Ethics

[All Wheeler]

Hi there all. Just wondering what other peoples opinions of ethics in Formula SAE are. Many of us are studying to become engineers who have an obligation to the rest of the community to uphold strong values, yet I believe that the nature of the competition tempts students not to. For example, a team submits many of its components in the cost report at heavily discounted prices to minimise the overall cost of their vehicle. The cost report judges may not pick up on this, and no corresponding penalty applied, and yet a team that honestly scrutinises every process and component in their report may suffer a lower mark. Being an honest ethical engineering student, what do you do?
Submit an honest report, or attempt to maximise your marks.
Another example would be to get professionals to design or manufacture components, or develop processes that a student/team claim to be their own. No one would know!
I suppose my point is, that there is so much interest involved in this competition from both the student and the Educational institution, does this create unethical behaviour?
I'm interested to know what peoples feelings are on this issue, and any examples of unethical behaviour. Also any preventative or incentive measures that could be taken to maintain the integrity of the competitio

[All Wheeler]

Hi there all. Just wondering what other peoples opinions of ethics in Formula SAE are. Many of us are studying to become engineers who have an obligation to the rest of the community to uphold strong values, yet I believe that the nature of the competition tempts students not to. For example, a team submits many of its components in the cost report at heavily discounted prices to minimise the overall cost of their vehicle. The cost report judges may not pick up on this, and no corresponding penalty applied, and yet a team that honestly scrutinises every process and component in their report may suffer a lower mark. Being an honest ethical engineering student, what do you do?
Submit an honest report, or attempt to maximise your marks.
Another example would be to get professionals to design or manufacture components, or develop processes that a student/team claim to be their own. No one would know!
I suppose my point is, that there is so much interest involved in this competition from both the student and the Educational institution, does this create unethical behaviour?
I'm interested to know what peoples feelings are on this issue, and any examples of unethical behaviour. Also any preventative or incentive measures that could be taken to maintain the integrity of the competitio

[ben]

I completely agree.

The cost report encourages us to be economical with the truth. The marks awarded are also totally disproportionate to the amount of time the report takes to compile.

Over here at Formula Student there are three classes.

1 - New running cars as per the other two comps
2 - Constructed hardware without a finished car
3 - Design study only

The cost aspect of Class 3 consists of outlining the cost and manufacture of three components from a list of 12 options;

http://www.imeche.org.uk/formulastudent/rules.asp

I feel that an expanded form of this would be more appropriate to Class 1 running cars for a number of reasons;

1 - More proportionate amount of time rather than the current slog

2 - It would make a full moderation of every cost possible, and therefore make the result fairer

3 - Would actually teach us about cost engineering rather than lying.

Ben

University of Birmingham
www.ubracing.co.uk (http://www.ubracing.co.uk)

[Charlie]

Yes, it does create unethical behavior, and it is a very sad thing. I like the idea of the cost report, but it obviously cannot be properly enforced. Look at the cost disparity of the FSAE-A entries (cost is listed in the results). I know our report was very complete and accurate, but the fact that it was definitely hurt our score badly. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, and yes, it is only 30 points. It's also hardly worth protesting and the resultant hard feelings. I also believe that if you bend or break the rules and get away with it, at least half the blame goes to the competition because rules should be enforced.

I'm all for the elimination of the cost report entirely if it cannot be enforced. Right now it is not doing it's job, IMO.

-Charlie Ping

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

[Denny Trimble]

Our team was upset with the cost event last year in Detroit for a few reasons:

1) No enforcement of the page limit on cost reports - we cleaned out our report out to be just under the limit, and saw several teams with reports 3X as large, receiving no penalty.

2) A few blatant examples of cost underreporting.

We understand how difficult it is to organize this volunteer event, but better consistency between the rules and the scoring would definitely improve the quality of the event.

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

[Brent Howard]

Denny, You likely already know this, but the page limit is only for the written section. If you are just going by the thickness of paper remember tha other teams might include more drawings and recipts. I know ours is huge, but the written section is under 80 pages, with only 1 section going over the 10 page limit, but many being only 3 pages.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Travis Garrison]

..on that page limit...

Any of you guys have some serious trouble fitting the info they wanted into the max # of pages for systems you built from scratch? The rules forced us to make a choice between accurately reporting machine times and the page limit in several places....Maybe we don't have the format quite right but some of our systems consist of many small machined parts and reporting each op eats up space fast.

Travis Garrison

[jack]

i think that travis kind of explained our situation (at WWU). disclaimer: i dont really know much about the cost report stuff so feel free to ignore my rant. anyway, it seems like the cost report is designed for cars that put a bunch of off-the-shelf parts on a car. what about a car where you make everything that you can? --out of carbon and cnc'ed aluminum. as travis was saying--the cost report gets rediculous. so what should we do? build an off-the-shelf car? ok, ok, i know this isnt F1, but who cares about cost? sure the rules say that these cars should be designed for the weekend racer, but as been confirmed on the forum before, no one cares about that. besides, cost report or no cost report, there are still rich teams and poor teams.

last point: i may be taking this to far, but anyway...from what i hear, the WWU V8 cost report was basically a folder of bulls**t. so hypothetically, say cost was inforced, and cars like the V8 werent build because of the cost of a prototype engine is a little pricey, what kind of engineering comp would this be????

long story short: cost report (in its current state at least) is a waste of everyones time

dump it

jack @ WWU
http://www.etec.wwu.edu/

[jack]

bwalby,
you make a good point, but how many racing schools have accually commissioned actual FSAE cars from a uni? besides, say we all build nice reliable steel tube cars with willwood brake systems and other reliable crap we bought (that we know will work), for skip's school (you really wouldnt want a carbon chassis in that type situation). does that sould like a engineering compition that promotes creates creativity and education?

jack @ WWU
http://www.etec.wwu.edu/

[Brent Howard]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> last point: i may be taking this to far, but anyway...from what i hear, the WWU V8 cost report was basically a folder of bulls**t. so hypothetically, say cost was inforced, and cars like the V8 werent build because of the cost of a prototype engine is a little pricey, what kind of engineering comp would this be????
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The rules state that engines are to be costed with the transmission at a rate of $1.25/ cc for high performance engines. So the V8 would not affect the cost and the cost reported would just be it's displacement x 1.25. All of the other parts should be costed the same as any FSAE car.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Charlie]

The Skip Barber cars were designed in the 1970s. If they remind you of a FSAE car, you must have seen some tank-like FSAE cars. I've been up-close and personal with those cars and they certainly don't remind me of much besides a Formula Mazda. If I was GT I'd be insulted!

Maybe if the design and cost events were integrated, with some design points given for affordability (totally up to the design judges to quantify). Because teams are always eager to show thier fancy bells & whistles to the design judges while keeping mum about them in the cost event.

-Charlie Ping

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

[Matt Gignac]

The issue of ethics regarding the cost report has been discussed at length, but what about some other issues.

For instance, what about "inspiring" yourself from other team's previous year's cars? Sure not much of what we do is very innovative, but it seems that every implementation of something somewhat innovative is done more or less the same as a heck of a lot of other teams

My 0.02$

Matt Gignac
McGill Racing Team

[Alan]

I'm curious what people's thoughts are on this topic in regards to manufacturing. The first paragraph of rule 2.3 states the following:

The car must be conceived, designed, and FABRICATED BY THE STUDENTS without direct involvement from professional engineers, automotive engineers, racers, MACHINISTS, or RELATED PROFESSIONALS.

I can only speak for my team which has made it a point to manufacture as much as we can without outside help. However there have been instances where we simply don't have the equipment to make the part (i.e. our driveshafts) or the $#!+ is hitting the fan and we don't have enough people (at which point the techs at our school have helped us out). How do other schools approach this?

If a school doesn't have a welder, a mill, or a lathe and has to send out everything, would their participation not be in the spirit of the competition? Or what if they decide that it would just be easier to send things out and have the car done sooner so they can do more testing?

I guess to sum up my thoughts, at what point is it OK to have people making parts for you? Since not every school is going to have all the manufacturing processes needed, what parts do you think should absolutely be made my the team?

Kettering University FSAE

[Charlie]

Good point. I know we try to do as much as possible ourselves, in 2002 and 2003 we machined our own axle shafts, including heat treating and splining. What a pain! The knowledge gained is great though.

Then again, things like CNC work, we cannot do ourselves. Our Uni has 1 CNC and we can't touch (nobody else does either, it mostly sits idle). So we rely on outside sponsorship. But besides machine operation, how much does the student really 'do' when they operate a CNC machine vs. a professional?

-Charlie Ping

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

[James Waltman]

Charlie,
It depends on what you mean by operate. There are a few degrees of machine operator. We call the first kind a stock monkey. They load stock into the machine and push the go buttons. The other kind of operator is the programmer. He decides on fixturing, tool selection, order of operations, feeds and speeds, surface quality, etc. Here we do it all. We design the part, write tool paths, generate code, set up the machine and run the program. When you actually have to machine the part that you designed it makes you better at designing parts. I think that is invaluable. The other thing that you miss if you don't run the part yourself is the stress. There is always the fear of messing something up (I screwed up a tool offset yesterday) and ruining a tool that costs a few hundred dollars or ruining a machine that costs a few hundred thousand dollars.

We machined uprights for another team a few weeks ago. They designed their part with very small internal radii. To actually machine those required a long 1/4" end mill. Long 1/4" end mills require slow feeds, shallow cuts, they chatter, and they break easily. We know that because we machine parts. They didn't know that because they have other people machine their parts. I know that most teams don't have access to the equipment so it doesn't matter but you do learn more if you do it all.

Sorry didn't mean to rant.

James Waltman
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

[Charlie]

You are definitely right, when you are the one fabricating the part you quickly learn how to design it better for that process. We do a lot of hand machining because of our lack of CNC resources, and you learn a lot of those lessons with hand machining too.

-Charlie Ping

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

[Travis Garrison]

I would say that to say within the spirit of the rules if you can do the manufacturing in house you ought to. The competition is supposed to give us a chance to apply theory, maybe even prepare us for a job? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

To put it another way a better understanding of how particular parts are made will go a long ways towards coming up with a design that can be more easily, reliably and accurately produced...ideal radii for example mean nothing if you can't produce that part without lots of chatter or scallops.

There definitely should be a limit on outside assistance...I mean if you can buy some parts you really could have made in house, why not have them designed by a consultant as well? I'd say doing everything within your abilities is the point of the competition...

Travis Garrison
WWU

[Alan]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Travis:
There definitely should be a limit on outside assistance...I mean if you can buy some parts you really could have made in house, why not have them designed by a consultant as well? I'd say doing everything within your abilities is the point of the competition...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with you 100%. I guess it would be impossible to enforce which is probably why it is never really brought up. Nonetheless I get kinda annoyed when I hear about teams that outsource the welding and/or fabrication of their chassis, as an example.

Kettering University FSAE

[Big Bird]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Alan:

I agree with you 100%. I guess it would be impossible to enforce which is probably why it is never really brought up. Nonetheless I get kinda annoyed when I hear about teams that outsource the welding and/or fabrication of their chassis, as an example.

Kettering University FSAE<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know we can't leave it up to the same poor stewards and scrutineers of the event to pick up on whether or not we have built the majority of the parts ourselves. But I can't help thinking if the static event judges asked a few direct questions about manufacturing processes, the teams that did their own work would become apparent. Therefore knowledge gained through manufacturing could (should?) be reflected in points gained in these events.

We did all of our machining and fabrication inhouse, and therefore there have team members who can answer questions about pretty well anything - machining times, tool choice, chassis jigging and welding, etc etc. Yet there were no questions asked of us in either the Cost/Manufacturing event, or Design Event, that related to anything to do with part manufacture. The Cost judges only asked questions relating to completeness of the Bill of Materials, and the Design judges only asked questions relating to design theory.

These comments relate to the 2003 Oz comp of course - is it the same in the US and UK??

Cheers

Geoff Pearson
RMIT FSAE 2003

Design it. Build it. Write it off two weeks before the event.

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

I think the cost report should just be a checklist of a few simple items; Make teams pay slightly extra in the comp for expensive choices like Carbon Moncoques or turbo drivetrains, and then ask the team to justify each add'l cost with a 2 page written thing (total, not individual). The top 10-20 teams could be reviewed more rigorously at comp by the judges.

[Travis Garrison]

We do have to answer manufacturing questions....on the throttle body, muffler, wheel, brake pad, battery, tie rod ends, springs, and safety harness....which is absolutely ridiculous. Aside from the throttle body, who in their right mind would manufacture anything on that list for this competition?

Travis Garrison
WWU

[Daves]

Chalmers

[Travis Garrison]

I doubt their method is what the judges are looking for

[Charlie]

You're right, who would bother manufacturing those when you can buy them...

That is precisely the point! Read the rules. They want you to know how to manufacture items that you obviously would never manufacture (though almost everything has been done here in FSAE).

-Charlie Ping

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

[Sam Zimmerman]

From previous threads, it is obvious that few teams have carte blanch in the machine shop like we do, yet they show up at comp with beautifully machined CNC parts they may not have a clue how to make. I think this rule should be enforced because the amount of learning suffers greatly when students hand drawings over to a machinist and get a part back in return. They should at least design a setup, write CAM code, and be in the shop as the pieces are fabricated. Anything less, in my opinion, is not consistent with the rules. Our team suffers from a lack of composite infrastructure, so we design around it. If other teams are hiring out the majority of their machining, they should be penalized. Some is OK, but not all.

Of course, I also hate unenforceable rules, so maybe my idea sucks. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Sam Zimmerman
Vandals Racing (http://www.uidaho.edu/~racing)

[All Wheeler]

Does anyone think it would help if what alot of people consider irrelevant information in the cost report were replaced with a log of design processes and manufacturing/tooling?
This would give an indication of appropriate design times and may highlight any important missing design details.
Would it also be beneficial to have some penalty weighted by the number of team members for too many off the shelf components?
Doug http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[A Reinke]

was anyone else confused by this whole BOM thing last year? the previous report i worked on didn't have this, and now last year there was definitly some confusion as to where stuff should go in the report.

we could talk about this cost report for years, along with manufacturing. FSAE is never going to eliminate it...and it seems like they just dont have time to really evaulate every i and t.
yet every year i see the results of our cost event, i want to curse. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

~Adam