Formula SAE Australasia 2008 Competition: - Updates, Pictures, Stories, and More.

[Kirby]

Well it's Thursday morning down there.

Some of my old-team-mates were just arriving in Melbourne.

Can't wait to see what the 2008 Australasian competition holds for us!

Hopefully the updates from teams will start in the next 24 hours.

Brett:
Are you making a surprise appearance this year...I know I'm not..Still in Canada.

The UWA blog thing is pretty cool. Nice to know that they aren't immune to gremlins and timeline issues like the 'rest of us'.

[Brett Neale]

Damn Kirby, beat me to it!

Good luck to all teams competing this year, hopefully we get some nice updates coming. UWA's website has a daily update blog-type thing going.

And as always, go Adelaide!

[Kirby]

One Day Down!

It's Saturday morning right now.

We still haven't seen any updates!

C'Mon Aussie teams, whats the news?

[coz.]

...Not sure us Ausie teams are quite up to the standard of some US and European teams with media capabilities. I'm sure all are to busy turning spanners to to be updating web pages etc. Except the army that is UWA, that is a great updates page, again that is by far the best looking car in aus, a proper little race car that is evolving nicely!

I'm a sideline Curtin team member and its hard enough getting information out of my own guys. All I can report is ECU are doing well (I work at a local track with these guys, so I'm in touch with them), its their first EVER comp and have passed tech inspection, tilt, brakes test, acceleration, skid pan... Not bad. On the other hand we (Curtin) are struggling a little, took a couple of goes getting through tech, brakes and tilt consequently missing acceleration and skid pan. Bugger!

From the looks of things U'dub won't be experiencing the shift issues of last year, I hope the RMIT car is fit 'n healthy too, me thinks they'll need to be on it to compete with likes of Stuttgart and Helsinki Polytechnic that have had time to put testing and development time on their cars.

and just to keep y'all interested, and annoy the ECU guys, I'll post pic's of their car first. impressive first effort!! (sorry for quality, they're from a mobile, thanks Ed.)...

coz.

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/5301/ecuworkshopbuild01rz5.jpg (http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ecuworkshopbuild01rz5.jpg) http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/ecuworkshopbuild01rz5.jpg/1/w320.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img512/ecuworkshopbuild01rz5.jpg/1/)

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/8110/ecuworkshopbuild02uy4.jpg (http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ecuworkshopbuild02uy4.jpg) http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/ecuworkshopbuild02uy4.jpg/1/w320.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img512/ecuworkshopbuild02uy4.jpg/1/)

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/4830/ecuworkshopbuild03kz3.jpg (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ecuworkshopbuild03kz3.jpg) http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/ecuworkshopbuild03kz3.jpg/1/w320.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img503/ecuworkshopbuild03kz3.jpg/1/)

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1724/ecuworkshopbuild04ie1.jpg (http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ecuworkshopbuild04ie1.jpg) http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/ecuworkshopbuild04ie1.jpg/1/w320.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img139/ecuworkshopbuild04ie1.jpg/1/)

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1558/ecuworkshopbuild05rg8.jpg (http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ecuworkshopbuild05rg8.jpg) http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/ecuworkshopbuild05rg8.jpg/1/w320.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img512/ecuworkshopbuild05rg8.jpg/1/)

[AsleepAtTheWheel]

University Of Auckland are updating our website as often as we can: http://www.fsae.co.nz/

[Fred G]

Results thus far.

Design Finals

- University of Auckland
- University of Stuttgart
- University of Western Australia

Presentation

Place.Car No..Score...Team Name
1......47......75.00...University of Auckland
2......29......73.52...University of Stuttgart
3......2........73.26...RMIT Racing
4......22......69.23...University of Sydney
5......24......68.82...University of Wollongong
6......7........68.68...Swinburne University of Technology
7......66......68.42...Monash University
8......1........65.05...University of Western Australia
9......11......62.23...University of Melbourne
10....8........59.40...University of Adelaide
11....3........55.77...University of Newcastle
12....38......54.16...Victoria University
13....9........54.03...Sophia
14....63......53.76...Univresity of New South Wales
15....56......51.74...Queensland University of Technology
16....14......50.81...Curtin University of Technology
17....10......41.26...Edith Cowen University
18....62......38.87...MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology
19....77......38.39...University of Ballarat
20....92......35.65...Chitkara
21....91......33.87...PES Institute of Technology
22....13......33.39...University of Southern Queensland
23....5........28.39...Deakin University
24....93......13.39...Guru

Acceleration (Teams not listed DNA)

Place.Car No..Score...Team Name
1......47......75.00......University of Auckland
2......63......65.96......University of New South Wales
3......29......64.88......University of Stuttgart
4......11......56.58......University of Melbourne
5......66......56.09......Monash University
6......7........53.83......Swinburne University of Technology
7......1........53.14......University of Western Australia
8......9........45.66......Sophia
9......24......43.43......University of Wollongong
10....5........34.55......Deakin University
10....8........34.55......University of Adelaide
12....2........24.19......RMIT Racing
13....22......20.28......University of Sydney
14....3........18.55... ..University of Newcastle
15....13......12.60......University of Southern Queensland
16....10......3.50........Edith Cowen University

Quickest time for Accel was 4.06

Cost, Skidpan and AutoX results were yet to be released.

I believe the AutoX was a tight finish between Stuttgart and UWA, approx 1 tenth of a second in it.

[Kirby]

Keep it coming!

Good to see a few more teams this year.

Congrats to Auckland for their impressive results so far!

[MH]

Go Stuttgart!! Show the Aussies what European teams can do! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

Did you bring the Puky Chopper too?

Cheers,
MH
Delft University of Technology

[DART-CG]

Thumbs up to Stuttgart, hope you'll make it!

[PatClarke]

Stuttgart first with 961 points from UWA and Sophia.
Stuttgart dominated! FSAEAustralasia and Fisita Champions.
No doubt more news to come

Cheers
Pat

[Thomas MuWe]

Congratulations to Stuttgart.
On Stuttgarts website is quoted they won Skidpad and Endurance and Fuel economy, second in Acceleration. I missed AutoX but whatever. :-)
In the Statics, they finished first in Design, second Presentation and fourth Cost.
Overall dynamics winner they are too.
What can I do?! I can just put my thumbs up and bow.....
Nice work Stuggis!!!!!

[Davo]

Congratualtions Stuttgart!

A fairly high attrition rate this year in enduro with only 3 teams completing the first endurance run although there were a few more in the second.

I suppose the biggest surprise was RMIT unfortunately failing to score at all in endurance/fuel. They were in the queue for the first run but never got out and in the second they had some engine issues early on.

UWA and Stuttgart completed both enduro's and with the times I got using my phone stopwatch they looked to be the quickest and very close.

Sophia also did well in both enduro's and were up near UWA/Stuttgart in the first enduro but couldn't quite match the pace of the other two in the second run.

Auckland had some bad luck considering they were looking good for the win at one point. They won acceleration and presentation and made the design finals along with UWA and Stuttgart (I heard Stuttgart won that with Auckland 2nd and UWA 3rd although I'm not 100% sure). They were running at the same pace as the front runners in the first enduro until they destroyed their gearbox and couldn't get it fixed for the second.

Adelaide had another strong car. They finished the second enduro and seemed to be pretty quick but received a black flag in the first one. I don't know for sure and it'd be great to hear from one of their team but I heard that it was because they officials didn't think their visibility over the dash was sufficient. Considering they were bloody quick and not hitting any cones I find that hard to believe but thats what I heard.

Woollongong had a rough time at the enduro too. The car pulled off the track in the first one, not too sure why and in the second they got another DNF which I heard was due to a suspension failure.

Deakin had another cool looking car with the engine mounted next to the driver. They broke a CV joint accelerating up the hill in the first enduro and after fixing it did exactly the same thing at the same place in the second.

Sydney Uni missed the first enduro which I think had something to do some crash damage on the practice track. They got it all put together for the second enduro but killed the clutch and couldn't finish.

Monash scored in all the events and seemed to be pretty quick in the enduro so hopefully they'll be on for a good result.

Edith Cowan uni had their first year car with the awesome Gulf paint scheme and successfully finished the second enduro so well done to them!

Thats all I can remember for now. I'm sure the teams will have more info and please correct me if anything I've said is wrong.

[Brett Neale]

Hey all,

I just flew back into Adelaide, it was interesting being a spectator this year. I haven't heard many results yet other than provisional overall rankings... From what I gathered from some guys back in Melbourne (don't quote me on third...):

1. Stuttgart
2. UWA
3. Sophia

6. Adelaide (good stuff boys!)

The first enduro was quite surprising - all teams except Stuttgart, UWA, Sophia and Swinburne all DNF'd or didn't make it to the start. A crushing exit for Auckland, I really feel for you guys after all the testing you had and how prepared you were, we were in the same boat last year and it definitely puts a downer on the weekend.

It was a bit of a weird first enduro for us, apparently our second driver was black flagged with 2 laps to go as the stewards thought he couldn't see properly out the helmet. I was skeptical at the time, but looking back over the photos it's quite easy to see why they might have thought that way.

What can I say about Stuttgart... "Impressively Simple" was the first thing that came to mind, a well-sorted car that the team knows like the back of their hand. Couple that with that legendary German efficiency, and it's easy to see why they're the most successful team going around. FTR... 5 comps this year, 3 titles, 1 second, and an almost-win at FSG. Amazing!

RMIT were on the back foot this weekend unfortunately. A broken wheel in Autocross and two engine changes for the weekend. Hopefully next year brings better luck for you guys!

I had a chat with a couple of guys from ECR, who really impressed over the weekend with their first FSAE-A. They were posting 61sec laptimes in the second enduro before running out of fuel. I can imagine good things will come from these guys in the near future.

And to the guys from Adelaide - great work guys! The car was looking superb on track, not to mention fast! 4th in Skidpad is a highlight, and using 3.5L of fuel in the second enduro was impressive for the first outing of the little Aprilia. It's been a pleasure working with you over the year and seeing the car progress. And watching Timmy's silky-smooth driving was awesome!

Anyways, I'll upload all my pics from the weekend for those who are interested.

[Brett Neale]

Righto, all my pics are here (host needs to moderate them before these links will work):

Friday - http://www.majhost.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=190880
Saturday - http://www.majhost.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=190879
Sunday - http://www.majhost.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=190878

Here's some pics in the meantime...

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Saturday/cimg2927.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Saturday/cimg2932.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Saturday/cimg2938.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Saturday/cimg2945.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Saturday/cimg2961.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Saturday/cimg2965.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3048.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3078.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3100.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3109.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3132.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3150.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3152.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3199.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3207.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3218.jpg

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/brettneale/FSAE-A-2008/Sunday/cimg3230.jpg

[MH]

Congrats to Stuttgart!! Awesome job!

BTW: is that a flat tyre on the RMIT car?

cheers,
MH
Delft University of Technology

[lozo]

Results were

1st - University of Stuttgart
2nd - University of Western Australia
3rd - Sophia University
4th - Monash University

8th - University of Auckland

Can't really remember the rest, congratulations to Edith Cowan for getting the Best Endeavour Award!


Richie Wong
University of Auckland
Electrical Team 08

[Chris Lane]

Thanks to everyone who made us feel welcome at our first FSAE competition! Despite the niggling issues, we had a ball. Really grateful for the positive feedback and encouragement on our first car from everybody including the judges, marshals, Pat, and Ron.

Thanks to RMIT for the afterparty, it was pretty mint.

My fave car there was the Sophia Car. Really well presented, and bristling with technology.

We'll be back next year with another car, and hopefully we can come away with a better result!

[Kirby]

Wow Good show everyone!

Does anyone have more information on what looks like an Electric RMIT chassis? How was it entered etc?

I haven't had a chance to speak to the guys back home...what happened to QUT?

[Davo]

The electric RMIT car wasn't entered into the event. They did some demonstration laps on the enduro track in between sessions. They had a few problems early on but at the end of the Sunday it was running really well. We timed a few of their laps and it would have been very competitive. Very strange seeing an FSAE car go silently around the track though...

[Kirby]

Originally posted by Davo:
The electric RMIT car wasn't entered into the event. They did some demonstration laps on the enduro track in between sessions. They had a few problems early on but at the end of the Sunday it was running really well. We timed a few of their laps and it would have been very competitive. Very strange seeing an FSAE car go silently around the track though...

Touche.

I think we all know why they have an electric demo car. Kudos to them for making that step first.

[Brett Neale]

Yeah RMIT's electric car was quite surreal... Apparently they get 20min out of a charge, it was great to see them demo out on the track.

MH - Yes, that is a flat on the RMIT car. The pic was taken during their Autocross run where they broke a wheel centre and rim.

[benny41]

congrats must go to Stuttgart there car was a rocket ship all weekend. and commiserations to Auckland so close

well our weekend at deakin wasn't as good as what we hoped for but i think this was mainly due to the fact that the first time the car was run was on Wednesday night.

me and our other skid pan driver had never done a skid pan before and i tell you it wasn't fun out there on a track covered in sand and oil, unfortunately our quickest run wasn't counted due to some timing glitch and the car wouldn't restart again.

in the auto cross somehow our brakes got set all to the front and the diff got tightened up to the point it was a spool which the two drivers didn't enjoy.

unfortunately the problem that occurred in the first endure wasn't able to be fixed amazingly well and it was a bit of a matter of hoping for good luck which just didn't happen for us
a big thanks to Monash and rmit for lending us some different bits and pieces.

but anyway we live and learn and we'll be back next year hopefully much better prepared and tested

Ps what was the poor bloke from Newcastle who was asleep in front of there pits suffering from? he didn't look to well at all.

[Mike Cook]

Nice looking cars everybody. Can someone explain the difference between the Aussie endurance and the US endurance? It sound like there are two heats in the Australian endurance. How does the scoring work, and what about failures? Thanks,

[RiNaZ]

will we be seeing the RMIT car at F-Hybrid next year?

[Brett Neale]

One other thing - Big thanks to UWA for lending the Adelaide guys an ICM for the enduro!


Originally posted by Mike Cook:
Can someone explain the difference between the Aussie endurance and the US endurance? It sound like there are two heats in the Australian endurance. How does the scoring work, and what about failures? Thanks,

Since there's usually only around 30 entrants, Endurance has two separate heats. If you DNF the first heat, you can enter the second. The fastest run is scored, and fuel is also taken from the fastest run.

[Kirby]

Originally posted by Brett Neale:
One other thing - Big thanks to UWA for lending the Adelaide guys an ICM for the enduro!

ICM = Ignition Control Module?

As for the formal results, I imagine we will be waiting a few days while they are all finalised and tallied up...As to try and avoid the scoring farce from 06.

News from QUT is scarce...I understand they weren't able to pass brakes.

Finally, for those teams that switched to the Aprilla this year. Any comments?

At FSAE in Detroit this year many teams were crying bloody murder over the non-stop issues they were having. Comments?

[simranME2006]

ny1 has ny news on the chitkara team car no 92...

[MH]

Originally posted by simranME2006:
ny1 has ny news on the chitkara team car no 92...

What's wrong with your keyboard??

On topic: Wow, compared to FSG 2008 where almost 50% of the teams (of 78 teams competing) finished enduro (without having 2 heats) this finishing rate is pretty low. Was the track that hard on the cars? Or maybe teams weren't quite ready for the comp due to the new rules?

MH
Delft University of Technology

[PatClarke]

Chitkara dnt do ne gud

Pat

C, I cn tak sh*t 2!

[A Richards]

I think that the reason most teams were unable to complete the endurance was because they were either very unorganized ie. us, or very unlucky ie. Auckland, RMIT and quite a few others. While our team built the new car to the 2009 templates this was not a requirement for any teams. I believe that UWA, Monash, RMIT, Auckland, UOW?? (Not sure) and us (Deakin) chose to do so.

Given the lack of team members and organization of my team I’m surprised that our new car even managed to move under its own power in any events. Our car got driven only once for a few minutes before the comp. I’ve included some photos of our cars progression in the 12 day lead up to the competition. Shows just how close we were to missing the boat all together.

Photo taken 15th November: What parts you can’t see in the photo were either not built or in no state to go on the car. Yes thats pretty much everything!


http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa249/deakinracetechnologies/paint024.jpg


Photo taken 16th of November: No midwall, No roll hoops, No bulkheads, No Steering, No impact attenuator, Wiring was not finalized, engine had not been mounted, Cooling system in the mail somewhere, a-arms were not 100% finished….. etc….etc…..


http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa249/deakinracetechnologies/paint2018.jpg


Photo taken 24th November, 1:00AM: No impact attenuator, Cooling and fuel system only just started, Engine not mounted properly.


http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa249/deakinracetechnologies/paint2006.jpg


Photo taken 24th November, 8:00AM: First time the car rolled out of the workshop door.


http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa249/deakinracetechnologies/018.jpg


Photo taken 27th November: Ready to Rock and Roll on the first official day of the competition. It really is amazing how quickly a couple of guys can get these cars together when you push yourselves and only sleep once every 48 hours…..


http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa249/deakinracetechnologies/SAECOMP031.jpg


At the end of the day we can all fool ourselves into thinking that FSAE is a design competition but really its a management competition. Designing and building these cars is always the easy part, it’s what we are trained to do after all. Our 270gram uprights and super light carbon monocoque did little to save us when no one could drive, the car was setup completely wrong and the CV’s fell out. It’s important to push ourselves from day one. Nothing beats good management and testing time!!! If nothing else I hope that this is the lesson learnt by my team this year.

On just one final note I would like to congratulate all teams that participated and thank all the officials and sponsors of the event. Weather you come first or last we’re all winners.


Ash Richards
Deakin Race Technologies

[Kirby]

Ash,

Your story is echoed throughout FSAE teams everywhere.
I have been a part of two teams now, once with both pushing deadlines until we end up with only a few days testing. You only have to talk to other teams to hear the same story!

I must say that the new dates for the Australian comp are a little perplexing to me. I'm sure there are reasons (one I remember is to benefit international teams), however it does seem to disadvantage the Australian teams.

I know with the older dates ~3 weeks later; in December. We were all finishing exams by mid to late November. This gave us a full time workforce for several weeks to wrap up everything and get some good testing in.

In my experience manpower and effort tend to drop off sharply in the three or four weeks before exams start...after all, we all want to pass our courses. I know for my old team, this year, they finished exams two days before they headed to comp, A tough situation to be in.

[ad]

Originally posted by Kirby:
Ash,

Your story is echoed throughout FSAE teams everywhere.
I have been a part of two teams now, once with both pushing deadlines until we end up with only a few days testing. You only have to talk to other teams to hear the same story!

I must say that the new dates for the Australian comp are a little perplexing to me. I'm sure there are reasons (one I remember is to benefit international teams), however it does seem to disadvantage the Australian teams.

I know with the older dates ~3 weeks later; in December. We were all finishing exams by mid to late November. This gave us a full time workforce for several weeks to wrap up everything and get some good testing in.

In my experience manpower and effort tend to drop off sharply in the three or four weeks before exams start...after all, we all want to pass our courses. I know for my old team, this year, they finished exams two days before they headed to comp, A tough situation to be in.

I would echo your words as to a major influence in the reason why the attrition rate was so high in both enduros.

However one could also argue, even with the date change and severe inconvenience of the clash with exams that an organised team and properly managed team that meets the deadlines they set out to achieve would still perform well at the event.

Its always been an achievement for SAE to put on an event based around volunteers, but i do believe they have somewhat disadvantaged the Australian competition by moving it forward rather than later. Once herald as the best event in the SAE community, now struggles to draw more than 16 competing cars!

How many international teams took the time to compete at this competition if this was the main reason for the date move? I saw five teams, two of which drove!!! I also heard of two other big F-S teams which pulled out.

I must say that there were several improvements such as proper staging at the acceleration event, and running commentary.

There was also no official after party.

[Moke]

Hey there party people.

On behalf of the Auckland Crew, I would like to say a big thank you to the organizers, SAE, RMIT for the after party, all the teams that helped us out and especially Monash, you guys were awesome.

This year was our most successful ever, winning 2 events and a 2nd in design, we were very happy if you didn't notice. And 8th overall for the third year in a row.

However it was really gutting to have our gearbox pack it during the first endro, we got the engine back together but there was more damage than we could see without a full strip down, so we had to call it.

The boys (and girls?) will be back next year, but having just checked my exam results I will be there as a supporter next year.

Oh and keep an eye out on you tube for some Moke TV

[HenningO]

Originally posted by A Richards:
At the end of the day we can all fool ourselves into thinking that FSAE is a design competition but really its a management competition.

I wish someone would have told me that back in 2003, now it took me 5 years to figure that out http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Big congratulations to all competititors and especially to Stuttgart!

[Pete M]

An interesting comp with a lot of failures. I imagine a lot of lessons will be taken away from this comp and hopefully we'll see a more reliable field next year. Bonus points go to UWA for empirically proving that if you design your car right, losing a rear pull rod is only worth about 4 seconds a lap, lol.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "comp was 3 weeks earlier" crowd. The 2005 comp was all of 4 days later than this one was. The 2006 comp was later due to the commonwealth games pushing back all the motorsport events (scheduling conflicts) and 2007 was left at that date for whatever reason. All the teams knew when comp was this year and knew when their exams were from very early on in the year. The year between the 2007 and 2008 comps was like 5% shorter. If that's enough to take you from "enough testing" to "zero testing", then i question your definition of "enough testing".

Stuttgart very clearly demonstrated to the aussie teams what a difference having a reliable, well tested car makes (a 150 point margin between 1st and 2nd is HUGE), something that any team that's ever taken their car to a second comp already knows. Looking back on my time in FSAE, i'm stunned we ever allowed ourselves less than 2 full months of testing, and frankly more wouldn't be wasted. We got about 2.5 months testing between 2005 Aus and 2006 West in california and the car was night and day different.

As for no official after party, pffft who cares. The unofficial one the RMIT guys threw was by far the best i've been to. Here's hoping they're willing to do the same again next year.

[Brianson]

For us (Melbourne Uni) having the competition earlier wouldn't have been an issue if we hadn't had 2 engine failures and 2 CV joint failures in the lead up to the competition - we had planned for plenty of testing during exams, but our car just wasn't working. A bit more time to get everything right after exams had finished would have made a fair difference to us, but it would have just been replacing testing time that we would have had without the breakdowns.

As for how we went, we came 10th overall, and our best result was 4th for acceleration. On the Sunday we had a lot of very worried people when our car rolled to a stop in the first endurance, because it sounded like it had run out of fuel. However, the issue turned out to be that the wire bringing power to the fuel and water pumps had broken, and we managed to track that down and fix it in time for a successful second run.

All in all a good weekend (other than the bouncers refusing entry to half our team at the after party) and congratulations to Stuttgart for a well deserved win.

-Brian
Melbourne University Racing

[Mechanimal]

Here, Here! Well done to RMIT for a great after party. The perfect way to drown the sorrows for a majority of teams! And Celebrate for our German friends.

Apologies for no Moke TV at the party, RMIT gave us the option but the amount of work involved would have been too much to get it done in time, especially considering the time we spent trying to rebuild an engine on Sunday. Stay tuned for Brent to get into the cutting room and weave his magic to get something Bad arse out in a few weeks.

Some highlights;

- Team Dance taking the floor by storm and busting out some classics that prove that although engineers can't dance they'll give it a red hot crack!
- ECU Vs. Auckland Boat race (this was kept low key after how messily the 2004 boat races ended, including one trip to the hospital). The ECU boys had us at the half way point but its hard to beat experience (Something which BRent and I have a little of....) and we managed to pull it back and take the win.
- Team Red Dress.... Enough said.
- RennTeam Stuttgart team shirts. the most fashionable thing to be wearing. (Yes, even more so than safety green!)

Peace and Love in Beer....

Moke Melbourne Korespondint
Kieran

[Pete M]

we had planned for plenty of testing during exams, but our car just wasn't working.

No offence mate, but that just means you didn't budget an appropriate amount of time for fixing problems. Assuming everything will go smoothly and all your designs will work is an extremely common mistake in Formula SAE that i myself made more than once (hey, we're students, getting stuff wrong and learning is part of the deal).

The reality is you have X days to design, build and test a car. It is up to the team to appropriately break up those X days to ensure they'll have a well tested car at competition, and then actually stick to that schedule.

I'd love to see a list of 3 numbers from each team: Target first drive date, actual first drive date, and overall position at comp. I'm curious how much teams generally miss their first drive date by.

[Moke]

Okay Pete,

Planned: 7th Sept
Actual: 6th Sept
Place: 8th

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

We had very tight deadlines this year, with our funding tied to them. Miss the deadline, no cash. It's amazing how this motivates people. However in the past we have missed deadlines by months. We knew we would lose nearly 2 months due to exams so we compressed our timeline to compensate.

One idea that we've been kicking around is if the comp is in late January, no uni or exams, cheapish flights, would give organizers a chance to test new rules at a smaller comp, weather is still good. Any thoughts?

[Brett Neale]

Originally posted by Moke:
One idea that we've been kicking around is if the comp is in late January, no uni or exams, cheapish flights, would give organizers a chance to test new rules at a smaller comp, weather is still good. Any thoughts?

No matter what time of year it is, unless you start designing before the competition then you still have the same amount of time. Every year I've been involved, the summer post-comp was the time to design the next car until March when coursework ramps up. No doubt SAE-A knows it's all a compromise.

[Pete M]

I wasn't on the team this year but i believe wollongong was like early september planned, 1 week before comp actual, and came 9th. That is, they knew they needed to leave lots of time for testing and tuning but didn't come close to achieving it. Which has been the story for the last 5+ years to varying extents.

Auckland looked very solid this year, except for the problems you guys had in enduro (no spare engine?). When i heard about the funding deal you guys had, i thought it was a brilliant idea. One of the big problems we've had is sticking to our timelines. There's no penalty to missing our targets except from internal team pressure from a few members who know that running late in june will kill us at comp. The deadlines come and go and everyone shrugs... Not a good recipe for success.

[Brianson]

Target rollout was the last weekend of September.
The actual first roll was about mid October.

We blew our first engine within a week (a collet gave way and dropped a valve).

So we got our second engine off the dyno, made the modifications to fit it into the car (dry sump, etc). Got out testing for a few days, then blew that engine as well (valve head dropped off).

So we waited it out while the block and head from our old 3rd engine (which we'd been using as a jig for lining up engine mounts in the chassis) got rebuilt into a working engine using some parts from the first engine and some new parts. Got that engine into the car in time to go out testing again the Monday before the competition, when we broke a CV joint (the tripod broke and damaged the housing). Replaced it. Rushed the fix to get it out on the Wednesday. Broke the tripod again (but not the housing, which was lucky because we didn't have any more spare housings). We were still fixing that up on the Friday of the competition.

10th place.

So yeah, we missed our target rollout by a couple of weeks, but it still would have been a fair amount of testing. We just had no idea we were going to lose most of the time between rollout and competition to car breakdowns. At least we were lucky that they didn't happen at the competition.

-Brian
Melbourne Uni Racing

[JeffreyH]

We didn't have a fully assembled spare engine, no.

On the whole I really enjoyed FSAE-A 2008 - thanks to FSAE-A, the organisers and volunteers for making it a successful event yet again. It was going fantastically until sunday for us, I was most stoked about the 2nd place in the design event.

Thanks must also go to all the teams, Monash in particular. You guys are awesome. RMIT also for organising the afterparty, and Stuttgart for being a great bunch who are happy to share info on their car. It's a pity not all teams are as friendly or happy to do a show-and-tell on their car.

One thing that did dissapoint me a little is the lack of design judging on the electrical/DAQ side of the car. I'm definitely slightly biased, but given that the electrical systems of all the design finalists was fairly substantial I would have expected the judges to at least give it more than a passing look and a tug at the wires. The reality of modern racing is that you cannot have a car without a reasonable amount of electrical design and implementation. For example, the UOA car has a fuse/relay power control PCB designed by the team, and a fairly complex touchscreen LCD dash with multiple microcontrollers pulling live data off the DAQ system. And no, we did not do what many people do and buy something from motec to do it. We designed it. Swinburne had something similar communicating with their ECU for shifting/clutch/something. Stuttgart had a pretty nifty datalogging system they came up with and WA has some funky stuff too (though not as much an improvement over previous years as I'd hoped). And that's just the things I can remember off the top of my head.

I ended up basically standing around twiddling my thumbs for the design event and the finals while the others with me were grilled, and quite frankly it was disappointing to see a fairly complete lack of interest in my area given that just as much effort, thought and care went into it as any other area of the UOA car.

Pat, perhaps this could be considered in future years? Do any other FSAE competitions have electrical design judges? It would really only be fair given that I'm sure the electrical/DAQ design representatives prepare as much as those doing vehicle dynamics, composites, ergo/safety, etc.

This isn't a major gripe though, I still had a great time and thought that the whole event went pretty well.

Jeffrey

[Kirby]

Official Results Posted:
http://www.sae-a.com.au/pdf/Overall%20placings.pdf

Only 8 teams of 24 posted a score for endurance!

That is the worst attrition ever seen in FSAE-A.

[Drew Price]

Originally posted by A Richards:
".... Our 270gram uprights...."

Really?? Can I see?? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

What did your car end up weighing?

As a sucker for the big singles I really like the look of your sidewinder layout, and now it makes sense why there weren't more build or documenting photos up on your site, I will keep an eye out for when more pop up though. I think you guys had one of the most aesthetically pleasing designs to meet the new template rules, it disguises the washtub effect.

Looks like it was a fun comp with nice weather, I'm really enjoying the photos, and am reminded just how much the spirit of the competition is exemplified in how we all treat each other, especially between all the teams who are out to beat each other!

Best,
Drew

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Kirby:
Official Results Posted:
http://www.sae-a.com.au/pdf/Overall%20placings.pdf

Only 8 teams of 24 posted a score for endurance!

That is the worst attrition ever seen in FSAE-A.

Considering everyone has two shots, that's really awful! Hopefully a lot of lessons learnt!

[PatClarke]

Some suggestions on here to be discussed and then some comments from Pat on FSAEA

It was suggested that the event should be moved into January for all sorts of reasons.
This has been discussed before and for other reasons the idea was dismissed. Perhaps it is an idea whose time has come.

There is little point discussing it with me as I am simply a volunteer, not part of the organising committee. I am a Senior Design Judge and the Student Tech Advisor for the Aussie event. (How many know that? I have not been overwhelmed with requests for advice.)

I do know that a huge issue is getting volunteers and as we all know the entire population of Australia goes to the beach for the entire month of January. Realistically, the event needs to be run before the Automotive industry closes down for the Christmas/New Year break in December, or after the return to work in late January. Holding the event in January might be popular with teams but not from the organisers point of view.

Jeffrey noted he was disappointed that the Design Judges didn’t look too hard at his trick electronic stuff.

Two issues here. Maybe you needed to grasp the situation and present your stuff (If the Judges don’t know about it they will not ask questions.)
And secondly, maybe the Judges weren’t too interested in advanced technology on a car supposedly for the amateur weekend warrior!

There seems to be a belief that to do well in Design the team needs all sorts of gimmicks, and maybe in the past Judges have become dazzled a bit.

Many teams seem to have lost sight of the basics (or never knew them) in the headlong rush to get complicated. They then end up with an unfinished or untested project that doesn’t do well. The Judges want to be dazzled by your knowledge, not by your gimmicks!

Stuttgart won Design with a very well engineered and sorted space-frame chassis. They knew and understood all aspects about it and were clear winners of Design. They didn’t dazzle us with gimmicks, they dazzled us with knowledge and understanding!

Auckland and UWA had much more complex cars, and although they knew their design pretty well, there was something of a lack of basic knowledge in both teams, hence the Stuttgart win.

As I said to many teams, your members know the answers (because they have read all the books and papers) but don’t know the questions! Do you recall Jeffrey when I walked out in the middle of the room to show you where your dynamic centre of pitch was? The team knew all the geometrics and kinematics, but couldn’t very well relate them to what happens dynamically. A similar issue when I was discussing the cooling aspects of your car (A repeat of a similar discussion last year!)

The early date for this year’s competition did hinder preparation but the date was known for many months. Poor project management is the reason for the high attrition rate. If there isn’t time to build and test a complex car, then build and test a simple one. Both the Judges and the theoretical customer might appreciate that!

Some examples I saw of a lack of understanding of the basics included several cars where one half-shaft was bolted directly to the sprocket (on one car, the brake disk!) whilst the other one operated through the differential! Then team members could hardly comprehend what they were being told when that aspect of design was critiqued.

The new ‘Rod Ends In Bending’ seems to be un-spigoted road wheels, usually attached with tapered wheel-nuts tightened into the aluminium centre. That is GTB! (Going to break) and the radial run-out caused by un-spigoted wheels will excite the contact patch and ruin grip.

However, there were still some REIBs, primarily on the Indian cars.

Which brings up another subject, one we have been skirting around for too long.
I am sick and tired of the poor quality of the Indian cars! I understand there is no racing industry in India. I understand there is difficulty importing stuff. That is not my concern. My concern is the basic lack of decent engineering principles and then the sloppy and slovenly construction and presentation! This has been going on since the first Indian FSAE car I saw some 7 or 8 years ago, and the excuses are still the same!
Indian companies can do some exemplary work. We have seen it, but not in FSAE. If the Indian teams are to gain any credibility, they must pick up their game. I am not talking about cars with heavy wheels and unsuitable tyres and dampers, that I can understand. I am talking about lousy load paths, crappy construction, rust, filth and an obvious lack of care.

In these internet days there is a huge amount of information and pictures available on line so ignorance can not be used as an excuse.

In Werribee there were 6 Indian teams entered, 4 turned up but only three brought a car. Of those three, only Chitkara got through the first level of Tech. None fired a shot in any dynamic event. One team seemed to abandon their car and were hardly seen at the competition…I wonder if the car is still there?

That’s enough ranting for one day

Cheers
Pat

[Pete Marsh]

I was going to complian about the comp dates and the difficulties it caused us, but Pete and Deakin have put paid to that! Pete is right, we knew a long time ago and Auckland has showed us all it can be done in time and you can get heaps of testing anyway. And it looks like even if you cant do that you can crank out a car in just a few weeks if your from Deakin! Amazing.

I think the comp date will affect our next team a bit as a lot of lower year, newer team members were turned off by us crazies working so hard all through exams, and decided its not for them. I think we will have 4 team members at next years comp that were here this year, one 1st year, one power train , me and one VD who wants to miss the year. And no more recruiting oppertunities until O week. There are a few final years on mid year finishes that can get things started, but they won't be around when the going gets tough at the end of the year.

Anyway,
We made our public launch date in Sept but never really had a firm drive target set, and as you might expect, never drove the thing until we got to comp. First drive was on Wednesday, and we managed to cook the engine. It survived, but never really went as good as it should.

Stuttgart were so good, I would have liked to take it to them, but thats all we had. Auckland looked good to take them on but for that one failure. But in my mind, there is a big difference between a part that fails despite lots of testing and checking, and a part that fails becuse of poor design/manufacture (our pull rod) or lack of testing. My (limited) understanding of the their G/box failure was it is the sort of thing that can happen to any race team, at any level. I think Auckland has shown us all how it should be done and I want to hear more about this finances tied to deadlines system.

Pete

[JeffreyH]

Firstly, Pete - basically the university divided up our funding for the year based on deadlines. We didn't receive any bonuses per se, more that we had to meet set deadlines to receive the total sum.

Thanks for the response Pat. I think you have missed my point slightly however. I fully agree on gimmicks. However, none of the systems I mentioned were 'gimmicky'. Without wanting to disclose too much, we wanted to have a driver interface in our wheel which was useful for both race engineers and drivers. A key feature was complete access to the DAQ system. This was aimed exactly at the weekend autocross racer, as they will only have maybe one support crew with them at most and don't have an army with laptops to access the data quickly. Our system allows access to relevant data, be it engine temperature, tyre temperatures on a more upmarket model of autocross vehicle with better DAQ, lap times, etc. We selected a touchscreen solely because of visibilty and ease of access, not because it's gimmicky. How else would you want to access data in a hurry - with menus or buttons? I think the complexity would annoy most people. The dash design allows for a minimum number of presses to get to any relevant data the driver or any engineer/weekend autocross racer running the car. Feedback from our team members and drivers was that it has been incredibly useful, so I think we made the right decision.

Now, hopefully you appreciate that a reasonable amount of design consideration went into it, and we can accept that we didn't design anything 'gimmicky'.

Secondly, I tried quite hard to present my area to the judges, but the only one I managed to even hold for a minute wasn't particularly interested in anything electrical. I know that it wasn't me either, it's simply that the judges weren't mechatronics/electrical engineers. I don't blame them for not really understanding the finer detail or even being interested in it.

I would like to see someone specialising in it coming on as a design judge - it's only fair really, given that the vehicle dynamics, aero and cooling of the car are given a large inspection/grilling on a technical level.

And lastly yes I do recall the question on the dynamic centre of pitch, and definitely recall the cooling discussion - I think we learned something there.

Please don't take this as me being judgemental or critical, I think the design judges do a fantastic job and I appreciate their volunteering to help for these events. It was more meant to be a discussion on how to further improve the competition in general, after all, it is meant to be an educational competition.

Jeffrey

[A Richards]

Originally posted by Pete Marsh:

And it looks like even if you cant do that you can crank out a car in just a few weeks if your from Deakin! Amazing.

Pete


Well not entirely true, it takes us around three months to build a carbon monocoque from a picture on a computer to complete. But yes that aside the majority of the work was completed three weeks before the competition. One major problem that we have every year is that no one wants do anything until the chassis is built, it gets used as an excuse time and time again!! Couple this with the fact that last year we had 3 team members and this year 5, of which perhaps 3 did anything note worthy, it becomes difficult. Now you could turn around and say that it’s our stupid fault for having such a small team but in reality we have something like 20 final year engineers each year. This year our team was made up of two third years, two second years and myself been a fourth year. Our problem is that we can never seem to make participating in the project attractive and many students appear to be allergic to hard work and are afraid to step out of their comfort zone. This is of course a management issue, but hey it's hard to Study engineering, manage an FSAE team, front up to work 2 days a week and design and build an entire car. I have great confidence in those that are taking over the project next year so watch out for Deakin in 2009.

Generally those who haven’t participated in FSAE before cannot get close to understanding the scope of the project and the amount of work, dedication and persistence required. Students for some reason don’t understand that things take time and can go wrong. New members look at the previous year’s car with the attitude of how hard can it be. It also proves difficult to get accountability and meet deadlines and like Pete said, ‘everyone shrugs’. I don’t think that it would matter when the competition is teams that are poorly managed will turn up unorganized. Everyone has the same amount of time and the team that is most productive will always win.



Originally posted by Drew Price:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by A Richards:
".... Our 270gram uprights...."

Really?? Can I see?? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

What did your car end up weighing?

As a sucker for the big singles I really like the look of your sidewinder layout, and now it makes sense why there weren't more build or documenting photos up on your site, I will keep an eye out for when more pop up though. I think you guys had one of the most aesthetically pleasing designs to meet the new template rules, it disguises the washtub effect.

Looks like it was a fun comp with nice weather, I'm really enjoying the photos, and am reminded just how much the spirit of the competition is exemplified in how we all treat each other, especially between all the teams who are out to beat each other!

Best,
Drew </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hummm, I may have slightly under quoted the weight of our uprights. Actually 610grams. Don’t know what I was thinking about when I wrote that but my point still stands. Regardless they look like this.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa249/deakinracetechnologies/DRT04.jpg


This year’s car was heavy, 190kg. Last year’s which was far better built was 175kg. Upsizing the chassis however only introduced an extra 2kg’s.

What web site were you looking at?? I made a quick hack up last year which was “ www.deakinfsae.tk (http://www.deakinfsae.tk) “. No one ever got around to doing anything this year on that front and nothing on the schools page has been touched.


Regards,

Ash Richards

[Frank]

I think the concept of the competition, especially with respect to the required cost/complexity of the vehicle, has been very loosely defined. Some might argue this is deliberately so; in an effort to stimulate learning. Because of the loose definitions, judges might think certain vehicles too complex or too simple as far as required cost/complexity.

The level of complexity employed will certainly be influenced by the technologies readily available at the institution, and/or the technologies that have been previously researched, documented, and employed by students.

I note the rules are undergoing significant change, but I doubt it will have much immediate impact on the above.

I must say that judges are unlikely to value designs where the students presenting the design fail to understand it, regardless of the technologies employed.

IMO the attrition rate this year was totally unacceptable.

I also think the date of competition is a bit early, Australasian teams will find it realy hard to build a new car for formula student*

*Not kidding, we did it in 2004. For those moaning about the date of the Australasian comp, get a grip.

Frank Evans
UQ Racing 2001-2005

[Drew Price]

Ash,

I only saw the page on the school site, www.deakin.edu.au/scitech/eit/sae/index.php (http://www.deakin.edu.au/scitech/eit/sae/index.php), which just has pics from the rollout this year, and all the team member and such listed, so that explains that.

Checked out the link to the PhotoBucket account now though, thanks!

Best,
Drew

[Big Bird]

Some interesting stats re the Oz comp over the years.
The first set of figures are total teams entered, followed by the percentage that completed all events.
Second set are local teams (Oz & NZ) entered, followed by percentage who completed all events.
Final percentage relates to the total number of teams who finished above 700 points, which I personally consider a benchmark for a solid competitive effort.

2000: 9 teams total , 55% completion: 6 locals, 33% completion: 33% of teams >700
2001: 18 teams total , 55% completion: 14 locals, 43% completion: 22% of teams >700
2002: 18 teams total , 61% completion: 15 locals, 60% completion: 28% of teams >700
2003: 20 teams total , 50% completion: 15 locals, 46% completion: 40% of teams >700
2004: 22 teams total , 50% completion: 19 locals, 47% completion: 18% of teams >700
2005: 23 teams total , 48% completion: 20 locals, 45% completion: 9% of teams >700
2006: 27 teams total , 52% completion: 22 locals, 55% completion: 15% of teams >700
2007: 22 teams total , 41% completion: 19 locals, 42% completion: 9% of teams >700
2008: 24 teams total , 33% completion: 18 locals, 33% completion: 12% of teams >700

Interpret the data as you wish, but you can't help thinking we are making "negative progress" down here.

Cheers

[MalcolmG]

I thought I might clarify, before people feel too sorry for us, Auckland's gearbox failure, although unfortunate, came down to a misjudgement of the forces in a shifter component that we manufactured, rather than a bad-luck failure of a standard component.

I have a lot of opinions on team management, and I feel like we did an excellent job of running our project through the design/build phase, although once we found ourselves with a working car and a couple of months to test it, we didn't have a clear game-plan for how to best use the time.
Anyway, last year our faculty advisors introduced a system mid-way through the year where we received funding based on meeting certain goals. It wasn't particularly successful. This year it was decided from the outset that funding we had previously received would now be tied up into meeting goals. In total just under 50% of our cash funding from the university was put into these goals. It was then up to us to decide what the key objectives were that we needed to meet in order to give ourselves the best possible chance of success. We decided these were -
1. Having the CAD model of our chassis finalised and sent to a machinist for plug manufacture by a certain date
2. Having a completed monocoque by a certain date
3. Having a running car by a certain date.

Now, I am of the firm belief that the reason this system worked for us is that it sets goals in stone, and the management knows that no matter what, these goals must be achieved. It may seem like it would be good motivation for the team as a whole, but to be honest this is not really the case. It works a little for short term motivation, ie "we need to have the monocoque done by Friday and we'll get 10 million dollars for doing it, so everyone come out and help", but it doesn't make Joe Teammember say to himself, 2 months out from the deadline "I'm not going to go out and get drunk tonight, I'm going to go to the workshop and help sand the chassis plugs so we have a better chance of meeting that deadline".

At the end of the day, our performance based funding simply sets immovable deadlines early in the year, and it's then down to the team management to ensure that they are always on track for meeting these goals, and make compromises and come up with contingency plans to ensure the goals can be met.

[Kirby]

Hey Geoff,

When I was perusing previous results as a comparison to this years...I definitely came to a similar conclusion.

I remember last year there were several comments of a downturn in the quality of the cars and general performance.

Seems like that trend has somewhat continued again this year.

The million dollar question is....why?

[GTS]

The million dollar question is....why?

Long time lurker, first time poster. Competitor in one of the earlier, stronger years, observer since then.

FSAE, by definition, is project management competition with very loosely defined constraints. Generally the rationale students apply in developing solid design specifications from from abstract, general performance aims is poor - not a criticism, it's a student contest and above all a learning experience. And not that design specifications wholly define a competitive entry, but failure to be able to deliver them or to be able to develop mature specifications/project briefs is a key theme in observing failed FSAE efforts.

In earlier years the competition was very green; it was very easy to turn up to competition and to see performance tied to clearly-defined themes. The lighter cars were faster - it was easier to convince poorer efforts of the merits of Newton's 2nd law as the mass disparity between competitive and non-competitive efforts was huge (for posterity I won't mention what my uni's first car weighed in at...) same went for many other key parameters. I remember 02 I think - was it RIT that came over? - compared to the then-Aussie cars theirs looked like it was built in a parallel universe! Lighter, more elegant, steered like a dream - we all knew we had to lift our game but there was no smoking gun, their car was essentially made out of the same steels, had the same engines, the same base ingredients all of ours did. It was simply obvious we needed to make better use of what resources we put into building a race car.

New and interesting developments since haven't brought the house down (competitively) and have just shown students that there's more than one way to skin a cat regards putting together a competitive car. This isn't a bad thing at all, but for students looking for a 'silver bullet' in putting a car together - not that it's a responsible way of engineering anything!! - the merits of various influences aren't clear. I'm not suggesting that there aren't students out there that put a lot of good, original, well-thought-out effort into their work, but I'd certainly suggest that as a collective competition there's been a drop off in the 'why are we doing what we're doing' side of things long before a car starts build. Many efforts seem to assume a prerequisite of complex subsystems and feature sets for competitiveness, which (within to scope of the competition) is contrary to developing a quick car, let alone of quickly and effectively delivering your project.

A good design process, properly done, would see many student efforts iterate back towards simpler designs for a variety of reasons - not least (through design, development, manufacture, testing) the ability to apply a greater depth of engineering skill to them. Which is the point of the competition!

Quick cars are not necessarily complex cars Kirby (far from it, they're those with a greater depth of engineering applied, something which can't be abstracted in any number of bells and whistles). Earlier years were more conducive to this as we were all very much concerned with getting the basics right - there was even a period where many teams ripped the complex bits off their cars and spent the resources finding speed in 'purer' concepts (anyone remember RMIT's turbo CBR?) - the designs accordingly were simpler with a greater focus on the quality of engineering rather than than the quantity of it some efforts present with today.

Can't help feeling 03/04 was (broadly speaking) a bit of a zenith to this end. Some teams have moved forward with concepts based on similar themes, though I'd suggest this isn't always intended.

My 2c.

[Tom W]

For the most part UNSW was happy with the overall outcome but also has those feelings are tempered with a feeling of regret that we didn't quite achieve the potential of the car for various reasons.

The earlier competition date didn't really hurt us too badly. In response to the question of aimed for timelines compared with achieved timelines we aimed to have a car run at the end of September and instead achieved one that first ran two weeks prior to comp. Partly caused by us losing access to our CAD program at uni for just over a month.

We were fairly disappointed in a few of our results. Our final autocross run was given an off course because the driver was forced out of a chicane as there was an overturned cone in the middle of it from a previous car, this was enough to bump us from third to sixth. We struggled with shifting problems in acceleration, and in enduro our second driver was taking it very easy due to a number of reliability concerns (after a control arm buckled in the first heat).

We were disappointed with our design and presentation results, but at least now know the way forward in the design event. We still have no idea what the judges are looking for in presentation (if anybody has any tips we are all ears), we had a spread of over fifteen points between different judges and didn't really get any particularly constructive feedback on the sheets.

However overall, as the third placed Australian team we can't be too unhappy!

And most importantly from a team perspective we know have a university school and faculty that has a much greater level of respect for our efforts than they have for the last couple of years.

Finally a question for Pat. Apparently you turned your nose up at our car to our faculty advisor, just curious what you didn't like? Please don't take this as me having a go at you, I am just genuinely curious if there is a fundamental flaw that you see in our design focus?

[PatClarke]

Finally a question for Pat. Apparently you turned your nose up at our car to our faculty advisor, just curious what you didn't like?

What????? I have absolutely no recollection of that!! Not only that but I would never diss a team to their faculty advisor. I have no problems being straight and to the point with a team when the FA was present, but never behind the teams back. There must be some understanding or you FA may have misunderstood some comments I made, I barely recall talking with him, but as I talked with lots of people, I probably did.

I certainly have no issues with your concept (An aluminium honeycomb monocoque for those who don't know). I like the way your car could be easily mass produced and discussed this with Ron T who used similar production methods at RALT. There maybe some design issues along the way, but big picture stuff, I have no issues with UNSW's concept and I am sorry if that message way conveyed.

Cheers

Pat

[Tom W]

Thanks Pat, reassuring words to be sure!

And if ever you are in Sydney and feel inclined to put on your Student Tech Advisor hat I know that a number of us at UNSW would jump at the chance to have an indepth discussion with you about our car.

Edit: Just saw that your location is listed as Sydney, I'd always thought you were based in Melbourne. But if you are available at any point we would love the chance to have a good chat, we are now entering our design phase as we look at the particular difficulties that we will face with the 2009 templates.

[Kirby]

Originally posted by GTS:

Long time lurker, first time poster. Competitor in one of the earlier, stronger years, observer since then.

I've formed my own ideas around this downturn..but was interested to see what other people had to say.

If you wouldn't mind, GTS, could you please identify yourself and your (previous) team. If you are going to make detailed comments like that, some identity would help.

Cheers

[Charlie]

Originally posted by GTS:
Can't help feeling 03/04 was (broadly speaking) a bit of a zenith to this end.

I agree! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Honestly I think cars like UWA, being more complex than most and dominating the comp, was a bad thing for FSAE.

No disrespect for UWA, in fact, quite the opposite. They did maybe the best job ever of executing a detailed, sensibly advanced design I have ever seen.

But, I think it made teams think they needed an advanced suspension, or a variable intake, etc etc to compete. When it just isn't true. And these teams pushed to implement advanced projects without the resources, or even worse, without understanding the basics first.

RMIT did a lot in 2003 and since to show the world simple can win, but I think that trend is unfortunately reversing.

[Kai69i]

Hey all,
Starting on a more positive note, well done to all those who competed again this year, with the eventual winners being most deserving. Having got to know most of the Stuttgart guys pretty well in the week leading up to competition, you cannot help but think that all the hard work was done a LONG time ago… BBQs, beers and early nights were not only the norm of the week preceding the competition, but the competition weekend itself. The car was well sorted, the team well drilled and everyone was making it look sooooo easy in comparison to the rest of us who were running around pulling our hair out (I know I lost a kilo or two via this means!). Top stuff guys!

Geoff raises an interesting point statistically… one which comes as no surprise to anyone who has been involved in the Aus Comp in recent years (it replicated the plot I had in my head anyway... no MATLAB needed!). Not detracting from the huge effort which goes in by all crew members throughout the year, there was nothing I saw at the competition which even slightly impressed me with the exception of the standout team (our performance included).

I admire Malcolm for his honesty in pointing out the cause of the problems with the Auckland vehicle, and I’ll share a similar story. I was having a conversation with one of the UWA guys on Sunday after endurance who pointed out to me that we (RMIT) just didn’t seem to have much luck this year… and felt pretty bad for us (a first for everything! LOL). Whilst lady luck may not have been on our side evidently on the day, the events of the weekend had probably panned out some 3-4 months ago. Although I removed myself from the management of our organisation at the end of 2007 for ‘differing’ reasons, I am one who is prepared to accept full responsibility for the embarrassing performance the team exhibited over the weekend to ensure we like many others can move forward in future years.

Optimism is the name of the game in human nature- I know I am guilty! It is just a shame that we do not realise these things without the benefit of hindsight! For example, whilst the majority of us have spiffy degrees (or are on the way to them), I have been listening to ‘Nick the cleaner’ for the last 6 months asking me why people were not working harder in the middle of the year… and that every year the rush comes all but too late. He doesn’t have a degree…. Actually I don’t even think he owns a road car…

Endeavoring to extract the ultimate performance from a group of people is also an art in itself. I would add that in addition to project management, people management takes equal precedence in FSAE…. And we have not even spoken about building a race car just yet! In hindsight for me that is probably the easiest part of the project.

We like many others have moved away from the most basic management practices which must be exhibited in a non-resource affluent environment (such as that in a volunteer based organisation). With a lack of resources (I imagine we are still one of the better resourced FSAE teams), once the project falls behind the old cliché of ‘can we throw either people or money at the problem’ goes out the window. We tried this within a certain aspect of our program this year… and failed miserably!

I admire those like the Auckland guys who set a target and hit it (capital is an amazing motivating factor). I didn’t get a chance to catch up with too many of you this year (for obvious reasons!) but I would have loved to sit and talk with the team to ‘observe’ the culture within the team. Although you guys made the ‘deadlines for cash’ (I have trademarked that now if anyone wishes to use it further in this post! LOL) program work, I am certain that the success of this program would be a near sole function of the ‘culture’ within the team. Without getting specific, I could see this working wonderfully for some teams (like Auckland) and failing miserably for other teams.

There is a wealth of knowledge on this thread now… Guys like Geoff who I have been fortunate enough to have as a mentor for 4 years (and still will in the future I hope). I’ll let GTS identify himself, but he is another of my past/current mentors too (a guy who has seen it all in FSAE and now risen to the premiere level of international motorsport with a world championship team). Pete Marsh has been around in FSAE for more years than I have been on this planet, and Pete M (ex-Wollongong) can tell you a thing or two on how to run a project (as well as how to make some serious horsepower!)

For anyone serious about getting the job done in FSAE, go and get this thread printed and bound at Officeworks and title it ‘The ultimate guide to FSAE.’ And guess what… we have not even talked about damping ratios or engine mapping yet…. Put that as Volume 2…. But only when Volume 1 has been thoroughly understood!

Cheers,

Kai

[GTS]

Kirby - can't see that my identity helps detailed comments. It's just a personal opinion, you're welcome to take it as you like. I was an active part of FSAE in 2003; like many eager students I turned up the year before to see what all the noise was about and have maintained sufficient interest to keep abreast of the competition since. I don't think we've met. If you require further info, PM me.

Kai - shush! I'm very sorry to hear about the engine issues, but I don't think the concept is bad at all. I hope there's enough written that it's developed for a bit longer.

I think Auckland's approach is fantastic - asking students to manage a student project successfully is a tall order (when, as students, they've had very little management experience, let alone in mastering the extremely difficult task of managing their peers). Some 'hardpoints' do well to set a tempo that's clearly understood by all. If you don't know where you're going, you'll likely never get there...

...the money's not a bad place to do it, either. It was only a few years after FSAE (when trying to get money out of clients or allocated to projects I had a hand in) that I realized I'd probably never get another chance to have a bunch of sponsors throw money at us with near zero accountability to do basically what we liked with it - with good reason!

[Pete M]

Ha, thanks Kai. I'd probably say i know a thing or two about how not to run a project. 3 years of mistakes. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Honestly i find it rather hard to criticise because most of the mistakes i see are mistakes i myself made in their position. It's just frustrating seeing your successors (and other teams) make the same damn mistakes. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

If i had to condense it all into one mistake, i'd say FSAE teams do not accurately estimate their resources (manpower, money, skills, etc) at the start of the year and then become over ambitious. And then as it becomes more and more apparent that their estimates were grossly off (people leaving the team mid year, sponsors not coming through on time, etc) they do not change their plans. Or just as bad, they simply scale the time allotted on the remaining tasks until it all fits, whether or not any of the new timeframes are feasible. If the first 6 months of work took 9 months, why do you think you'll be able to do the next 6 months in 3?

All this leaves an exhausted team at comp that hasn't slept properly in weeks and a car that is unfinished, messy and still in the infant mortality phase of testing.

There's a quote i like, "I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes." -- Kahlil Gibran

The team that continually builds an overly complex car and then doesn't finish the endurance year after year (hell, how many top aussie teams don't drop out of an enduro a year on average? My tenure had 4 enduro finishes out of 7) is conceptually similar to the guy that wants to be wealthy but spends way more than he earns and ends up with a mound of debt. Build a car that you can actually build on time, easily, without taking years off your life. Get the details right. Then stand there at comp, well rested and proud of your polished, well tested, simple car and enjoy yourselves.

[brettd]

First off, congratulations to Stuttgart, the team you guys brought (while massive) looked very organised and well practiced. Your car was also extremely refined and your knowledge about it was superb. We really wanted to give you guys more of a run for your money but a few *minor* issues hurt quite a bit.

Seems to be two issues in this thread for the moment so I guess I'll weigh in with my thoughts on both:

I have a couple of ideas on team management and motivation which are mainly from empirical observation. Personally, I think one of the biggest influences on a teams success is the culture that prevails throughout the year. Managers themselves (especially in FSAE teams) have very little control over how productive a team member is going to be.

Management in this sort of competition is allocating work that has to be done to people who can do it, personally I think very little can be done to change the rate or enthusiasm (thus productivity) that a team member will have when they are doing said work. Training and social activities help, but usually only for new members and only if there already exists a decent culture. Leadership is overrated when team politics come into play, unless you have a perfect leader who doesn't piss anyone off, then attempts to "lead by example" will just further segregate the team.

Although the cars almost always come out late, overall I don't think the managers do too bad, a lot of the problems are mainly due to inexperience and especially lack of knowledge of just how long things take.

As for the complexity of cars, I can't really speak for other teams but I wouldn't say our car is more complex than say Aucklands (or any other monocoque 4 cylinder with a dry sump system and modified dampers). Also, while composites may seem complicated, in many cases they are far simpler and cheaper to manufacture and repair than steel weldments depending on the teams resources.

[Chris Lane]

Originally posted by brettd:
...while composites may seem complicated, in many cases they are far simpler and cheaper to manufacture and repair than steel weldments depending on the teams resources.

Can't agree more.

For us it is the flipside, where steel fabrication and in-house machining are far more viable (financially and timewise) than composites.

This is due to our Health and Safety policies, and available resources.

This is something that will certainly be evolving for us as we start to explore structural applications of composites, but nonetheless I don't foresee our team moving to a CF monocoque any time soon. We'll simply get smarter with our weight and loadpaths.

[GTS]

Management in this sort of competition is allocating work that has to be done to people who can do it, personally I think very little can be done to change the rate or enthusiasm (thus productivity) that a team member will have when they are doing said work. Training and social activities help, but usually only for new members and only if there already exists a decent culture. Leadership is overrated when team politics come into play, unless you have a perfect leader who doesn't piss anyone off, then attempts to "lead by example" will just further segregate the team.

Sort of, though I don't agree that good managers can't make a difference - even in FSAE. Good management has a very significant effect on how productive a team member can be. Good management is never about allocating work to those that can do it, ever. It's about getting the most out of the resources that you've got - human resources included. You've got no choice but to get this right in FSAE - whilst it's very hard to tell someone that you're no more qualified than to go and do something and expect a suitably dutiful response, you can't fire anyone you don't like or don't get on with either! So don't be exclusive with your culture, strive to be inclusive.

FSAE is a great introduction to the notion that practical engineering has a good deal to do with successful project management and delivery, the nuances of which aren't easily taught in a classroom. Since FSAE I've had many encounters that have concerned technical progress and many others that concern some sort of direct or indirect effort to get more of out the people I work with - the latter meetings are always more productive regards moving a project forward (as opposed to a technical aim or competency) - always. I should add the limitations to progress are not always on the side of the people I meet with - and that admittedly I rarely saw things as such during my own FSAE year; if I had to do it again, these are the first experiences I'd put to good use.

Nor was I aware during my FSAE year that a solid technical concept sufficiently complex to require a team of people to deliver it cannot successfully be delivered in lieu of good human resource management - as obvious as it seems now (or as obvious as that statement makes it). Getting this sort of stuff right is a common problem in competitive engineering industry and is much, much harder than, say, taking 50gm out of next year's upright or whatever.

Kai and I have had this discussion enough times to conclude that the next major innovation in FSAE won't come from a new powertrain configuration, monocoque in unobtanium, whatever... it'll just be a better managed team. Simple (or hard) as that (I wasn't there this year to see Stuttgart - sounds like a great effort to have watched).

If it takes a simpler technical concept to allow the necessary resources to better develop it, so be it - a simpler concept and some very generous fudge factors in time estimates possibly http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[brettd]

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with your first paragraph, management should try and get the best out of its team? but this doesn't involve allocating work to those who can do it?

Again, I'm only speaking from my experience which doesn't span as much as many on this board so feel free to criticise, but I think the problem is more with team-wide inexperience and initial attitude rather than bad management.

Most students start FSAE as not-so-brilliant engineers (I was particularly bad myself) and while they may not emerge as brilliant geniuses, most if not all emerge as better engineers for it. At the start of a build year, some, most or all of the team begin as inexperienced design engineers, inexperience which causes prolonged deliberation about design decisions, over-optimism in setting goals or deadlines and excessive time spent on FEA or tiny details in design.

At the beginning of the year, the initial attitude would be more focused on making the new vehicle "better", in whichever way the team sees fit, however the attitude and team culture (or even work ethic) does not match that required in order to achieve the goal.

While this is definately not the case for professional teams where team members will stay for more than a few seasons, in Australian FSAE the majority of students only remain heavily involved with a team for 1 to 2 years, which leads to the inexperience trap every year - of course there are always a few exceptions to the rule.

[Charlie]

Originally posted by brettd:
At the start of a build year, some, most or all of the team begin as inexperienced design engineers, inexperience which causes prolonged deliberation about design decisions, over-optimism in setting goals or deadlines and excessive time spent on FEA or tiny details in design.


But this problem is solvable with a good team manager. Someone who doesn't have to be a great engineer, or even an engineer at all, but they know deadlines must be met, and are able to sufficiently motivate others to feel the same.

[GTS]

management should try and get the best out of its team? but this doesn't involve allocating work to those who can do it?

No, it involves developing and maintaining the skills and appropriate culture within and among individuals such that everyone in the team is able to 'do it'. Charlie is right.

Spend less time judging who can and can't. Accept you're all students and to varying degrees, all learning. Accept that some will learn some skills faster than others but that all can be made valuable. What's more important is that you have, at the start of the year, a group of (diverse) people that want to participate. This is not a luxury you'll always have in industry. Too often in student groups that's forgotten - given a chance, everybody wants to be here - the whole forming-storming-norming-performing group development process goes undisciplined and you're quickly faced with a Lord of the Flies moment.

You start off with people that want to participate meaningfully - if you can maintain that, making a technical resource of that group is straightforward. Be inclusive, not exclusive in your management approach. The champion team has it on a team of champions, always.


I think the problem is more with team-wide inexperience and initial attitude rather than bad management.

Regardless of the degree to which people talk themselves up or however long they've been involved with the program, everyone in FSAE is inexperienced. Not dealing with the inexperience appropriately or leveraging an initial attitude to advantage is poor management.

Embrace inexperience. Because of the way FSAE is run at many universities, it's essentially an undisciplined learning environment. If you've done FSAE before you might know how to turn a screw smarter than the student next to you, it doesn't necessarily mean you know more than them about being part of an inclusive, diverse team that needs to deliver a complex project. If anything poor habits can become limiting as they set the bounds of your expectations. It's not easy being green but it's not the limitation you make it out to be either.

Comes back to being inclusive - a good manager will push to find a way to best use a team resource even when the answer isn't obvious. Any fool can avoid the challenge and delegate a task to someone more immediately favorable, but you'd agree that most teams doing this run out of resources around the time the sh*t really hits the fan. So it's not a smart way forward.


At the start of a build year, some, most or all of the team begin as inexperienced design engineers, inexperience which causes prolonged deliberation about design decisions, over-optimism in setting goals or deadlines and excessive time spent on FEA or tiny details in design.

Sure, and I do appreciate what you're saying - that at the end of the year, in retrospect, the initial effort seems horribly ineffective/inefficient. But those that know better (in having been there) weren't born knowing it, and would be extremely arrogant to presume that others aren't allowed to learn from - and enjoy going through - the same processes (let alone make their own, original mistakes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif).

Beyond that your point concerns a project being ill defined. You'd have studied in engineering management how to plan a design from initial abstraction, through generating a PDS, setting tasks, allocating timelines, predicting failure modes ahead of time, etc... done in industry all the time... how many FSAE teams embrace this? Very few - about as exciting as cost reporting, I'm told! Yet most students are taught this and at worst have lecturers, libraries, industry they could get advice from. So - throughout the team, looking uniformly - you have ill-defined project aims, a lack of definitive specifications, no real generation of various concepts and appraisal of their various methods, no failure mode assessment or time/resource planning before you even pull out a sketchbook or hit a CAD workstation - is it surprising that some efforts end up poorly specified or very insular in their resource allocation? I might sound anal retentive on this, but imagine if you had to fund an FSAE team out of your own pocket - you'd be keeping a very, very close eye on every aspect of project management I'd bet! You'd do everything possible to best prepare your team to make the best of their time and resources.

Don't get me wrong, I've witnessed students that get it spectacularly right despite not going through a formal process, I've even seen some attempt it with good results - sometimes a student really does have a good appreciation of the salient aspects required to successfully deliver their responsibilities, some will use tools to better abstract as much. But poor planning in a team environment isn't the fault of 'inexperienced individuals' - it's systemic, fundamentally a team management issue.

And don't take the comments too harshly. There's so much to account for in such a project that it's unreasonable to expect students to get it all right. Just do your best to up your awareness of how problems may be created - your comments aren't particularly macroscopic in their appraisal. You're not just in FSAE to win - in fact you're missing out on the point of it if that's all you're there for - you're in it to learn. My FSAE results? Not great! My intentions during the year? Always good, though I cringe a little looking back on how I tried to execute them. The lessons I learned? Invaluable. I hope you come to have a similar conclusion about your own involvement.


While this is definately not the case for professional teams where team members will stay for more than a few seasons, in Australian FSAE the majority of students only remain heavily involved with a team for 1 to 2 years, which leads to the inexperience trap every year - of course there are always a few exceptions to the rule.

There is no such thing as a professional FSAE team. There are those that better leverage their resources in what project management, human resources management and engineering/design management concepts they apply, and there are those that don't.

There is no such thing as an experienced FSAE individual either. It's a student competition. If you get to the stage where you feel you're a seasoned pro that's above feeling green and capable of telling other students how to run their time in the competition, then you need to do one of the following:

- Pull your head in, or,
- Accept you've grown beyond FSAE and give someone else the chance to have the experiences you've had.

Have fun learning.

[Big Bird]

It is funny how this annual thread ends up morphing into something other than "updates pictures and stories" about the Oz event. Just an observation, and certainly something I'm to blame for as much as anyone else.

I read the various comments about "inexperience" last night, and spent a few minutes thinking of how I would respond. It seems that overnight GTS has beaten me to the punch, and always the better wordsmith than I, has pretty well nailed everything I was going to say. Cheers mate, I won't have to labour so much.

I'll throw in a few random comments though:

LEADERSHIP:
Every one of the really ground-breaking top level teams I've competed against has had a strong leadership group steering the overall direction of the project. In particular I'm thinking Wollongong around 2002, UWA around 2003-2004, Cornell when they were on that incredible winning streak. At the managerial end of each of these teams were a small group of individuals who had a well-formed vision of where the team was going, and the leadership skills to bring everyone along with them.

The world-view that these leaders had developed didn't just encompass the usual component level design skills (e.g. mass minimization processes, engine development, FEA and stiffness calcs), that most of us have learnt in our engineering educations. It included a whole vehicle level vision of how the car would integrate; where its strengths and weaknesses would lie in regard to the overall competition; which project tasks were worthwhile and which were "high-risk, low return"; how this direction could be achieved with the existing time, budget and human resources; which developments could be implemented this year and which were for longer term development; how the vehicle development would tie in with all the "non-vehicle" requirements (e.g. Static Event goals, team members meeting academic requirements); how the acquired team knowledge will be transferred to later teams, etc etc etc. I'm no fan of autocratic governance, but if you don't have some sort of core leadership and overall vision, then any success you may achieve becomes purely a matter of chance.

INEXPERIENCE:
Nothing I've seem indicates that a good team needs experience. I've seen teams of relative amateurs put up a really competitive effort, (usually because they are united in their lack of experience) and teams of "old hands" that should have done better fail miserably (often through team bickering / politics or just plain complacency).

An inexperienced team is much more likely to assess the task at hand objectively, and take the advice of others (academic staff, workshop staff, team alumni, etc). This is a very big project, so a little bit of fear of the task at hand can aid in making sure the team doesn't bite of more than it can chew. Experience on the other hand can lead to unfounded confidence. How often do you see a team put in a good honest first effort, and then go backwards the following year when they try to do too much. (We certainly learnt the hard way).

As far as the wider definition of "experience", who says we lack it here in Oz? We have been running a comp here for 9 years now, and you could near fill a football stadium with those who have some experience with this Formula. Team alumni, event staff, industry visitors and sponsors, uni staff, judges - there is a whole raft of individuals that can give good honest advice on what they have seen. (Note Pat Clarke's comments above - we have an impartial and highly experienced FSAE judge here who is willing to help us out, but hardly anyone bothers to contact him). I'd accept that a first year team like Edith Cowan Uni could argue inexperience as it usually takes a year to get to know the right people. But for the rest of us I think it a very poor excuse.

I'd suggest that a lack of willingness to accept advice is a much larger problem. Nearly every good FSAE alumni you speak to says the same thing - attempt less and get it done early. I know many alumni who are still happy to help and advise their old teams to achieve this aim. But I also know many who despair when their well-intentioned advice is ignored and the same mistakes are made over and over. Given we are returning to completion rates experienced at our very first Oz event, it is obvious that the most important lesson is just one that current participants just don't want to learn.

Cheers all, sorry for the thesis

[Pete Marsh]

Charlie and GTS have some pearls of wisdom and are pretty much spot on. But, the reality is most teams will have (or recently have had) a meeting to choose a new team shortly. At that meeting they will be looking for a team manager, who will be a volunteer. When the question gets asked, one or two hands will go up, and someone will be choosen. So what skills will they have? what is their motivation for having a go? will they know anything about group dynamics or motivation, or sponsorship, or faculty relations?

My point is that just as all the engineers are yet to find their feet, so is the managment and leadership that your suggesting will lead them. The blind leading the blind.
We have often spoken of 'understudy' possitions for all the key roles but by the time the need is realised the main players are too snowed to build a car and train the next team.

In my experience, when lack of succesion planning, recruiting and training becomes the limiting factor, the team does something about it. Then the next teams forget about it because they have a good strong team (from the work of their predecesors) and the need is not so pressing, and so the decline starts over.

Pete

[brettd]

Originally posted by GTS:
No, it involves developing and maintaining the skills and appropriate culture within and among individuals such that everyone in the team is able to 'do it'. Charlie is right.

I agree completely, in fact I said it in my first post:
Originally posted by brettd:
Personally, I think one of the biggest influences on a teams success is the culture that prevails throughout the year.

I think that the culture the team has is one of the biggest influences (if not the biggest) on how successful they will be. The part where I disagree with you guys is that management (say the elected/assigned 2,3 or 4 people who hold the positions with the titles in the team) is able to implement/enfore said cultural change:

There are a few reasons why I believe this is the case:
1. The level of commitment in FSAE teams varies massively, unlike a workplace where the employees do a similar amount of hours (give or take), there are several very different levels of involvement, each level with an different culture.

2. There is almost zero accountability, managers have little to no authority to enforce deadlines, if a particular team member has never met a deadline in his (or her) life, then there's not a lot the manager can do to make the member finish something on time (or even at all for that matter).

3. Cultural change is difficult to implement without a lot of resources backing it, there are many examples of failed cultural change in firms even with millions of dollars spent during implementation.

4. The change fights an uphill battle from the start, this is because the change will usually involve the team members giving up more of what little life/uni marks/job they have left. Cultural change in a workplace, for example much stricter safety protocols is at worst going to inconvenience a few employees but it's not going to cost them their girlfriend or another year of their degree.




I think the problem is more with team-wide inexperience and initial attitude rather than bad management.

Regardless of the degree to which people talk themselves up or however long they've been involved with the program, everyone in FSAE is inexperienced. Not dealing with the inexperience appropriately or leveraging an initial attitude to advantage is poor management.

Embrace inexperience. Because of the way FSAE is run at many universities, it's essentially an undisciplined learning environment. If you've done FSAE before you might know how to turn a screw smarter than the student next to you, it doesn't necessarily mean you know more than them about being part of an inclusive, diverse team that needs to deliver a complex project. If anything poor habits can become limiting as they set the bounds of your expectations. It's not easy being green but it's not the limitation you make it out to be either.

Comes back to being inclusive - a good manager will push to find a way to best use a team resource even when the answer isn't obvious. Any fool can avoid the challenge and delegate a task to someone more immediately favorable, but you'd agree that most teams doing this run out of resources around the time the sh*t really hits the fan. So it's not a smart way forward.




Sure, and I do appreciate what you're saying - that at the end of the year, in retrospect, the initial effort seems horribly ineffective/inefficient. But those that know better (in having been there) weren't born knowing it, and would be extremely arrogant to presume that others aren't allowed to learn from - and enjoy going through - the same processes (let alone make their own, original mistakes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif).

Beyond that your point concerns a project being ill defined. You'd have studied in engineering management how to plan a design from initial abstraction, through generating a PDS, setting tasks, allocating timelines, predicting failure modes ahead of time, etc... done in industry all the time... how many FSAE teams embrace this? Very few - about as exciting as cost reporting, I'm told! Yet most students are taught this and at worst have lecturers, libraries, industry they could get advice from. So - throughout the team, looking uniformly - you have ill-defined project aims, a lack of definitive specifications, no real generation of various concepts and appraisal of their various methods, no failure mode assessment or time/resource planning before you even pull out a sketchbook or hit a CAD workstation - is it surprising that some efforts end up poorly specified or very insular in their resource allocation? I might sound anal retentive on this, but imagine if you had to fund an FSAE team out of your own pocket - you'd be keeping a very, very close eye on every aspect of project management I'd bet! You'd do everything possible to best prepare your team to make the best of their time and resources.

I agree with this, personally I think this is a result of having thesis projects tied to the team and also the nature of what attracts students to FSAE itself. For example, if students were given the choice between designing and making a few more cool bits for the car as opposed to planning out what they are going to do next, which do you think they'll choose?


But poor planning in a team environment isn't the fault of 'inexperienced individuals' - it's systemic, fundamentally a team management issue.
Yes it is, but as Pete said, if your planners are inexperienced, then it is just the blind leading the blind, deadlines can easily be overly optimistic and I believe this is as a result of inexperience in the planning process.


There is no such thing as a professional FSAE team. There are those that better leverage their resources in what project management, human resources management and engineering/design management concepts they apply, and there are those that don't.

Sorry, when I meant professional, I meant getting paid to do it, I hope this excludes FSAE teams. :P


There is no such thing as an experienced FSAE individual either. It's a student competition. If you get to the stage where you feel you're a seasoned pro that's above feeling green and capable of telling other students how to run their time in the competition, then you need to do one of the following:

- Pull your head in, or,
- Accept you've grown beyond FSAE and give someone else the chance to have the experiences you've had. I'm not suggesting to other teams how to run their teams in the competition, the management of FSAE teams is something that has intrigued me for a couple of years now and I just wanted to weigh in with my opinions.

[Paterson]

Havent posted on here for a while but this thread is a fantastic learning tool teams out there and hits the mark on the intention of the forums...

Great advise from all the seasoned guys here, and you look down the list of teams they have worked with and the success these teams have had and its advice that should be adhered to.

I have worked with 3 universities on formula student, 1 in australia and 2 in the UK, and the thing that strikes me everytime is the development approach to team structure, the mix of previous participants to new team members and commitment.

Big bird is spot on with his comments on this, that the novice teams seek advice, but i think the best teams i have been with have a good mix of people with a couple of years experience and guys with no experience. With this mix we found we could achieve things quickly, and had the tools available to fast-track design but still had the individuals who would seek to explore the reasoning behind decisions to better understand them for the future.

This has resulted in a team for 2009 that have flown into the design process seeemlessly and confidently, choosing leaders who have shown a desire or passion for the position and its inherent responsibilities and requirements and also an understanding of each others strengths and weeaknesses.

Personally, I look fondly at the university of adelaide's improvement in recent years, a very high completion rate, early car finishes and a simple, solid design that has developed yearly into a highly competitive vehicle, and I note that this trend has coincided with the mentoring system where previous team members have openly and actively made themselves available to provide advise, answer questions about previous cars and the reasoning behind specific compromise in the design.

I dont think the importance of this can be underestimated in a competition where you learn most from your mistakes and mistakes of your peers... The new teams do need to make the same mistakes to learn the lessons, but sometimes the benefit of a guiding hand can teach these lessons (or pose questions for the team to consider), without the costly failures and time losses which can result.

my 2 cents... fantastic thread for new and old teams alike.

[GTS]

brettd;

You're not wrong in general, and your interest in management is commendable, particularly in FSAE where it's a key - if often critically unappreciated - element.


The part where I disagree with you guys is that management (say the elected/assigned 2,3 or 4 people who hold the positions with the titles in the team) is able to implement/enfore said cultural change...

A misconception. You're right, cultural change in industry takes time, however two things are overlooked:

1 - You've a huge advantage in FSAE - you can basically reset the culture year on year. I've been an observer of one university's FSAE team for four years, and whilst there are common themes and faces, the four teams I've seen all have a unique vibe of their own (in this is pays for individuals that have become a little 'too experienced' to leave the program and let others form their own culture appropriately, lest they shape it inadvertently).

2 - Just because 2-4 people have a title it doesn't ever mean they define or uphold the culture, let alone the management effort in it's totality. Don't assume managing downwards is the only way - team members at any level can manage upwards, sideways. You can make a managerial difference without the title if (putting it colloquially) you're more interested in the end result than in having your ass kissed. It's often the most influential, dependable people in any team that aren't the most 'titled' or known outside of the team itself. What matters is that those that are aware of a better way, or a positive addition to a current process proactively effect that change. Be the courtier; there are many ways to do this.


There is almost zero accountability, managers have little to no authority to enforce deadlines, if a particular team member has never met a deadline in his (or her) life, then there's not a lot the manager can do to make the member finish something on time (or even at all for that matter).

I agree. This is hard, particularly given shortfalls in perceptions between team members of what's important.

To this end I think the Auckland solution is fantastic. Were I in FSAE all over again, I'd beg my funding university to string our funding to deadlines. Brave, it might seem a little suicidal even, but it'd put a real, external pressure on getting the job done (not least it'd increase the university's interest in the project significantly). This is also a relevant perspective; if you think of contracts between sponsors, drivers and professional race teams you'll appreciate that such arrangements are in essence similar - inasmuch there's sufficient motivation in money for individuals to get their job done... I really do think the Auckland solution is a positive step along the way to professionalizing FSAE efforts and preparing students for the environments the project emulates. Kudos.


Cultural change is difficult to implement without a lot of resources backing it, there are many examples of failed cultural change in firms even with millions of dollars spent during implementation.

Millions of dollars don't effect cultural change, historically a few enlightened and extremely patient individuals do.


The level of commitment in FSAE teams varies massively, unlike a workplace where the employees do a similar amount of hours (give or take), there are several very different levels of involvement, each level with an different culture.

If this is used as a basis for judging contribution, I disagree. Not least because this can set a combative precedent.

Involvement in a project isn't measured by the number of hours one puts in. It's measured by an ability to execute responsibilities, which is not the same thing. A significant part of the problem characteristic to FSAE concerns poor project definition - when do you stop designing? What are your targets/aims? Are these clearly defined - is there ambiguity? With as much, you can't expect anyone to plan their time accordingly, let alone work effectively. Effective work, not bulk attendance, gets a job done. I'd take someone who gets a good hour's work out of an hour in the office over someone that's a regular fixture but not nearly as productive. The latter person has no right to criticize the former. The people that put in a rock star effort in my year, that had bulletproof assemblies that performed brilliantly, that even had spares and other contingencies organized well before the year's end - these people weren't the people that 'put in the most time'. They were simply the most organized. And they had healthy lives outside of the team, maintained or improved their grades, one even kept up part time work.

FSAE team members are all students. You shouldn't be in the office 24/7. There are crunch times, sure (I'll admit to having slept in the office during my year on rare occasions) but on the whole you're not at university to do FSAE - and you shouldn't be. You're there to complete a degree to the best of your ability. Any co-curricular activity (FSAE or otherwise) that value adds to your career preparation is a bonus, if - and only if - you can time manage it. Those that created the competition would be mortified to think otherwise. I don't buy this at all:


The change fights an uphill battle from the start, this is because the change will usually involve the team members giving up more of what little life/uni marks/job they have left. Cultural change in a workplace, for example much stricter safety protocols is at worst going to inconvenience a few employees but it's not going to cost them their girlfriend or another year of their degree.

For every student that made an impact in their team that I've seen bring their degree to a halt, I've seen students that have been just as effective - or more - that kept their grades, partners, health, sanity whatever. FSAE is not a special case - plenty of other non-FSAE students in your degree will hold down jobs/responsibilities/hardships that differ from yours in that they don't have an end-of-season competition, and that's about it. Poor time management on your part is your problem and certainly not an excuse to despise another's effectiveness - don't let that attitude permeate your FSAE team's culture, ever. Judge people on their ability to get a job done, not on the relative differences in their methods that bear no affect on your own. If anything, where you can see someone being more productive, learn from them - it's a small thing to be a little behind this at uni, it's a massive difference to be an ineffective contributor in industry. If everyone's overworked and it's not a ridiculously small team, it's not a sign that all are equally dedicated, it's a sign that people's involvement could be better managed.

Help your team be proactive in focusing goals, specifying responsibilities as unambiguously as possible so team members know what job they need to get on with, so that they have a clear, transparent performance metric, so that delivery dates have a readily tangible set of technical deliverables and aren't just a milestone on a not-too-serious Gantt chart.

(FWIW, I've never seen safety protocols inconvenience anyone in a workplace unless they're not followed, and then the inconvenience can last a long time at best and be tragic at worst. Get it right in your team's efforts. If you're not sure, grab the OH&S head at your uni early in the year, have them review how the car is made and how the office runs. Have a mandatory inauguration done. Let the OH&S people do the work they're paid to do. It might be their head that rolls should something happen to one of your team as a result of your FSAE activities, but it's the affected person that lives with the consequences. Do students really need to see the aftermath of a workplace incident or hazardous working conditions before they realise OH&S is a win-win? It's not as though best-practice industry conditions are any more relaxed.)

Goal specification is crucial:


For example, if students were given the choice between designing and making a few more cool bits for the car as opposed to planning out what they are going to do next, which do you think they'll choose?

When the team's technical direction is ambiguous, an individual team member's contribution is similarly so. You can't expect anyone at this point to go for anything but some form of personal glory - doesn't everyone want to have fun and be remembered? We could well rephrase your question: "if students were given the choice between designing and making a few more cool bits for the car as opposed to taking responsibility for increasing performance in an area that's been understood to make the car markedly more competitive to a target value that's been researched, which do you think they'll choose?" Even as a green ugrad many moons ago I'd go for the God role and take on the responsibility. I'd gladly let someone else take on the CarbonUnobtaniumCompletelyUselessFeature. I'd know whatever cool bits I designed were a function of a goal that made the project more competitive, and anyone in future wondering how it was done could reference my - MY - work (also explains why recruiting people do only handle marketing/treasury/web design/cost report/<insert non-exciting role anyone else wouldn't be caught dead doing> never works?)

You may well say that's the point you're making, but I'd add that bending a student's enthusiasm into a very productive end requires much less effort than you might have considered - it's very easy to get excited about a responsibility when you've 'seen the point' of it all. Good leaders in FSAE would do well to lock the team up in a room for a week, ban CAD, crack out the whiteboard markers, sit at a round table and have a rigorous, structured look at what performance parameters the car needs to have. Geoff makes a great point - if you had no experience in FSAE, what's the first thing you'd do? Very likely you'd make an effort to structure some targets. Use last year as a starting point, read the rules carefully to weight parameters, have an honest look at where the competition mauled the team the last time around. Start putting some numbers that define a PDS together. To be honest it's not bloody hard - the SAE gives you a rulebook that states pretty clearly how the competition runs, it's not as if competitiveness is a vague concept you need to spend a small eternity defining (note: this is another departure from 'real' motorsport, where FSAE is easier - yet I've witnessed/worked with/partaken in six FSAE teams and I've never seen one assess last year's results - of all teams - in detail, nor run any rigourous simulations aimed at maximising points in competition).

Then management needs to be (or needs to be convinced to be) totally unemotional (the hard part): having given a specification to a person or people to be delegated, management needs to accept what they hand back should it meet that specification, e.g. if the chassis is specified to weigh to much, have given stiffness parameters, have pickups and clearances in certain locations, have certain lead times in manufacturing, needs cost so much with relevant manufacturing resource implications, has certain risk factors, whatever - and then your chassis team hands back a design that meets all that but is made of mung beans and banana peels when others (who's responsibility it isn't) perceived it to be a steel spaceframe, so be it. Don't bitch about it, just throw rocks at it fairly and if it's still standing as a concept, run with it. Be unemotional in delegation, let others take responsibility for their work. It's not you that has to defend or deconstruct it for the design judges in the end, is it.

I've worked with many student teams on many different projects - I can attest that properly lead - and that means with an appropriately defined project brief and the resources required to complete as much, not necessarily with an all-capable figurehead leading the ship - even the most unlikely students can achieve remarkable things in remarkably short time periods. Accept your managers won't be perfect, manage upwards if you need to, and get your team to define their work efforts early on.


While this is definately not the case for professional teams where team members will stay for more than a few seasons...

Whilst professional teams do have employees with more developed skill sets than your own, noone's asking you to turn out a competitive Formula 1 car either, and the basic engineering principles don't change anyway. The biggest difference I've observed don't concern individual skill or familiarity with a project, it concerns goal setting. Professional operations put time into working out exactly where they need to go. Then functional groups go away and generate concepts to suit those goals, then the rest is just your average engineering donkey work on a race to see a completed, functional project. The stuff FSAE teams don't tend to carry over and develop year-on-year which they should - procedures, processes for developing goals and concepts, procedures for testing, etc - far outweighs the net worth of the themes that are (the "these SuperCarbonAssys are great as we had them last year").

(I've actually never understood why there's not been a collaborative effort on these forums to get that sort of stuff knocked out in at least a preliminary context - would be far more useful than a CAD repository).


...most teams will have (or recently have had) a meeting to choose a new team shortly. At that meeting they will be looking for a team manager, who will be a volunteer. When the question gets asked, one or two hands will go up, and someone will be choosen. So what skills will they have? what is their motivation for having a go? will they know anything about group dynamics or motivation, or sponsorship, or faculty relations?

I would suggest you'll want someone with an open mind, that is patient with diverse people, that can take criticism as well as they can give it - or those that know better will need to quietly impart these values along the course of the year to the chosen figurehead. I would also admit this doesn't always happen in any organisation, so managing upwards is a good skill to practice.

Having prior FSAE experience doesn't make for good management skill. The rest of what's cited in this list can be learnt, so long as - as Geoff rightly, critically points out - there's a culture where people are willing to learn, willing to take advice. I'd rather leadership that exemplifies as much in a student project as opposed to leadership that exemplifies a quantity of knowledge that sets cultural bounds not only defining a project technically, but defining what's technically possible and how - with all the social implications that brings. If you're fortunate enough to find individuals that blend open minds with some knowledge that they're both happy to share and have questioned, you're very fortunate; it's a head start but not the only way of building the 'round table' atmosphere you want.

Hell... unfamiliar challenges? Limited resources? Short timescales? Team cultural issues? Managerial challenges? FSAE might seem an ultimate nightmare, though some other alumni might agree with me when I suggest that if you're fortunate enough to carve yourself out an engaging engineering career, you're going to be thrown in this kind of deep end for a long time yet.

There are entire professional industries dedicated to improving project management if you're lost and require inspiration - the same assistance industry uses isn't far away. Be positive, proactive, focus on making the most of this kind of environment rather than lamenting the challenges. Learn to take the sh*t with a smile and mean it, lest your muck become someone else's brass (think about that one!)

(This post is too long.)

[L B0MB]

Hi all

I am interested to learn how much fuel each team used in the endurance event at the comp and what engine they were running

This is in light of the new fuel economy weighting in the 2009 rules...

[Tim.Wright]

Yo L-Bomb

The results for the US comps all show fuel used in gallons on their spreadsheets.

http://students.sae.org/compet...rmulaseries/results/ (http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/results/)

T-Section
Suspension & Vehicle Dynamics
Curtin University
'Complulsory Life Member'

[Taffy]

Originally posted by RiNaZ:
will we be seeing the RMIT car at F-Hybrid next year?

I do not believe it will be unless plans have changed.
They are building a new electric SAE car this year with many upgrades from ours though it is still in planning stages.

The reliability problems that we had were from a washer (i blame kai! :-P, hows things btw? ) floating around inside our low voltage box. When we pulled a left turn it would create a short and blow the LV fuse which shut down the car.

Was alot of fun to have on track and alot quicker then we thought it would be. Seemed that we had set the controller up for a good power range to run on such a tight track.

[Kai69i]

Hi Taffy!
Yes what a ripper idea the old washer in the low voltage box was!

I tried to re-wire the car on the Friday night before comp so it would only run in reverse, but I found this was not as simple as just reversing the polarity of the electric motor! Actually the car didn’t run at all in that configuration! LOL. So after completely earthing out our FSAE car the week before, I thought why not try it on the E-bomb? LOL.

The infamous washer aside, from what I have heard in the last week this style of vehicle looks to have a big future in the FSAE competition. As they say… watch this space!

Kai

P.S. Taffy, was Facebook not an appropriate means to ask how I was going? LOL