Formula Student Germany 2013

[TMichaels]

Hey Everyone,
I thought I just start a thread on this year's FSG.
For us, the volunteers, it starts today. Setting up the whole event site etc.

If you want to stay informed throughout the event, these are the official channels of FSG(not all of them are already accessible):

Website:
http://www.formulastudent.de/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FSGeV

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/FormulaStudentG

Photos & Videos:
http://media.formulastudent.de/

Livestream (Award Ceremonies & Dynamic Events at least):
http://www.formulastudent.tv/

Live Timekeeping:
http://tk.formulastudent.de

Results:
http://www.formulastudent.de/f...13/results-fse-2013/ (http://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/results-fse-2013/)
http://www.formulastudent.de/f...13/results-fse-2013/ (http://www.formulastudent.de/fse/2013/results-fse-2013/)

Technical Inspection Status:
http://www.formulastudent.de/f...l-inspection-status/ (http://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/technical-inspection-status/)
http://www.formulastudent.de/f...l-inspection-status/ (http://www.formulastudent.de/fse/2013/technical-inspection-status/)

Semi-Official/Unofficial Channels in no particular order:
This thread http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Juergen's Twitter Channel, Head of E-Scrutineering:
https://twitter.com/Huega

Twitter Account of our Timekeeping group:
https://twitter.com/FSGTimekeeping

Bastian's Twitter Channel, Head of IT-Services & Timekeeping:
https://twitter.com/BastianPoe

FSTotal's Twitter Channel:
https://twitter.com/FStotal

FSTotal's Facebook Account:
https://de-de.facebook.com/FStotal

My Twitter channel for semi-official behind the scenes commentary:
https://twitter.com/TobiasMic

And of course all the team websites, Facebook accounts and Twitter channels!

[mech5496]

Awesome Tobias, thanks! If your tweets are anywhere close to what you did at FSUK we need nothing more! Now where is Tristan and his magic update URL?! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[TMichaels]

I am afraid that I will not have that much time to tweet, but we will see.

[MH]

It's time for a personal assistant, Tobias!
http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

regards,
Miki Hegedus

Formula Student Germany Volunteer 2010-2013
Delft University of Technology 2001-2008

[TMichaels]

Are you applying for that job?

[Kopito]

I don't think anybody would be insane enough for that, not even somebody from the Netherlands http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Markus]

I can already see Miki as the personal assistant of Tobias, with all the smooth talks and everything. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[MH]

Actually gentlemen, I was thinking about one of the redshirts http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Not sure why you guys haven't figured that out yet. I guess Tobias played with electricity once too often, Kopito doesn't get enough oxygen in the mountains and Markus.... well he's still drunk from drinking beer in the sauna.

See you guys in Hockenheim http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

regards,
Miki Hegedus

Formula Student Germany Volunteer 2010-2013
Delft University of Technology 2001-2008

[Pennyman]

So pumped for this!

http://i.imgur.com/DEtuhk4.gif

Thanks as always Tobias.

[TMichaels]

FSG TV Episode 1 is online:
http://media.formulastudent.de...2667186699&k=mmxgHm4 (http://media.formulastudent.de/FSGTV/FSG-2013/FSG-2013/30833096_5zPwqD#!i=2667186699&k=mmxgHm4)

[BeunMan]

We all prefer FSE but putting FSE in the FSC scores; Correted link:

http://www.formulastudent.de/f...13/results-fsc-2013/ (http://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/results-fsc-2013/)

[TMichaels]

Hi Tristan,
what exactly are you referring to? I can't see anything wrong? Maybe it has been corrected already though.

[Pennyman]

FYI, the livestream is pretty slow here in the US, even on fast connections. The resolution is really high on the video feed so maybe that's contributing to the slow stream (lots of buffering).

[TMichaels]

Can anyone from Europe or from the US confirm this? I just want to check that we are not hunting a singularity.

[Stef de Jong]

Tobias, I did not watch yesterday, but i have some internal DUT racing facebook comments suggesting it was quite glitchy.

[Stef de Jong]

Tobi, currently watching the skidpad stream. It really is glitchy. Pretty sure it is not my internet connection. So, that's your confirmation http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[mech5496]

I'll second that...

[Luniz]

Same here, location: Boeblingen, Germany. Very fast internet connection...

[mech5496]

Just noticed that some 10" teams are running 13" wets? Esslingen and Akron I think. Makes sense as 10" wets seem to suck compared to 13"s for some reason!

[mech5496]

Seems like the live streaming server is down... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

[Pennyman]

Originally posted by mech5496:
Seems like the live streaming server is down... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

Yep, not working here either.

[BeunMan]

Tobias,

The link was: "h t t p : / / www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/results-fse-2013/ (http://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/results-fse-2013/)" which says fsc first and fse-2013 second http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif which is the link you posted in the first post.

Just some remarks; I'm glad there even is a livestream and live scoring! Missed radio silverstone this year at fsuk ...

Remarks:
The stream worked most of the time. It stuttered quite some at the start but, after downtime, got better. Definitely wasn't my connection (logs show clear skies all day, 100mbit local over a huge connection).

Scrutineering updates:
usually 1-3 hours late but they are in order of what twitter/facebook posts mention. Probably manual input so I guess its a nice feature but not highly accurate in time. Everyone wants to know if their car/team 'officially' made it instead of 'hearing' it from the team. It's sord of an assurance.
It's nice to see the results of a lot of teams managing to get their car through scrutineering though.

Looking forward to Accel/Auto-X tomorrow. Less see if they can keep us busy with commentary http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[TMichaels]

How was the stream during the award ceremony tonight?

[Pennyman]

Live stream is great right now for accel. No latency.

[mech5496]

Originally posted by Pennyman:
Live stream is great right now for accel. No latency.

Worked fine here too! Hope the same for the auto-x this afternoon!

EDIT: Server is down at the moment (14:00 CET).Oh, and the title at the timekeeping site is wrong, it says skidpad instead of autocross! :P

EDIT 2: Server's back on... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Sim]

Just wanted to say a big thanks to all the track marshals and officials today for doing such a great job. It was roasting out in the stands today so I can't imagine what it was like out on track! Thanks for your time and effort in making FSG such a great event to visit. Looking forward to tomorrow!

[Sim]

And also thanks to the guy who let me take a photo of him vacuuming his pit bay. I realize that's a bit weird but it made my day http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Shebert]

Are they running the FSC and FSE endurance together?

[TMichaels]

Yes.

[BeunMan]

The ceremony worked great. I had no troubles viewing the start of it but had to go away and couldn't see the rest.

Yesterday the stream was a lot better than friday. I was able to watch it on the train with my cell-phone as network access (on laptop). Only jitter was caused by lack of cell-towers nearby while driving.

One minor thin today at endurance: Just like yesterday Alia and Miki have very bad reception on the receiver connected to the stream on the website. We can mostly ony hear them via the speakers on the site in the background.

Looking forward to the endurance today!

[mech5496]

Congratulations to all winners on FSG, especially Delft which did it for fourth time in a row! Overall this was a great competition to follow, and despite being unable to attend, twitter, live streaming and live timing made a bit up!

On a side note, I was taking a look at the results earlier and got confused. How comes that we (UniPatras) did an accel. run of 4.216 w/o having DQ and still got zero points? I noticed it with a few other teams too (Diepholz, Siegen, TU Darmstadt). Wouldn't change much, but we would be 10th with about 38,5 points on accel., which would put us 4 places higher in the final results (25th instead of 29th). Again, this wouldn't change much, but I cannot really get the zero points thing...

[BeunMan]

Harry,

All he teams you mention got a DSQ on one of the runs. DSQ on one means DSQ on all. You team got one on the second run. Probably > 85KW power used.

[mech5496]

Oh, silly me, somehow I missed that if you get DQ on one run, you DQ for the whole event. IMO it just not makes much sense, but rules are rules! Thanks and apologies for me being stupid! :-)

[BeunMan]

The idea behind it is probably that they can only check it after the whole event (e.g. acceleration). If you drove with >85KW in one, you might be able to do it at all runs. Whether you did it in all runs is irrelevant; You had the opportunity to do so and did at least once.

[RollingCamel]

No rusty car this time? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Can anyone brief me about their take on Alexandria University team efforts?

[Z]

Tobias,

Are the PDFs at the bottom of these FSC Results (http://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/results-fsc-2013/) final?

In particular, Chinese team Shiyan has 70 points in the Design.pdf, but in the Total.pdf they appear with 0 points for Design.

I note that one out of the two Chinese teams entered (ie. Shiyan) managed to score reasonable points in all events, including finishing Endurance. The other team, Weihai, DNF'd in Enduro, but did OK in the other events.

By comparison, all Indian teams failed Enduro (no surprise!), and only 4 of 9 British teams managed to finish Enduro. Sure, sample size is too small for statistical significance, but I reckon the Chinese are coming!!! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Z

[BeunMan]

From a personal point of view I'm interested in the efficiency scores for FSE but those aren't online yet.

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by BeunMan:
The idea behind it is probably that they can only check it after the whole event (e.g. acceleration). If you drove with >85KW in one, you might be able to do it at all runs. Whether you did it in all runs is irrelevant; You had the opportunity to do so and did at least once.

The intention behind this rule is that, if we would only disqualify the run with the violation that teams will start to gamble by trying 83, 84, 85 and 86kW and let us puck the rules compliant run. This is not our job. Technically we could easily do this right now.

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by RollingCamel:
No rusty car this time? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Can anyone brief me about their take on Alexandria University team efforts?

Their car was damaged heavily during transport. I do not know the background though.

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by Z:
Tobias,

Are the PDFs at the bottom of these FSC Results (http://www.formulastudent.de/fsc/2013/results-fsc-2013/) final?

In particular, Chinese team Shiyan has 70 points in thie Design.pdf, but in the Total.pdf they appear with 0 points for Design.

I note that one out of the two Chinese teams entered (ie. Shiyan) managed to score reasonable points in all events, including finishing Endurance. The other team, Weihai, DNF'd in Enduro, but did OK in the other events.

By comparison, all Indian teams failed Enduro (no surprise!), and only 4 of 9 British teams managed to finish Enduro. Sure, sample size is too small for statistical significance, but I reckon the Chinese are coming!!! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Z

The overall results are final and correct in my opinion. Shiyan got penalised in design for being 12kg overweight after Endurance according to FSC rule 7.2
The FSC design results were finalised before, so they do not reflect this penalty. I will make sure that this is changed.

[Bemo]

Originally posted by RollingCamel:
No rusty car this time? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Can anyone brief me about their take on Alexandria University team efforts?

I also can't tell how the car got damaged during transport to Germany, but it definitely was the case.
But being honest, the car wouldn't have passed scrutineering anyway. There were quite a lot of issues which weren't rules compliant. The chief scrutineer had a long talk to them on Friday to tell them what they have to do in future for being able to take part in the dynamic events.

The performance of the Indian teams differed. Like last year the best Indian car came from Orion Racing. They didn't have big problems getting all their stickers, so they were able to start in all dynamic events. Unfortunately this time they weren't able to pass Endurance, I don't no why.

As far as I know there was only one other Indian team who got all stickers and managed to at least start in Endurance, but didn't get far. They had quite some trouble passing scrutineering and then the attachment of the steering column broke in the test track. So they couldn't take part in the other dynamic events.
Personally I saw only one of the other Indian cars and this was very far from passing tech. Both templates didn't fit, frame wasnt conform to their SES, problems with driver's harness attachment and so on.
My impression is that Orion racing gets a great benefit from being hosted by the Karlsruhe team every year. Like this they have the chance to learn from an experienced team. This explains in my opinion, why they made a much better progress in the last years than the other Indian teams. Maybe it would be a good idea for the others to see if they also can find a local team which is willing to help them.
When teams from America or Australia come to Europe it is quite common, that they ask a local team to host them and don't have problems to find one (and also the other way round, when European teams go overseas).

[Jakob]

Great Event! I love the live stream/timing!

Will the Endurance Laptimes be published?

[Luniz]

Can anyone fill me in about the sportsmanship award, what did the Bialystok do to get it? I somehow wasn't paying attention at the award ceremony. Beer might have got to do with that http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Z]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
... Shiyan got penalised in design for being 12kg overweight after Endurance according to FSC rule 7.2.
Tobias (or Bemo),

Any idea how the Shiyan car got 12 kg heavier???

I can only guess that they might have changed wheels and/or tyres (+3kg per?), and/or different seat?

Also, any opinions on the general standard of the Chinese teams?

Z

[Z]

http://www.formulastudent.de/u...oring_eff_all_01.pdf (http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/FSC13_Scoring_eff_all_01.pdf)

Also interesting is the proportional relationship between average-lap-time-in-Enduro and fuel-used-per-lap, for the whole field.

Clearly, the faster you go, the less fuel you use!

My guess is that this is partly due to the faster cars having better tuned engines, but mainly due to the faster cars having higher corner speeds, hence braking less into the corners, and accelerating less (ie. burning less fuel) out of the corners.

Z

[Bemo]

They claimed this was due to a different set of wheels. So we weighed all tires and rims they had with themselves and didn't find any combination which explained this difference.

About the Chinese teams in general, originally five or six registered I think, in the end two of them showed up with a car which was able to collect all stickers.
Biggest problem is, that they usually speak very poorly English, so it is very difficult to give them advice (especially because they have the attitude to pretend they understood you although they didn't...).
Taking into account, that the whole competition doesn't exist in China for very long, their efforts are quite impressive. The two cars I've seen made it through tech, one of them finished Endurance with a fair performance. Also building quality was quite OK.
I guess the biggest issue is that it is too easy to get through tech in China. They usually can't believe that they don't pass on first try, although they didn't have any issues at the Chinese event.
But I guess the organisers there are like the teams still in a learning process and if they look for help from the organisers of other competitions that should improve soon.

[TMichaels]

AFAIK the car has not been completely wet when the initial weighing took place, but this has not been confirmed yet.

[mdavis]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
AFAIK the car has not been completely wet when the initial weighing took place, but this has not been confirmed yet.

Tobias,

Can the teams not declare 0, 50% or full fuel on initial weight in?

-Matt

[TMichaels]

No, we define that the car has to be completely wet including fuel being filled up to the limit as otherwise tilting the car and checking for liquids leaking does not make sense. We weigh them directly after tilt. The weighing station is 2m away from tilt and the teams are directly send to weighing after passing tilt.
These are the first weight penalties in 7 years of FSG as far as I am aware of.

The weight is also the official design event weight which is also why it is important to weigh all teams in the same state. We allow a 5kg tolerance up and down before applying penalties. It should be no rocket science to match that.

[SNasello]

Tobias,

the car from Esslingen weighed in 4.6kg under its design weight, but they actually added a larger battery before the endurance (500g). Without that they would have been underweight according to this rule. You don't get a 5kg difference from tire and brake pad wear over 22km.

I have heard from other teams also, and from personal experience in Hockenheim 2011, that those scales aren't particularly accurate. We re-weighed our car in 2011 before design because we couldn't believe we were over 200kg, and our scales (right after weighing) showed 193kg.

[TMichaels]

Thanks for the feedback, I will talk to the Dekra guys about that. Did you send this in as feedback in 2011? Because we need your feedback in order to improve. Feel free to always direct positive and negative feedback to feedback@formulastudent.de

[SNasello]

I believe our Team Leader in 2011 sent in Feedback, but I cannot be certain. I will have the team write an official feedback as well.

[LewisKoberg]

Hi Tobias,

Would you be able to shed any light on why Hatfield UH was brought in on a Meatball flag due to a flapping front-right endplate, was released and then was allowed to continue even after it fell off on-track?

It was strange to watch as they were announcing it as it happened, but no action was taken.

Thanks.

Lewis

[mdavis]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
No, we define that the car has to be completely wet including fuel being filled up to the limit as otherwise tilting the car and checking for liquids leaking does not make sense. We weigh them directly after tilt. The weighing station is 2m away from tilt and the teams are directly send to weighing after passing tilt.

This makes the most sense, much more so than what happens in the States, imo. I never understood having to choose your fuel state, when all cars are filled to the same condition for tilt. Unfortunately, I guess that would mean that all cars need to be through scrutineering and tilt before Design.

-Matt

[Michael Royce]

Matt,
The only people that need to know a car's weight are the Design Judges. It is one of the many factors they take into account in the Design Event.

At most events, although it appears that FSG is the exception, scrutineering is going on, or still going on, at the same time as the Design Event on the "statics" day. As you are not allowed to put fuel into the car until you have passed scrutineering, weighing all the cars with full fuel doesn't work at most events from a timing standpoint, as many cars go to Design before they get through scrutineering.

Most cars carry, at most, 2 gallons of fuel, say 12 lbs. So this is the biggest possible error. In the States, Mike T. and his team ask if the car is empty of fuel, 1/2 tank, etc., and will often ask the team to crank the car to prove it has a battery and engine oil! The Design Judges are comfortable with these numbers, so why make things more difficult?

A number of years ago at the Michigan event, we did weigh cars after some of the dynamic events and compared the weight we got to the initial numbers as a way of stopping rumors of "cheating" at the initial weighing. In fact, a number of years ago, Carroll Smith and I had a long conversation with one team from Michigan who had gained weight. It was an unnecessary experience, so we dropped the requirement. We think the current system is better overall.

So, the (approximate) weight we give in the States seems to work for the Design Judges, works from a timing standpoint, and is hassle free for the teams, so why add the complication that FSG has chosen to employ?

[Luniz]

Originally posted by Michael Royce:

The only people that need to know a car's weight are the Design Judges. It is one of the many factors they take into account in the Design Event.


I'd like to disagree on that: A car needs to have an official weight and a certain tolerance. Otherwise teams could for example add weight to the top of the roll hoop for the acceleration event which should help them to put the power down, or something similarly stupid...

[Bemo]

For the combustion cars there are two full days for scrutineering before statics day at FSG. This way, a well prepared team shouldn't have much trouble getting through tech before they go to design. Still there are teams coming to design without a tech sticker and therefore without an official weight. In this case it is seen as a sign of poor preparation which shouldn't be an advantage in design http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

For the electric cars it is more difficult as their design event takes place on Thursday afternoon and they have to pass the electrical scrutineering first. Due to that quite a lot of them have to go to design without an official weight. I don't no how the judges handle that.

But I share Luniz' opinion here that the weight of the car isn't only interesting for design. After they got the tech stickers the rules don't allow a lot of changes of the car, only adjustments (in fact replacing the battery for Endurance already wouldn't be allowed be the rules http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif). Otherwise they have to bring their car to re-inspection. As this is almost impossible to control, big changes in car weight indicate a team somehow changed something. But if the scales are really that unprecise, this is of course a problem.

[BeunMan]

I don't know about fsg but at fsuk the scales are designed for about at least a ton (1k kg) of weight (as it is a standard truck/car weighing station). Putting a 150kg car on that thing should give a discrepancy.

I've never seen the scales at fsg so I can not comment on those.

[TMichaels]

Kudos to our media team for one of the coolest FS videos I have seen so far, FSG2013 Acceleration Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyaAopcZYKA

Regarding the scales: AFAIK they are the same scales that are used by the teams to setup their suspension.

[Thijs]

Tobias,

I thought the idea of an overall dynamics winner was pretty cool. Out of curiosity: Could you elaborate on how the two classes were compared?

thanks!
Thijs

PS I noticed that the award was red, were you hoping for an electric winner? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[mech5496]

Thijs, I assume this is pretty straightforward, just compare times for all dynamic disciplines and award points accordingly. Efficiency excluded of course! Or not?

[Thijs]

Harry, exactly, my question was essentially if/how efficiency was being taken into account.

[Z]

Tobias, Bemo, or anyone who knows...,

The Endurance event is 22 kms, and fastest times were about 1320-1400 seconds, giving average speed = 15.7 m/s to 16.7 m/s (57 to 60 kph, or 35 to 37 mph). Is this about right?

Also, there didn't seem to be a great variation in speed around the track. For example, I didn't see anything that looked like the Rules version of a 180 degree, single pylon "hairpin", with outer track diameter = 9m.

So, any idea what the fastest and slowest speeds (on different parts of the Enduro track) were for the top cars?

(Or, put another way, what speeds should teams be expecting for their aero packages? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)

Z

[JulianH]

Z, for Endurance the track was made a bit faster (a couple of corners were "opened" to make it more flowing) compared to AutoX.

There was one relatively tight 180 turn on the track but wider than 9m. You can see it in the Endurance videos on YouTube.

Overall, the German track is really fun to watch and to drive (according to our drivers).

Sadly we couldn't run AutoX and our limiter in Endurance is about 100kph (and we hit that), so I can't tell how fast the cars become. I think out of the long right hander to the final straight before start/finish, the cars can hit 120 kph.

When it comes to Aero, the German track certainly has some areas where you can really see the Aero working. GFR showed it with the Single Cylinder that they just didn't lift in some areas http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by Thijs:
Harry, exactly, my question was essentially if/how efficiency was being taken into account.

It wasn't. We just took the corrected times of all dynamic events and scored both classes together. The winner scored the maximum overall points.

[Z]

Originally posted by JulianH:
... I think out of the long right hander to the final straight before start/finish, the cars can hit 120 kph.

When it comes to Aero, the German track certainly has some areas where you can really see the Aero working. GFR showed it with the Single Cylinder that they just didn't lift in some areas http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
Thanks Julian,

That speed range is larger than is apparent on the videos (hard to tell on the videos). FSG certainly looks like an "aero friendly" track! Quite fast, with no really slow sections.

The slowest "hairpin" I could see was a ~180 degree bend near some green tyre walls, but the inner radius of this looked quite large (R = 4m+?).

Does anyone have numbers for the slowest speed corners of the Enduro (speed or radius)? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Z

[TMichaels]

Fastest FSC Endurance Laptimes:
11 US Corvallis OSU 71.875
1 DE Stuttgart U 73.331
2 DE München TU 73.622
94 DE Esslingen UAS 73.802
50 US Akron U 74.55

Fastest FSE Endurance Laptimes:
E33 CH Zürich ETH 72.496
E1 NL Delft TU 74.827
E34 DE Ingolstadt UAS 77.127
E6 DE München TU 77.235
E26 DE Stuttgart U 77.244

[bob.paasch]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
Fastest FSC Endurance Laptimes:
11 US Corvallis OSU 71.875
1 DE Stuttgart U 73.331
2 DE München TU 73.622
94 DE Esslingen UAS 73.802
50 US Akron U 74.55


A minor complaint about FSG. We would prefer to be referenced as Global Formula Racing, and thus explicitly include our partners at the DHBW Ravensburg. I can understand that our partnership is unique and therefore doesn't fit with how FSG tracks teams by university. FSAE also requires us to specify one or the other university. So I'm okay with referencing a team by university name.

But I do not understand why FSG insists on applying the university naming scheme used in Germany to every university in the world. We are not "Corvallis OSU," that is a name required only by FSG, used only by FSG, and it is completely unrecognizable outside of FSG. Our university name is Oregon State University.

It's not Ann Arbor UMI, it's the University of Michigan.
It's not Seattle UW, it's the University of Washington.

How would the German teams feel if FSAE Michigan referred to teams this way:

Bavaria, M
Baden-Württemburg, S
Baden-Württemburg, K
Lower Saxony, B

What is so difficult about referencing each university by their proper name? Every other FSAE/FS competition in the world seems to be able to do this.

[TMichaels]

Bob, three things:

1) The name is directly taken out of the team data base. Thus the team must have registered it's name like that.

2) It seems to work for every team, but the US ones, so these are the singularity, not the other way round.

3) And most importantly: There is an email address for that: feedback@formulastudent.de

[Bemo]

I'm not a fan of how this is handled at FSG at the moment either. For some reason the wording of the rule requires the name of the city in the school name. Also here in Germany nobody knows which university "Corvallis" is, as it is usually called Oregon State. In this case there should be a new wording of the rule found which satisfies everybody.
About the issue with the two university names in case of GFR. I told the team (and confirmed it later with the chief scrutineer) that it would be ok, if the name of the second university is written below the first, but clearly smaller. Like this it is clear, whith which university name the team is registered with and it would still be indicated that there was another uni involved.
Besides from that my advice is to ask the rules commitee in advance if how you plan to put the school name on the car. I know cases where they were less strict in this case ("University of Alberta") for example. They got the permission to use that as their school name in advance. Don't ask me why it is allowed this way and if you're just showing up with it, it would not be ok...

[TMichaels]

Bemo,
Thanks for pointing to the rules. I almost forgot that little part :-)

The rules require this indeed. So we would need a rules change in order to solve that issue forever.

[bob.paasch]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
Bob, three things:

1) The name is directly taken out of the team data base. Thus the team must have registered it's name like that.

2) It seems to work for every team, but the US ones, so these are the singularity, not the other way round.

3) And most importantly: There is an email address for that: feedback@formulastudent.de

1) In the team database, we are Oregon State University. It is the FSG naming convention that has us listed as "Corvallis OSU" or "OSU Corvallis." Obviously, we are thrilled with the results at FSC (well, except for Design http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif). On the FSC Results page we are listed as Oregon State University. But on the FSG Home page we see: "The winners of Formula Student (Germany) 2013 are OSU Corvallis...."

2) It's not just the US ones:

It's not Hatfield UH, it's the University of Hertfordshire.
It's not Glasgow U Strath, it's the University of Strathclyde.
It's not Edmonton U Alberta, it's the University of Alberta.
It's not Montreal ETS, it's Ecole de Technologie Superieure.
It's not Beijing THU, it's Tsinghua University.
(Going back to 2010) It's not Perth UWA, it's the University of Western Australia.

3) Done. As you point out, this will take a rules change of an "FSG only" rule. Which I strongly support.

By the way Bemo, thank you and the chief scrutineer for allowing DHBW Ravensburg on the car. I watched endurance sitting next to the President of the DHBW-R, and it made it much more comfortable not to explain why his school's name was not on car #11. Last year we registered at FSC as DWBW Ravensburg, and we had to remove all references to Oregon State University from the car.

[TMichaels]

1) In the team database, we are Oregon State University. It is the FSG naming convention that has us listed as "Corvallis OSU" or "OSU Corvallis." Obviously, we are thrilled with the results at FSC (well, except for Design ). On the FSC Results page we are listed as Oregon State University. But on the FSG Home page we see: "The winners of Formula Student (Germany) 2013 are OSU Corvallis...."

I have to admit that I do not know the reason behind this, especially as Daniel replied to your feedback mail that we are using the school name whenever we have the place to do so.

The endurance times in my former post were directly copied out of the timekeeping system data which uses the shortest naming convention available due to limited space on the big displays. We also received the feedback that scrolling does not work for everyone spectating. Therefore we will probably stick to that convention for the timekeeping displays, because "Corvallis OSU" is 10 letters shorter than "Oregon State University" and still identifies your team correctly.


2) It's not just the US ones:

It's not Hatfield UH, it's the University of Hertfordshire.
It's not Glasgow U Strath, it's the University of Strathclyde.
It's not Edmonton U Alberta, it's the University of Alberta.
It's not Montreal ETS, it's Ecole de Technologie Superieure.
It's not Beijing THU, it's Tsinghua University.
(Going back to 2010) It's not Perth UWA, it's the University of Western Australia.

You are right and I am wrong. My sincere apologies and a good example how not to post in this forum (posting before thinking).


3) Done. As you point out, this will take a rules change of an "FSG only" rule. Which I strongly support.

Thanks. Just read it and also noticed that Daniel already replied, although his answer does not fit the issue regarding the news about the winning teams.

[Edward M. Kasprzak]

I suggest also addressing the city/university issue on the world ranking site. If there is a desire to retain both the city and university information, just swap the order of importance. The school name is fundamental and should be listed first. The city is secondary.

By the way, the map of Formula teams on the site reveals the secret to GFR's success. They're based in Bermuda! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Check it out:

http://goo.gl/maps/xljJR

[bob.paasch]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
The endurance times in my former post were directly copied out of the timekeeping system data which uses the shortest naming convention available due to limited space on the big displays. We also received the feedback that scrolling does not work for everyone spectating. Therefore we will probably stick to that convention for the timekeeping displays, because "Corvallis OSU" is 10 letters shorter than "Oregon State University" and still identifies your team correctly.


Actually, we would very much prefer "Oregon State" on the timekeeping board, which is yet shorter than "Corvallis OSU". 90% of the people in the US would recognize Oregon State as Oregon State University. 99%+ of the people in the US would have no idea who or what "Corvallis OSU" is. With 15,000 people following the 2013 FSG live feed, this is important.

Is Daniel following this thread, or do I need to send everything to FSG Feedback?

[TMichaels]

Actually, we would very much prefer "Oregon State" on the timekeeping board, which is yet shorter than "Corvallis OSU". 90% of the people in the US would recognize Oregon State as Oregon State University. 99%+ of the people in the US would have no idea who or what "Corvallis OSU" is. With 15,000 people following the 2013 FSG live feed, this is important.

Is Daniel following this thread, or do I need to send everything to FSG Feedback?

Well, we could offer another input in the "My Team"-area saying "Displayed Name" or "Short School name", where the teams can enter their preferred shown name. We could then use that for timekeeping, results, etc.

You do not have to forward everything to FSG feedback. I just wanted to make people aware of this way of providing feedback as it usually works better/is more direct.

[TMichaels]

I suggest also addressing the city/university issue on the world ranking site. If there is a desire to retain both the city and university information, just swap the order of importance. The school name is fundamental and should be listed first. The city is secondary.

By the way, the map of Formula teams on the site reveals the secret to GFR's success. They're based in Bermuda! Check it out:

I cannot follow you. The WRL shows the school names.

GFR is based in Bermuda, because this is half-way in between the two schools forming GFR.

[JulianH]

Originally posted by Z:

Does anyone have numbers for the slowest speed corners of the Enduro (speed or radius)? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Z

I just got our logs. The slowest speed was roughly 6.8 m/s and the car did close to 10m in Radius.

[Edward M. Kasprzak]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I suggest also addressing the city/university issue on the world ranking site. If there is a desire to retain both the city and university information, just swap the order of importance. The school name is fundamental and should be listed first. The city is secondary.

By the way, the map of Formula teams on the site reveals the secret to GFR's success. They're based in Bermuda! Check it out:

I cannot follow you. The WRL shows the school names.

GFR is based in Bermuda, because this is half-way in between the two schools forming GFR. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tobias,

I agree that the WRL list uses school names, but the Overall Results from Michigan (combustion event 97) on the same page are by city.

I was guessing "halfway", but I got a smile out of seeing GFR in Bermuda nonetheless.

By the way, the WRL has been helpful to the TTC. It's nice having the superset of existing teams in one place. About 2/3 of the teams in the WRL are TTC members.

[DougMilliken]

... The school name is fundamental and should be listed first. The city is secondary.

Just for completeness, sometimes the city is necessary. For example, Cal Poly SLO (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo) is different from Cal Poly Pomona.

[Z]

Yep, this Team-Name thing is a real pain...

The results of the recent Baltic Open are a good example.
"Zips Racing"???
Oh, yeah... that's "Akron", err ... I think...???

But never fear, for Z has a solution!!!

Use the HURRICANE NAMING (http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/tcp/Storm-naming.html) system! (Or something like it.)

So, for existing teams, the date of registration for their very first FS/FSAE event is found. Then the female name of the hurricane that was named closest to this date becomes the Official Team Name, for all time henceforth. New teams are similarly named. As a slight variation, an Official FS/FSAE World Wide List of Names (perhaps taken from a kiddies naming book (girl's names only!)) might be drawn up, and Team-Names taken chronologically from this list.

Importantly, these names are non-negotiable! If your team happens to get the name "Edna", or "Gladys", or whatever, then you had better get used to it. You will be called Team Edna forevermore.

There are two obvious advantages to this system.

1. Teams are recognisable by their short, distinctive names, whenever and wherever these names are used (which should be always and everywhere, such as on the cars, team uniforms, scoreboards, results.pdfs, etc., etc...). This is, of course, the rationale for naming hurricanes this way, and has been proven to work well.

2. It is well known that FS/FSAE is a great way to get rid of a girlfriend, or, more likely, never get one in the first place! But with this new naming convention every team member (yep, mostly male) will have at least one girl they can talk about. Their Team!!! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Z

(PS. Julian, Thanks... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)

[JulianH]

To be honest, I'm not good with politics, so therefore the whole "naming problematic" seems a bit exaggerated for me.
I don't understand the problematic with the "strange team names" and I also don't understand when teams seem to have problems with the thing that pops up on the scoring screen (as long as the time is purple http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif).

Of course GFR is a special case (but the team doesn't have issues to use the multi-nationality as an advantage...), and I think it is good to have both universities on the car. We are also a cooperation of multiple universities and we have a small sticker of the University of Lucerne of the car. So far this was never an issue.

Last year, I was only confused by "Rolla", I never heard about this town and certainly didn't know that Missouri S&T is located there. But once you know that, where is the problem?

More problematic, in my opinion, is the obsession of the scrutineers about the rules when it comes to the "size" of the University and the Number. Yes, I understand the intend of the rule that it should be visible, but a few millimeters more or less.. come on... I can't remember how often we gave away one of our "3"'s for another team that had a number that was too small. That is one rule paragraph that should be killed...

[Markus]

Z, you should remember that Baltic Open allows participation with old cars and in some cases the Universities do not want their name shown in such occasions, thus the most logical choice is to show the team names. It's the best of available options.

And your solution doesn't really achieve anything. Firstly it's presented in a humorous way but does not include any funny content. Secondly it doesn't solve the problem as recognizing teams from random names is as difficult as recognizing teams from team names.

By the way, many of the teams in Europe are registered organizations, so using the legal name (team name) is not that far fetched.

But to include an opinion to the discussion: My preference for naming is using the University name - although our team is recognized as Helsinki UAS, which is actually incorrect.

[TMichaels]

More problematic, in my opinion, is the obsession of the scrutineers about the rules when it comes to the "size" of the University and the Number. Yes, I understand the intend of the rule that it should be visible, but a few millimeters more or less.. come on... I can't remember how often we gave away one of our "3"'s for another team that had a number that was too small. That is one rule paragraph that should be killed...

If you had ever sat in the timekeeping booth during Endurance or AutoX you would know how important it is to be able to quickly identify a car without a doubt. This is one of the most important rules for the timekeeping guys. And by the way: It is just embarrassing that teams are still not able to meet it. The same goes for the minimum radius on the nose by the way.

Regarding "obsession": There is no tolerance specified in the rules, thus there is none. If you would allow 3mm deviation, what about 4mm? Or maybe 5mm? You know where this is leading. It just doesn't work which is why the scrutineers have to stick to the rules. Otherwise they risk to be involved in hours of discussion.

On the other hand: As long as the most important complaints about FSG2013 are the size of the numbers on the cars and the naming schemes used to identify the teams then I can live with it.

[JulianH]

Tobias, sure, for timekeeping it is important to identify the cars. Some cars have the name written on the top of their sidepods so that the university can only be seen from "top-view" (or if you are standing close to the car...) and not from distance. The rule simply says it has to be on the side of the car.

What I mean with "obsession" is that a lot of cars that we "sponsored" with a car number passed scrutineering at other events (I know, the argument is not valid because the scrutineers at these events simply didn't do their job properly...).

When it comes to the "embarrasment"-part.
We are probably going to fail this rule in Italy this year.. it is simply not possible to put an "E633" confirm to the rules on the nose cone...

[Canuck Racing]

Last year, I was only confused by "Rolla", I never heard about this town and certainly didn't know that Missouri S&T is located there. But once you know that, where is the problem?


Up until a few years ago the school was named "Missouri Rolla." They changed to "Missouri S&T" around 2010.

I think the biggest problem with the naming is the schools who assume they have recognized initials, or have repeat initials. Take OSU for example. Is that Oregon State, Okalahoma State or Ohio State? MSU? Michigan or Mississippi State?

[Bemo]

More problematic, in my opinion, is the obsession of the scrutineers about the rules when it comes to the "size" of the University and the Number. Yes, I understand the intend of the rule that it should be visible, but a few millimeters more or less.. come on... I can't remember how often we gave away one of our "3"'s for another team that had a number that was too small. That is one rule paragraph that should be killed...
Well, as I've been a scrutineer this year and last year I can't help replying on this one. I've been a track marshal twice at FS Austria and had to count cones and off courses for a sector while organising the other track marshals. I can tell this is quite hard. As no one knows all cars from their look, the number is all you have. Teams want that penalties are counted correctly (off course, this is their damn right). But to meet this, it must be possible to identify a car within a glimpse of an eye. This is where we are talking about the number. Anything besides writing a precise minimum size in the rules and insisting on it is bullshit. What is the rules change you are asking for? Should the rule say "The number should be quite tall so it can be read from a great distance"? Discussions would be endless. It is always best to have precise criteria. There is a size given in the rules. How hard is it? As Tobias already explained, it is plain stupidity showing up with a number which is too small (and I'm saying that although the only reason why we didn't pass mechanical scrutineering in 2010 on first try was a too small school name).
Teams want the competition to be fair and to have clear criteria and of course no one wants wrong decisions during AutoX and Endurance. Having tall enough numbers and school names on the cars is one thing the teams have to manage to make these goals achievable...

[JulianH]

Bemo, you are right. There should be a lower limit in Car number size, my comment wasn't too bright. But ruling the spacing of the letters, the width of the number, and so on. I don't know. But probably somebody would go so extreme that it had to be ruled once again. There are other areas to discuss which are more important. I withdraw my case.


Coming back to FSG 2013:
I gave the feedback that the WetPad should be rethought, maybe it is just a personal feeling, so I'd like to discuss it. My issue with the WetPad is, that it does not really show the capability of the car but simply what tire the team choose. I know that the tire choice is part of a teams desicion, but one discipline at one event per year (maybe 1 discipline out of 20...) shouldn't affect the team's choice.
As in the last two year's it was clearly visible that 13inch cars dominate the Wetpad. Some 10inch teams even choose 13inch Goodyears (Akron, Esslingen) and placed very high. It is a great move by those, but I don't know what would happen if the AutoX/Endurance would be wet...
I personally think that the SkidPad should show the cornering ability of the car. The probably fastest SkidPad car out there (Rennteam Stuttgart, which drove close to the World record at Silverstone) placed only 20th in the FSC (32nd overall). Maybe they didn't test it very well or had problems but still, they struggeled mainly due to the 10inch tires not because their car "itself" is bad.
As said before, I know that the team makes the desicion, but the WetPad is not within "normal" rules, it is just an option that FSG chooses to use. What happens if FSUK next year says "ah, Acceleration will be held on a µ-split tarmac" or FS Austria introduces a AutoX that is an oval (because the rules are only a guideline...). That would change the outcome of these events.
The question is, if it possible to go back to a "normal" SkidPad with the FSC statics on Friday. Maybe one can go to a "damp" Skidpad or use a big tent so that it is always dry or something completely different.

Looking forward to hear some other opinions.

[mech5496]

Julian,



I personally think that the SkidPad should show the cornering ability of the car.


I agree with you, and wetpad does exactly this; it shows the cornering ability of the car in the wet! All of us (my team included) design our cars like it will never rain, and in the last few years this happens really often (about half the competitions I have attended were ran in wet conditions). That said, we should pay more attention in our wet setup, and tire choice is a part of that. All of us noticed the advantage of 13" last year in FSG, apparently Esslingen and Akron did some back to back testing in the wet with their older cars and noticed that too; thus they decided to run their previous tires which were faster!

The difference in radius between wet 10's and 13's is not that big, you could run 13"s without lifting the CoG too much. My question is whether you can run both 10" and 13" wets on the same competition. Did not find anything against it in the rules, so if both sets are being present during scrutineering, there should not be any problem.

[JulianH]

Harry,
in my opinion, the WetPad does not show the performance of the car.

Giving you an example:
In 2012, we drove all three UK dynamic events on Saturday at least in damp conditions. Skidpad and Acceleration were wet, AutoX dried up over the day.

We placed 1st in Accel, 2nd in AutoX and 3rd in Skidpad (with only thousands to P1 and drove in worse conditions than the 2 cars in front of us, because we couldn't run for a 2nd time.)
The Skidpad times were not faster than the WetPad times in Germany.

At the Wetpad in Germany, we placed basically last with the same tires. The car was working much better than in the UK.

It is simply too much water to run "normal". Even in "normal wet" conditions, the cars behave completely different than on the wetpad.

Next example:
2011, we probably had the "wettest" Endurance for the e-Cars ever. Delft won that event with 10inch Intermediates (still!) but they also screwed up WetPad. Just because they used 10 inch tires and placed behind Deggendorf which drove 8 seconds slower in Endurance per 1minute laptime.


I agree with you, that cars should also be able to run in the wet, but in my opinion, the WetPad is more "artifical very wet" than a normal track would be in the rain.


Your last point:
It is only allowed to use one rain tire. So if you choose to run a 13 inch rain tire on the WetPad, you have to use this tire to run in the wet, if AutoX or Endurance are wet. I don't know how the car will handle then.. Additionally there are issues with the "5kg deviation" and so on. I tried to "get" a third set of tires only for the WetPad at the FSG Workshop in the last fall but this was not granted. Because teams with less money couldn't afford it (that is a valid point!).

[mech5496]

I agree that there is possibly too much water on the wetpad, but I am surprised that you think it is wetter that the 2011 enduro, where the track was basically a lake! (I am also surprised that Delft was allowed to run in intermediates; AFAIK once the track is declared "wet" you are forced to use your rain tires.) Nevertheless, a minor change on the watering system could be made in order to pour less water on the track...

[JulianH]

There are no "real Intermediates" in FS. You have dry or wet.
Delft choose cutted Slicks as their rain tire and therefore had to run with them in the Lake Hockenheim 2011 :) The Goodyear rain tires are basically also Intermediates and they are fast as hell in these conditions.

[mech5496]

My bad, I wasn't aware that you are allowed to run carved slicks in wet conditions, I thought you are only allowed to run them in "damp" track. If those were their "rain" tires, they were also using them in wetpad, and poor water evacuation might be the problem....

[Markus]

JulianH: About that 5kg deviation, the rules say that all the scrutineerings are done with dry tires. So even if you run 13" wets and 10" drys there should be no weight problems in case of rainy endurance.

[JulianH]

JulianH: About that 5kg deviation, the rules say that all the scrutineerings are done with dry tires. So even if you run 13" wets and 10" drys there should be no weight problems in case of rainy endurance.

Really?
I think to remember a Rules Clarification about one year ago and they said "the car must be within 5kg in every dynamic event, even with rain tires". The German Organisers also check the "Tennis Ball Rule" with rain tires although it says "dry tires" in the rules.

Even if the 5kg rule is not a problem. Running with 13inch Rims in Endurance on a 10inch car is probably not too much fun.

[Markus]

Well, now that you mentioned I'm not completely sure. I wouldn't be surprised if FSG did it differently to other comps, and the FSG rules state that in any dynamic event. So I guess you must be within 5kg always.

I don't see a big problem here though: 13" Goodyears are pretty light and I'm pretty confident to claim they are lighter than 10" Hoosiers (about 1kg per tire!). That's easily enough to balance the wheel weight difference.

At least Akron's 13" wheels are light enough to be within 5kg with wets, I'd estimate they're very close to same weight with them actually.

And I don't think there's a problem for these teams to run 13" wheels in the rain, the difference in dynamic radius of the tires in question is quite small (~5-7mm?) and it's probably possible to swap to wets without any setup changes. To think of it the difference in dynamic radius between 13" dry and wet Hoosiers might be bigger...

[Thrainer]

I don't know about fsg but at fsuk the scales are designed for about at least a ton (1k kg) of weight (as it is a standard truck/car weighing station). Putting a 150kg car on that thing should give a discrepancy.

In 2010 we had to weigh our car three times within the first two days of comp. Without modifications, the measured weight changed 5 kg. I am quite sure the officials know their scales.

If you weigh the cars after scrutineering, you have lots of cars in Design with no official weight, even on Friday.

I remember suggesting to use 13" GY intermediates for wetpad, it is nice to see it works.

[mech5496]

Well, wet 10" Hoosiers are 4.5kg each (dry are 4.2), Goodyears are about the same if I can recall correctly. Also Hoosiers are 500mm dia., while Goodyears are 510mm dia. As you see the differences are negligible, and you simply cannot gain 5kg from 4 wheels, if they are to similar spec with your 10's...

[Markus]

Hoosier website states 10" slicks to weigh about the same as 13" slicks, which is around 5,0-5,5kg new and 13" Goodyears are about 4,5kg new. By general rule 10" wheels weight 66% of 13" wheels if done by same team and with similar manufacturing method (unsurprisingly as this is the about difference in volume). Takes the worst cases to around ~2,5kg weight difference (heavy or ultralight wheels, both rare occasions) and a normal team running 3-piece alloy wheels to around +-0kg, so no problemo to run them.

[JulianH]

Well ok, I translated our "problem" to different teams.

When we did our calculations:
10 inch CFRP rims: 4*850g
10 inch LC0: 4*3.2kg

> 10 inch setting: 16,2kg

13 inch Alu rims: 4*2kg
13 inch Goodyear: 4*4,5kg

> 13 inch setting: 26.8kg

But that shouldn't be the issue right here. Ok, maybe it is possible to use the Goodyear in rainy conditions (sadly the Goodyear is not manufactured anymore).
Still, my issue is, that the tire alone seems to dictate the outcome of one event. That should not be the case in my opinion. But maybe I am alone here.

[mech5496]

Just took a look at the rules regarding tires, and the exact wording is as follows:
---------------------------------------
T6.4.1

Vehicles may have two types of tires as follows:
Dry Tires – The tires on the vehicle when it is presented for technical inspection are defined as its
“Dry Tires”. The dry tires may be any size or type. They may be slicks or treaded.
Rain Tires – Rain tires may be any size or type of treaded or grooved tire provided:
1. The tread pattern or grooves were molded in by the tire manufacturer, or were cut by
the tire manufacturer or his appointed agent. Any grooves that have been cut must have
documentary proof that it was done in accordance with these rules.
2. There is a minimum tread depth of 2.4 mms (3/32 inch).
Note: Hand cutting, grooving or modification of the tires by the teams is specifically prohibited.

T6.4.2

Within each tire set, the tire compound or size, or wheel type or size may not be changed after static
judging has begun. Tire warmers are not allowed. No traction enhancers may be applied to the tires
after the static judging has begun
---------------------------------------

Is it allowed to have two sets of "dry" or "wet" tires of different compound/make/size? Note that the rule says that the "team must have two types of tires" and that "within each tire set, the tire compound or size, or wheel type or size may not be changed". This could be interpreted as you are allowed to have two sets of dry or wet tires, possibly of different sizes/compounds as long as you don't chance any of these within each set. I know this is probably not the case, but there is no specific wording against it...

[Michael Royce]

Harry,
No. Only 1 set of "dries" (mandatory, but can be treaded) and 1 set of "wets". So don't try anything else.

Question: Are you studying to be a lawyer too?

[mech5496]

Mr. Royce,

No, nothing to do with lawyers, I just thought it would be nice to have a super-sticky tire for acceleration/skidpad/autox and a slightly harder compound to last the whole endurance. ;) I was quite sure about the answer being "no" though, but nevertheless I thought about giving it a try!

[Pennyman]

Tobias et al,

Any news on the design talkback from this year? It hasn't been uploaded yet it seems.

[TMichaels]

I checked with the Design Event Captains and it has already been uploaded some time ago. Please re-check your MyTeam-Area on the FSG website.

[xmaniekx]

Can anyone fill me in about the sportsmanship award, what did the Bialystok do to get it? I somehow wasn't paying attention at the award ceremony. Beer might have got to do with that http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply, but as a Team Leader I think that I'm able to answer.

In my opinion, many teams voted for us to get Sportsmanship Award because we had our own welder ;)

We had helped some Chinese guys with getting their frame rule-compliant (welding), welded some pullrods for Chalmers, done some pre-scrutineering for Indian team and gave some materials (steel and aluminum sheet and tubes) to God-Knows-Who (everyone who asked). I may have forgot about something. Unfortunately this year we are not competing at FSG, but you can meet us at FSCzech, FS UK, FS Italy and FS Hungary.

Cheers!

[prateek11]

Which is better to follow negative or positive ackerman and why??

[Jay Lawrence]

I'm positive that positive Ackerman is better to follow because it adds about 14% grip. Then again, I'm not negative about negative Ackerman either! But 2 negatives make a positive, so who knows?