudant? After reading your article, Carroll's document and a review from a design judge of our 03 dr, I got the impression that any info needs to be pics, graphs, figures and/or tables. Also, is there any other sources you would recommend on design review format and content?

Hsoj

[PatClarke]

Hello Hsoj,
Before the introduction of the specifications sheet, the Design Review had to tell the judges both the specifications of the car as well as design philosophy. Now, the DR only needs minimal specifications, and can be used to ensure the judges know what you intended to achieve with your design, and how you went about doing that. You need to express to the Judges your understanding of your design.
You need really good pictures that show your design. Not just the required three view drawings, but detail and break out drawings of sections you want the judges to appreciate.
If there are some special design features on your car, or something you feel the judges need to understand, then you have to lay that out specifically.
Try to keep your DR readable. A very 'dry' technical brief can be hard to read. I like to see the DR set out with columns, rather than being presented in 'essay' format.
Think about the font and font size you use. Remember, some of the Judges are no longer young, so a 12 point font is a good size, and a Font like Arial or Verdana are less 'fussy' than a serif font like Times New Roman'.
Don't pad the report, just to make up the number of pages. State your case and when you are finished you are finished, regardless of the number of pages. Do not go over the permitted number of pages, otherwise, the judges may simply stop reading at the last permitted page.
I know I have gone on about this over the years, but it really is important. It is highly unlikely a car will get to the semi finals unless it had a good Design Review.
PDR

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!

[Michael Jones]

...worthwhile to start all this now and get it through a few edits as well - not just from the team but ideally from others who'll appreciate and evaluate it as a good piece of technical writing. The last two I've been involved with have had at least four or five good edits, and they improve every time. Write the design brief in the last 12 hours before deadline at your own peril.

---
Michael Jones
Coordinator, Student Project Teams, College of Engineering

Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

[PatClarke]

Good Advice Michael,
I am coming across again in May as a Design Judge and I don't want to wade through three laptop batteries worth of dreadful Design Reviews like last year! The few pearls usually came from the teams that magically cropped up in the Design Semis. No Co-incidence, I suspect
PDR

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!

[Hsoj]

Thanx guys for all your advice.

Hsoj

[Dick Golembiewski]

Having waded through paper copies in 1999-2001, and CD-R's in 2002-3, let me add a few words to the discussion:

First, in all of that time, we've only seen a handful of excellent reports. Now, as a former faculty advisor, I'm well aware of what often happens. The FSAE design review has to be prioritized along with class work, work on the car itself, etc. Quite often it's left until the last minute. As a faculty advisor, I always offered to to review the reviews prior to their being shipped. (I could have insisted, but felt that it is up to the students as to whether or not they want to take that step.) Occasionally I actually did! The review doesn't count for anything formally in FSAE (as opposed to mini-baja), so it's easy to understand why students might blow it off.

On the other hand, there are two reasons why you might want to write a good review:

1. It's damned good practice for something you're going to be doing the rest of your careers (You may say that you've written enough reports in your academic career to qualify, but how many have you written for review by the judges of the competition you've sacrificed so much for?)

2. The design judges may be predisposed to cars which submit good reviews.

The latter warrants some explanation. You are judged on what you bring to the competition, i.e. your car as presented during the design event. However, it is not at all unusual for the judges to have to make some close calls - like who gets into the semi-finals. There can be a whole bunch of things which go into those decisions, and one of them could be the quality of the design review. (if you don't care, should the design judges?)

I understand that the detailed specification sheets are now distributed. that's great. However, I'd still like to see a few of them in a review.

I used to require the following of my students:

1. Overall Goal - One sentence stating just what you're trying to accomplish. (If you're honest about this, it tells us a lot. Seriously! Some teams don't have as their goal winning the competition. They want to gain experience with advanced composites, etc.)

2. Overall concept - This is 1-2 paragraphs (maximum), which provides an overall perspective of the design. If I don't see a good one, I often see a car which has a bunch of well-designed sub-systems, which have not been properly integrated into an overall design.

3. Performance targets and/or specifications. Acceleration from 0-100 yards, lateral acceleration (skidpad), turning radius, etc.

4. In the text (organized as you prefer) provide details of how YOUR design met the goals/targets. Don't just say "We optimized the camber gain and steering geometry", tell us how you did so, and specifically, what you wound up with in terms of those values. BE SPECIFIC.

5. One drawing or picture is worth a thousand descriptive words and one test is worth a thousand words of theory. I understand that the design judges are now provided with your formal specification sheets, but there are ways to efficiently work some of your specs. into your review.

6. Most of the drawings we get are TERRIBLE. We added the requirement for three views some years ago (Carroll and I spent quite a bit of time talking about it), but it hasn't helped many teams. What we want to see is an overall view of what the finished car will look like. You would be surprised at how many teams don't provide us with that. I'd like to see one with, and another without bodywork. That way I can gauge the overall asthetics as well as how all the various components have been packaged. be sure to add DIMENSIONS. It's an efficient way to provide us with specifications. We then want to see the other 3 views, with DETAILS of all of the components installed. Too often we get a solid model rendering of the vehicle with bodywork on, and that's it. We can't see any details. Even worse, we get a bare drawing of the frame, which tells us even less about the overall design. (I don't understand how you could build a car without such drawings, and as you might guess, a number of schools which submit poor ones never arrive at the competition.)

I'll echo Pat's comments re: layout, fonts, etc. Twenty-five years after I built my first SAE vehicle, I now need longer arms to see close-up (Something you all have to look forward to.), and squinting to read a hundred reports doesn't make me happy. Columns are ok, and some folks have used the layout guidelines published by the SAE for its papers.

Give us lots of detail (AFTER you've given us an overall view) as to what the design consists of. Don't try to baffle us with B.S. - we can see through that, and it doesn't help you.

Oh, one last item:

Some of us use your reviews when formulating questions to ask in the design event. If we don't see some of the items described above, or it looks like you're slinging B.S., we're likely to grill you for the answers. That's another reason to write a good review.

- Dick Golembiewski

[This message was edited by Dick Golembiewski on February 09, 2004 at 08:50 PM.]

[Dick Golembiewski]

...and echoing Pat's previous comments:

Tell us WHY you did what you did.

When I say add dimensions to your drawings, I don't mean every single detail dimension. There are however, some that logically belong on your drawings, like wheelbase, track widths, ground clearance, overall height, etc.

- Dick Golembiewski

[Denny Trimble]

Pat and Dick, we appreciate your feedback! I was wondering how rigid the rules are on design report format. The rules state:

"This report must not exceed eight (8) pages, consisting of not more than four pages of text, three pages of drawings (see 4.5.2.1, "Vehicle Drawings"�) and one optional page containing content to be defined by the team (photo's, graphs, etc...). "

And:
"The Design Report must include one set of 3 view drawings showing the vehicle, from the front, top, and side. Each drawing shall appear on a separate page."

So, my specific questions are:
1) Can we include small figures (graphs, illustrations) in the four pages of "text"?
2) Are the three pages of "vehicle drawings" limited to strictly the front, top, and side views?

Thanks for your help!

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

[PatClarke]

Hi Denny,
Yes you can 'illustrate' your text, and the three angle views requested are a minimum.
I would always include an isometric drawing!
Your pages are limited though to the number in the rules.
Again, a picture is worth 1000 words
PDR

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

[Dick Golembiewski]

I'll echo Pat's remarks - although I haven't been involved in the rules writing process since 1994, so you might want to make an official inquiry! (Pat, you're on the rules committee, right?)

- Dick

[PatClarke]

Sure am, Dick
PDR

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy