Formula SAE Italy & Formula Electric Italy 2012

[Lorenzo Pessa]

Waiting to go to Varano de' Melegari to attend the event as volunteer, I start this thread.

ATA is updating on facebook and twitter

http://www.facebook.com/pages/...omobile/215266444708 (http://www.facebook.com/pages/ATA-Associazione-Tecnica-dellAutomobile/215266444708)
https://twitter.com/formulasaeitaly

See you at Formula SAE Italy!

[SNasello]

Official results are now online.

http://www.ata.it/en/formulaat...content/233/results/ (http://www.ata.it/en/formulaata/view/18/formula-sae-italy-formula-electric-italy-2012/content/233/results/)

Can someone explain to me why the Italian electric rules give points for the dynamic events when the teams did not compete at all in the dynamic events?

[Thijs]

Congratulations to all winners.

I'm really surprised by the scoring system that has been used in the electric class dynamic events.

Somehow Ilmenau (just one of many possible examples) managed to walk away with 87 points in dynamics, by posting only an an acceleration time and an autocross time, both of which were over the T_max (I can't tell from the score sheets how they did exactly in endurance and efficiency, but they didn't finish). Many teams scored points in events they didn't even compete in.

Choosing this scoring system has significantly changed the overall outcome. Not to take anything away from Zwickau, but under normal FSAE rules, they would have scored about 36 points less in acceleration, skidpad, autocross and endurance combined, then they did under the FSAE-I rules. Darmstadt on the other hand would have recieved almost exactly the same amount of points. Currently, in the overall scores, Zwickau wins by 7 points.

Apart from all that, there seem to be a couple of errors, not all autocross scores are copied to the overall score sheet properly, e.g. costing Freiberg 4th place overall.

So far I haven't been able to find any explanations from the organisation why they would choose this system (and why only for the electric teams?), but I'd love to hear their reasoning.

Thijs
Delft

[JulianH]

I'm also wondering about the other scores:

Like Skid-Pad for the E-cars (Zwickau)

Score = 47.5*(1.25*4.879/5.033-1)/0,25 + 2.5 = 42,73

.. if I'm correct.


I also checked the AutoX score.. Also quiet wrong.

Maybe someone should check those http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif


edit: It seems to me that Delft (Thijs) was once again faster than Zurich (Me) http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[TMichaels]

They use a different point system, which awards points for the time itself and for the place that the team reached.
This is, in my opinion, why it is possible to score points, even if you do not set a time, but I have not checked the calculations yet.
You can find the rules here:
http://www.ata.it/upload/subme...ules-rev1-e-2012.pdf (http://www.ata.it/upload/submenu_fata_/204/it/rules-rev1-e-2012.pdf)

[Bemo]

They already used that scoring system in 2010 at the FSAE Electric and Hybrid competition. It is quite a stupid system in my opinion. Back then only four teams took part in the electric class, so the impact on points if you were first or second was massive. On the other hand the impact of the time difference was neclectible as the formula uses the quotient of the best time and yours. That means if you need twice the time of the best team, you still get half of the maximum score...

[Lorenzo Pessa]

That was not the only stupid thing in FSAE-I 2012.
As volunteer I saw too many wrong things concerning safety and rule awarness.

You can easily image what I'm talking about. The problem are the same of previous years.

[Bemo]

Well, you haven't been at the 2010 Italian competition for electric and hybrid cars I guess. During three years as a team member and two years as an official I didn't ever see stuff like that.
In fact it was pretty much coincidence nobody died at that competition. It would have been possible quite easily as everything there was just incredibly unsafe. Hard barriers all around the track, scrutineering was hilarious (our mechanical scrutineer never stood up from his chair...) and on top back then there was "class 2". That class just didn't have any rules regarding the safety of the vehicle. One Italian team used a shell eco marathon vehicle for that. During a corner the car flipped (no surprise as it was not built for being driven under high lateral acceleration...). That was the only incident which led to someone really get hurt.
Another team had a go-kart equipped with a 40kW electric motor...

But to give the Italian organisers some credit, I have to say that at least there was real improvement visible (at least at the combustion competition) during the time I was around (2008-2010). Judging got much better and also the track layout got much safer. But there is still a lot to improve there.

[Thijs]

After Benjamin's comment I went to have a look at the 2010 results (http://www.ata.it/upload/submenu_fata_/122/it/risultati-finali_sito.pdf). There are some real gems in there, such as ETH only receiving 123,29/150 points on autocross, even though they were just 0,04 seconds slower than Stuttgart (Aachen placed third with 94/150 after being 2,5 seconds off pace http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif)

To me, dynamic events should allow teams to find out where they stand compared to other teams in terms of performance. Awarding points for positions is useless in that regard, and to make matters worse, the way these rules award points for time spent on track does a very poor job indeed.

Has anyone ever asked or otherwise heard anything from the Italian organisation as to why they would choose to do this?

@Tobias, are you planning on including this event in the world ranking?

Thijs
Delft

[TMichaels]

Currently we plan to include them in the WRL. There are differences(compared to the FSAE rules) in point scoring at quite some events: FSG, FSAE-A, FS UK, FSA, FSS and FSH. So why not allow it for FSAE-I?

[Thijs]

Of course there are differences between other events in terms of point distribution and efficiency/economy scoring, but nothing nearly as radical as FSAE-I scoring.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be included (wouldn't do justice to the work put in by the competing teams), I was just wondering what your stance was on this.

Thijs
Delft

[Bemo]

Originally posted by Thijs:
After Benjamin's comment I went to have a look at the 2010 results (http://www.ata.it/upload/submenu_fata_/122/it/risultati-finali_sito.pdf). There are some real gems in there, such as ETH only receiving 123,29/150 points on autocross, even though they were just 0,04 seconds slower than Stuttgart (Aachen placed third with 94/150 after being 2,5 seconds off pace http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif)

To me, dynamic events should allow teams to find out where they stand compared to other teams in terms of performance. Awarding points for positions is useless in that regard, and to make matters worse, the way these rules award points for time spent on track does a very poor job indeed.

Has anyone ever asked or otherwise heard anything from the Italian organisation as to why they would choose to do this?

@Tobias, are you planning on including this event in the world ranking?

Thijs
Delft
That's exactly what I ment. In Autocross we had a huge profit because of the scoring system. In Skid Pad on the other hand, we were more than half a second in front of Aachen and got only 11 points more than them.

It is one of the strengths of the standard FSAE scoring system that it deliveres comparable results not matter of 10 or 100 teams take part at an event. I hope the organisers of the Italian event realize that and switch to the normal system.