Lightest Car for each concept

[TommKG]

Hey,

I just read Claude's answer to a weight question (he wrote in the FSG forum that 180-200kg for a 4 cylinder and 130-150kg for a single would be an appropiate design goal).

And now I'm asking which are the lightest cars for each concept?

I mean:

- single 10inch
- single 13inch
- two cylinder (I don't know if there are a lot of these running) 10/13
- 4 cylinder 10/13 (I only know Ann Arbor with 10inch..)

- Electric 10/13

I know that Delft had super leightweight car some years ago, would this be still "legal"? So that should be the lightest so far.


Would be great to have a list here.

Cheers,

Tom

[JulianH]

For the electric cars:

Delft's 2011 car should be the lightest 10" car with 178kg.

Zurich's 2011 car had 181kg in Silverstone with 13". (It's now little bit heavier though http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)

I'm not so sure for the combustion cars. TU Graz seems always pretty light with their 13", 4 cylinder.

[Bong]

Originally posted by JD944:
For the electric cars:

Delft's 2011 car should be the lightest 10" car with 178kg.

Zurich's 2011 car had 181kg in Silverstone with 13". (It's now little bit heavier though http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)

include drive??

I'm not so sure for the combustion cars. TU Graz seems always pretty light with their 13", 4 cylinder.

[JulianH]

I'm not so sure what you mean with "include drive".

(If you mean "driver". Then no, of course not).


Both weights are the official race weights from FS Silverstone 2011. Without driver but ready to race.

[AxelRipper]

Delft and Penn State were both under 300 lbs in the past few years with their singles. Delft has since been electrified and Penn State went turbo last year, which added weight. GFR was 304 at Michigan this year without aero, I think 350 with. Oklahoma was 331 with an Ape and full active aero (somehow).

For cars on 13's I've heard that someone was low 350's a few years ago, and this past year we had a 360 lb car from Kettering out in Cali.

And I've seen a couple 4 cyls either very close to or under the 400 lb mark.

Yes, these are all without driver.

[jordan.k]

Oklahoma was very light with their space frame, aero car with 10's
Missouri S&T has been below 420 lbs with a space frame, 13's, aero and a 4 cylinder
SDSM&T was 370 lbs with a space frame, 13's, aero and Ape

[Big Bird]

Once we have established the lightest car for each concept, it will be interesting to review how each of them went at comp. Especially the Endurance event.

[Rex Chan]

What would be more interesting would be a program that plots results (design, autoX, enduro, fuel) vs weight, for ALL teams, so we can see if there is a trend.

[Will M]

Building the model would be quite easy if that info was included with the official scores. Weight, wheel size, engine size and type, NA vs Turbo vs Superchager, fuel type, and chassis type could all be added.

[Jay Lawrence]

Wollongong were 188kg (414lb) in 2008 with a spaceframe turbo intercooled 4, on 13's.

That car died in the enduro's due to lack of carbon glueing knowledge.

The following year was 198kg with similar specs to above and we placed 3rd in enduro and overall.

[Dsenechal]

U of Evansville's 2011 competition weight was 351 lbs.... 13" wheels, space frame, single cylinder.

[Markus]

Helsinki 2011: tubular steel spaceframe, 13" alum. wheels, 4cyl NA R6 engine. Includes fuel, oil & all other liquids.

193,5kg or 427lbs FS Silverstone
196kg or 432lbs FSG Hockenheim

Second fastest lap in FSG endurance, 3rd in acceleration, 4th place overall.

[Goyds]

Hey all

We ran 312kg electric/13 last year. That's our 3rd gen electric car but the first one that worked. I expect that'd be about your benchmark for heaviest...

We did nearly embarrass Monash during the accel run though. 0.1 sec off and limited to less than half our max power as well courtesy of the scrutineers.

[TMichaels]

For electric cars the lower end benchmark currently is Delft with 176,8kg/10" and Zürich with 181,9kg/13"

[Bemo]

Having the lightest car is like having the highest power output - it doesn't say anything about performance.
As far as I know the lightest car which ever passed tech was from Delft in 06 or 07 with incredible 125kg. But that car never finished an endurance.
I was never part of a team which built a car under 200kg but had the honor to win quite a couple of competitions http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[mattd27]

Swinburne's 2010 Jap Spec car (spaceframe, 4 cylinder, 13" rims) was 252kg wet.

Definitely on the heavy side but did manage to lap over 1.5sec per lap quicker than anyone else in Japanese enduro. Plus managed a skidpad time of 5.05s

The car was to go on a massive diet until the program got axed by the dean



Matt

[Scott Wordley]

Why this continuing obsession with light weight?
There are other design goals which are equally valid and in my opinion correlate more strongly with competition performance.

For instance:

Total distance driven by the car BEFORE the event. (I think we logged about 700 km on our new car this year)

Total distance driven by each driver, in your new car BEFORE the event.

Total distance driven by the car since the last time it broke/overheated/couldn't restart/needed jumper leads immediately before the event.

Variation in times between your drivers in the same events (the best measure of your driver preparation, training and depth)

The difference between your car's simulated performance(using measured metrics) and what it achieves on track. (We like to call this your "Execution" score)

These are the metrics that deliver competition performance. They frequently require the addition of weight to the car, and a shortening of the design cycle. They also make the car faster and more reliable. You learn more about the car, get more feedback from drivers, figure out what is important and come up with more ideas on how to improve the car next time round.

So why are these things so difficult to justify to design judges, and even the teams themselves?
It continues to amaze me!

[Kevin Hayward]

Scott,

The real measure I am interested in is the "resolution" of weights effect on performance. We know that by simulations a kg is worth about a point (or similar), but it is harder to assess the points value of early finishes or increased reliability, which can sometimes be had at the increase of weight.

We know that practically a 210kg car will have little to no performance disadvantage at comp to a 200kg car. At the same time a 250kg is trumped by a 200kg. From observation I would suggest the weight that makes little difference is in the order of 10-20kg.

I would expect that a team could make a good case for an extra 20kg (4 cylinder car) in design if that weight did actually buy increased running time and reliability. The design wins I was involved with all involved cars carrying a useful 10-20kg extra, so it is not as big an issue to design judges as maybe they state, and students fear. But it is important that the extra weight is justified.

At the start of the year it is worthwhile identifying both the useful and not useful extra weight (as well as easy and difficult weight to remove). My take is that you do not attack the useful weight (i.e. brakes, suspension arms) until most of the useless weight (bodywork, poor load path material) is minimised. Every year I see 220kg+ cars with radical weight savings in critical areas and a lot of fat in others.

Kev

[Boffin]

Originally posted by Scott Wordley:
Total distance driven by the car BEFORE the event. (I think we logged about 700 km on our new car this year)
That is the best rational to use for a "heavy" car, but what is the true effect on real world points and simulated points?

Your car and our car are heavy for what they should be, but when you consider that before the Japanese event, our car completed in excess of 70 endurance events, with the only problem being a half expiring due to excessive life (was design/made in 08 for use that year. Broke in 2011), that's pretty bloody good. We've worn out a set of Avon's and a Goodyears in one "pre comp" testing season. Before that, one or two sets of Hoosiers for the previous season.

What's that old saying, a decent design delivered in time is a lot better than a perfect design delivered late.

But the problem we had with the weight was justifying to people/judges, that the penalty was worth the reliability reward.
You simply can't create pretty graphs and computer simulation pictures that they believe, to show it is worth the reward.

Is our car over engineered?
For a single fsae competition perspective; Yes.
For a overall FSAE project/management and weekend racer perspective (which is ultimately the enjoyment and reward); No

[BeunMan]

As I don't really know the other cars, here is some about the delft cars:

The Delft (aka lightweight single) concept was based on what would go fast around a formula student track. A high powered gocard would do the trick probably quite well and this is (one of the) reasons for 10" lightweight cars.

The DUT04 was the lightest with ~120kg but the side impact structures were "non present" and what was there was made of tent-poles (so they say).

The last petrol car, DUT10,was 143,1 Kg in Germany.

I do agree that designing a car to be lightweight won't get you any points. Think about what you want to achieve: High straight line speed, fast cornering, quick acceleration, good overall, and think about the requirements for that.

Lighter cars usually break a lot more as well (e.g. DUT09); To finish first, you first need to finish...

[PatClarke]

What's that old saying, a decent design delivered in time is a lot better than a perfect design delivered late.

I ABSOLUTELY agree!! That is how I would do it.

Yes, but the result is you have a less than optimum DESIGN and that is going to cost you some points in the 'Design Competition'.

A team that have done this (Monash for one, based on Scott's comments and private conversations) have made a deliberate decision to 'Rob Peter to pay Paul' with points in the overall competition, and so shouldn't be critical of the judges, who can see the compromise. In my case, I am judging Design, not Strategy (even though I admire the strategy)

A good team will look at the overall competition, however, the judges, be they Cost, Design or Presentation, are looking only at their sector of the comp.

In the end, the best teams win anyway and the old rule of F=MA is still valid.

I am not going to get into a debate about this

Cheers

Pat

[Mbirt]

Originally posted by PatClarke:
optimum DESIGN http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif

[PatClarke]

Don't misquote me Mbirt http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

I said LESS than optimum.

Pat

[Mbirt]

Sorry Pat, an "optimum design" clean snowmobile which refuses to run has me frustrated right now. Should've gone with a piggyback fuel controller like the team that won by a landslide last year...

[Kirk Feldkamp]

Wait, wait... are you saying the "optimum design" is usually less than optimal? I think you're on to something! Pat, care to comment? Haha. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[PatClarke]

One comment only.

Nothing is optimum!
Just get as close to that mythical aim (whatever it is) as you can =]

Pat

[Scott Wordley]

Hi Pat,

This is the heart of the dichotomy...

What are we designing for, if not to maximise the number of points scored at comp? Why should this approach be considered "dirty" or dismissed as a cheap "strategy". It is actually the very definition of good design. To understand and balance your resources, time available, performance sensitivities, and risk to achieve your stated goal is actually a lot more difficult and requires much more restraint than focusing on simplistic "headline" metrics such as weight or power.

It seems strange and counter intuitive to view this as robbing Peter to pay Paul. Hypothetically speaking, why should the design event be used to penalize teams who are making these high level compromises and being honest about it, while rewarding those who present beautifully integrated and researched cars which are often fragile or untested?

Consider also the continuing low percentage of teams who attempt and complete all events at each competition. Is the attitude of design judges helping to maintain this status quo, where teams are encouraged and applauded for overshooting their resources and timelines provided the final product looks impressive on paper, and in the judging tent?

What do you think would happen to completion rates if your design event score was only awarded once the car had finished all events? As my signature shows(boasts?), I place a big emphasis on this metric.

This competition is about learning and preparing engineers for industry and the real world. I know that the change suggested above will never happen, and maybe it shouldnt, but Judges need to be aware of the kind of messages they are sending and the type of behaviors they are rewarding and discouraging... and not be surprised at the results.

Pat these comments are not directed at you personally, just my general feelings for the design judging process which i am still trying to get my head around after 12 years and 15 competitions!

[whiltebeitel]

The way we are taught design at my school is to start from a need statement and work from our needs to our final product. Is the purpose of the design event to find the most complex vehicle, the best car for a weekend autocrosser, or the car that is best designed to win the FSAE/FS event it is at? This is my fundamental question for the people that run these events.

I feel Scott's comments are asking the same questions I have, much more eloquently put.

[TMichaels]

Scott,
that probably depends on the competition and how design is handled there.

I personally have been on the team of Braunschweig in 2008 where we managed to win design at FSG with a 232kg steelframe car. That time I really felt that the design event was driven by the, at least at FSG, famous quote of Pat: "We judge your knowledge, not your car!"
We had some extra kilos on the car, no doubt. But we knew exactly where and why.
Not to mention that the car saw a lot of testing before comp and put some weight on during that period.

[Bemo]

In this case I can absolutely agree with Tobias. The same year I was a member of the Stuttgart team and we where second in design with a car which weighed 212kg.
So the top2 in design had cars heavier than 200kg.

It is and I guess will always be difficult for the teams to know what the design judges will focus on as it veries from event to event and to some extend also from judging group to judging group. To win a design event you will always need a little bit luck, but if you're well prepared you can usually be sure to get a reasonable amount of points.

[Jay Lawrence]

Definitely agree with Scott. It's pretty insulting and off-putting to be beaten in the design event by cars that don't complete the competition or, in some cases, don't run at all. Something learnt in my last year was that you shouldn't spend the entire year asking "what will the judges think of this?" because in reality (in Australia anyway) the judging has been very strange indeed. I used up all the alotted time talking to a judge and answering his questions (with plots, facts, figures, practical demonstrations, etc.) and the only real feedback i got was that i made a typo on the design board... Spending the year wondering what some judge is going to think only to have him have absolutely no idea is not cool.

As for the topic of this thread, we certainly didn't seem to raise any eyebrows with a 188kg turbo intercooled 4 space frame, but the previous year we made finals with a 220kg version. Go figure.

[Kevin Hayward]

Feedback is definitely a problem with the Design event. Carroll Smith used to give a great review of the finalists and why they ended up where they were. I don't think there were anywhere near as many complaints. Most of us are fairly reasonable, and when it is explained to us clearly why certain teams did well it is easier to accept.

I am very wary of design judge bashing that appears popular on a lot of threads. As soon as you question the teams that do well in design you are making two assumptions:

1. The judges made the wrong call

and

2. The winning students involved did not deserve it, and are less knowledgable


I have no problem with the car winning design not being the best or most desirable car at comp. Every team starts from a different point, with different resources, and different goals. Which team did better in design:

a) A large legacy team that built a $300k car that wins the comp easily, hence meeting their goals

or

b) A small second year team that built a $10k car that placed 4th, hence meeting their goals

The only real way to have the design event separate from the overall competition is to make sure there is a large student knowledge/decision making part of the event.

In general I do have a problem with non-reliable cars winning design. It was an unwritten rule in the US that the car winning design had to finish endurance. There may be extreme cases where this may not happen, but I would look pretty hard on a team who deliberately sacrificed reliability for minimal performance gains.

A winning team should have a good handle on the compromises and short-comings of their car. Monash do this very well and I can understand their dissappointment from the last Aus comp. I was surprised at the points difference between the design finalists at Australia. The steps each finalist had made from the previous year were significant, the knowledge level appeared high. In this case I would have expected the points to be closer.

I wish I had easy access to the past results because I think the best way to judge the judges is to see if they are predicting performance. Any time you ahve a great lot of students come through their impact may not be fully felt for a while. The groundwork laid in a great year often pays off in following years. If the design judging is going well a team that wins design should increase (or maintain) competitiveness in the next couple of years.


Geoff, if you're reading this put clearer design feedback on your list of things to make the Aus comp better. A good spoken (and recorded) design review at comp would add a lot for the students.

Kev

[Pete Marsh]

Wow, us Aussies have well and truly hijacked this thread. It would seem the design event is a sore topic around here?

For those that have traveled the event varies a lot from place to place, and also year to year. I would be interested to hear what the Euro teams that do 4 or 5 events a year have to say about design event consistency with the same team and car?

I have done a few design events, and after being seriously cut by some results, I somewhat cynically resolved to treat it just like all the other events. Do your best, and accept the outcome is out of your control, and a bit random.

I don't think you can/should try to design a car to please all of the judges all of the time, but at UWA we do spend a lot of time considering how ideas will presented and if the detail matches the broad concept. They don't have to like our car, but it would be nice if we can show them why we do.

I would like to see more feedback, and also more interaction with judges outside of the event. I think most of us would very much like some feedback and appreciation (or otherwise) on the years blood, sweat and tears regardless of the competition and the points. I for one was a little sad not to show off our 2011 car, of which I'm very proud of the design, to people like Ron Tauranac and Pat Clarke, simply because the car never made finals anywhere.

On the topic of Light Weight, I remain cut over the FSG award for "light weight CONCEPT". Forget the design event, even with the terms narrowed down to simply Vehicle weight you still can't figure it out! We had driver cell safety and mechanical durability by a massive amount over any of the other finalists near us, and were not that much heavier (than the other 4 cylinders). All the other finalists were either slow (toe stiffness???), broke, or both. You guessed it, the prize went to the lightest car, that had never done 22Km without failure, including at that event! I don't want to be rude to what is a was very good and fast car from Delft, but I really believe your machine has to meet the basic function requirements before it can be assessed fairly in other areas, and here that means going quickly for 22Km. (the failure was "lightweight design" related, not just unlucky).
Now if it was just called "lightest car award" it would of saved a lot of effort and confusion.

Pete

[Big Bird]

No prob Kev, point taken and has been put to the consortium already. And of course I am reading this thread...

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

[TMichaels]

Pete,
don't mix up an extra award with the design event. They were/are orthogonal at FSG and do usually not share judges.

Although I agree that design winners should be reliable in general, I would not say that a design winner has to finish endurance. There is still such a thing as hard luck. All of us have probably experienced parts failing which were bought and/or designed to live forever and still failed.

Pat and the other two chief design judges hold a design review after the FSG endurance.
At least two of them are available on YouTube, if you are interested.
FSG2008 Design Review (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgXX--VAcUo&list=UUwS29Q7eFXFwjl6lv2jhl5A&index=1&feature=plcp)

FSG2011 Design Review (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adtfBliMb74&list=UUwS29Q7eFXFwjl6lv2jhl5A&index=9&feature=plcp)
The latter is more like a general lecture in car design, but the 2008 version is quite specific.

I know this may not really help, if you have not attended that event with your car, but I think it shows how it could be done.

Regarding Kev's comment:

I wish I had easy access to the past results because I think the best way to judge the judges is to see if they are predicting performance. Any time you ahve a great lot of students come through their impact may not be fully felt for a while. The groundwork laid in a great year often pays off in following years. If the design judging is going well a team that wins design should increase (or maintain) competitiveness in the next couple of years.

I do not think that this is possible. It should match to a certain level, let's say predicting in which third they will end up, if they complete the respective dynamic event. But that's it.
Having been a design judge, I can tell you that this job is harder than you expect telling from the other side.

Anyway, I have the whole world ranking database at my fingertips. So tell me, what kind of evaluation you think would be good and I will see what I can do.
Perhaps, percentage of maximum points in design vs. overall dynamic points percentage or similar?

[luxsosis]

I'm wondering what portion of design judges have significant experience with the competition? I imagine this having a big influence on how they decide on their judging criteria.

[Tickers]

We learnt the hard way this year at FSG that the design event is about knowledge, not the car when we scored 0 for a suspension system that the judge admitted was one of the best there, but it just so happened that our entire suspension department had gone straight into work before the event.

While other team members could easily answer questions about the construction of the system, the lack of knowledge of finer details of the geometry and kinematics resulted in no points for the entire section. Extremely harsh, but their decision is final.

The one thing that I do find issue with is the number of design judges with little knowledge of motorsports, often from general automotive companies. They're often looking for automotive solutions instead of motorsport. The main example for us is in the cockpit, where judges will often complain that we use seat inserts moulded to the driver instead of adjustable pedals & steering column. One of these solutions takes 10 seconds to change, the other takes much longer and can add compliance into the system.

[Fantomas]

While other team members could easily answer questions about the construction of the system, the lack of knowledge of finer details of the geometry and kinematics resulted in no points for the entire section. Extremely harsh, but their decision is final.

The problem is that they are in that case not able to decide if you just copied a previous year design or if a professional engineer did all the design work or if it was just bad knowledge preservation management.
I think also that this is harsh, but I see no other way of reacting to it from a design judge's point of view.

Fantomas

[SoonerJack]

Originally posted by Pete Marsh:

For those that have traveled the event varies a lot from place to place, and also year to year. I would be interested to hear what the Euro teams that do 4 or 5 events a year have to say about design event consistency with the same team and car?



Sometimes it's very disturbing to compare Silverstone and Hockenheim.

There is a saying: "UK judges focus on manufacturing, German judges on awesome design features".

I don't know if it's true but look at GFR 2011:

- Michigan (ok without wings): 1st
- Cali: 2nd
- Germany: 1st
- UK: I don't know.. 15th or something like that

In Germany the Top 3 in Design matched exaclty the Top 3 overall. Maybe not that bad (if you judge only the car, not the knowledge).

I guess in UK they are more looking at simple cars (in the feedback 2011 the put Bath as a good, TU Graz more or less as a bad example for a "too sophisticated" car).

Bath on the other way round placed only 15th in Germany...

Zurich did pretty bad in UK too, won Germany, won Spain and placed second in Austria.

I don't know but I guess GFR and Zurich went with the same team members at least the "important" ones.


It's hard to tell if it's "fair"..

[TMichaels]

There is a saying: "UK judges focus on manufacturing, German judges on awesome design features".

Since we share quite some design judges, this cannot be true. It depends more on how the head of design runs the event and briefs the judges.

Additionally TU Graz for example won design in the UK in 2006 and 2007.

Just use the "Achievements" view at the FS World Ranking List to find out such things.
For GFR it shows this for example:
GFR Achievements (http://mazur-events.de/fs-world/p2.php?u=726&c=1)

[Thijs]

Pete,

You've got a couple of things about FSG 2009 and the DUT09 mixed up in your post.

You imply that the lightest car automatically wins the lightweight award at FSG. This is simply not true, in 2007 and 2008, TU Graz won the award, despite the fact that the Delft car was at least 20 kg lighter both times.


You guessed it, the prize went to the lightest car, that had never done 22Km without failure...

Come on Pete, we finished second overall at FSUK two weeks earlier, only 5 points behind a very strong Stuttgart. Apart from that, the car had done plenty of testing kilometers, driving up to 6 endurances on one test day on multiple occasions.

Like you say, the failure of the DUT09 at FSG wasn't bad luck, it was bad design. The part that failed however had been significantly over engineered, but mistakes were made in the design of an adhesive layer. The DUT09 wasn't a very reliable car, but there has never been one lightweight design-related failure. It was mostly broken (steel) drivetrain components,

Back to FSG '09. The DUT09 wasn't even the lightest car there. OSU was 1,8 kg lighter.

Design Results FSG 2009 (http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2009_FSG_Design_Results.pdf)

You guessed it, the prize went to the lightest car. (http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2009_FSG_Awards_part2_Results.pdf) Not to Delft.
Also, the fact that OSU only came 10th with their 147,9 kg car implies that weight was not the only reason that Delft was in the design finals.

As for your comments on the speed of the other design finalists. Munchen was just 3,8 seconds slower than UWA over the entire endurance. On average, Delft was 1,5 seconds faster per lap (disregarding lap 24, and conservatively assuming 57 second laps for the final 3 laps from Delft).

laptimes FSG 09 (http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2009_FSG_Endurance_Laptimes_Results.pdf)

I do feel that this was at least partly due to the fact that the Delft car was a full 50 kg lighter, making it easy to drive, thus contributing to consistency in performance between drivers.

By the way Bremo, the 125 kg DUT06 successfully finished endurance, and came 3rd overall at FSG 2006.

Cheers,

Thijs

Chief Engineer DUT09

[Stef de Jong]

Pete,

The conclusion: if you want to complain, at least get your facts right.

Secondly, our car won design for being plain simple, ridiculously easy to drive (ask our friends from Stuttgart) and not using materials in the category 'unobtainium', as Pat told us.

Greetings

[Kevin Hayward]

Here is the problem with claiming you deserve to beat someone in design (or other awards).

To the DUT guys that must have been heart breaking getting to within a couple of laps from the end with those sorts of lap times.

It is unreasonable to expect that even the winner of design is a perfect car. Every FSAE car has its bugs. If you are very well prepared and a little lucky they wont get you at comp. This is why in rare circumstances a team that doesn't finish endurance might be able to win design.

Kev

[Pete Marsh]

Come on Pete, we finished second overall at FSUK two weeks earlier, only 5 points behind a very strong Stuttgart. Apart from that, the car had done plenty of testing kilometers, driving up to 6 endurances on one test day on multiple occasions.


Sorry guys, my mistake. At the time I was told otherwise, that you had had the same failure on each enduro attempt, and I did not check the cars results myself. That change of facts does change my opinion, sorry again.

Perhaps "cut" by the result comes across too strong. "Miffed" is a better word. Can any of you who have been in these subjective type events really say you have never felt that way? I was not making any claim I deserved to win more than any other team, just I though we had done much better, and don't understand the result.

Also, I was not referring to the design event proper, rather the "light weight design concept award" which I believed looked at mech design and layout, allowing for different concepts of engine choice and chassis materials to compete head to head. There I thought we looked good for a win. As Tobias pointed out, this is NOT the design event.

I was not disputing the results, or standard of the cars, in the design finals. As a competitor, I would of course liked to do better, and believe we were better than 4th on the day, but I think this is a normal feeling for all but the winners. I was not at all upset with the results, and believe Delft to be a deserving winner of the design event, clearly a beautifully designed and built car and very fast to boot.

Those results you are referring to are the design finalists, not the same cars I was referring to. I can be sure Munchen didn't have 50mm rear toe base with 16mm x 0.9 tubes! Looking at the results you posted I see that OSU also didn't finish. I wonder now if my information is actually about their car. Either way, I was wrong to make such statements based on "during comp" rumor from so long ago. I also see the difference in fastest lap amongst the design finalists paints a different picture than total time. You may be interested to know our second driver actually beat me in our last trial run before that comp, his lack of performance has everything to do with nerves, or anxiety, and nothing to do with the car not being easy to drive.

_______________________________________________
Now trying to be on topic

The confusing issue with the "lightest car for each concept" (which I believed the extra award at FSG was about) is how you deal with varying treatments of issues such as safety and durability.
Should a car that can barely do the distance, is too floppy to go fast, and has the absolute minimum safety structure be applauded as an awesome solution we should all aspire to?

I think if you look at the history of some well established "evolutionary style" teams, you will see weight initially fall with each car, then go back up a little or settle around some value. And if you narrow that to consistently fast and reliable cars, this weight is not the lowest for each concept category.

It seems to me, that below some certain weight, you have to give something up. Driver cell, kinematic rigidity, overload capacity, something has to go. This is what I think should be judged.

In short, how much wasted fat is on the car? not just how light can you go.

Pete

[Z]

Hmmm, critisising the Design judges, eh? Yeah, why not.... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
~~~o0o~~~

The Design event really is a farce. I was saying in 2005 that if teams wanted to do well in FSAE (ie. score lots of points), then they should NOT try to impress the judges with a "shiny" (="sophisticated") car, and instead just build a "brown go-kart" and go win Endurance with it. I stand by that, and it is good to see that some teams are going that way.
~~~o0o~~~

Three indicators of the inanity of the Design event:

1. I am still waiting for some kind of explanation for UWAs poor Design score in the recent FSAE-Aus. Sure, they lost 50 points for a second hand chassis. But, given their obviously fast and fuel efficient car (mostly 1sts and 2nds), where did they lose all the other Design points? Were they really that stupid, but just got lucky in the Dynamic events??? (BTW, I have absolutely no connection to UWA (they're on the other side of the island!), other than a perhaps shared design philosophy.)

2. After three+ decades of Design judges giving guidance to the teams (at least in the manner of "that's wrong, you lose points"), by far the majority of cars still have some sort of push/pullrod-and-rocker suspension. These are an utter wank, and are clearly nothing more than a blind copying of, err, "real Formulae" car suspensions.

THERE IS NO RATIONAL JUSTIFICATION FOR PUSH/PULL-ROD-AND-ROCKER SUSPENSIONS ON (the majority of) FSAE CARS!

Yes, I have heard all the BS excuses about motion-ratios, rising-rates, and the incredible "it saves you the cost of a new damper if you crash and lose a corner...". But, just in case, if anyone thinks they have a good reason, supportable with numbers, as to why a team should go through the time and expense of designing and building this crap, then please explain. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Pete asks "how much wasted fat is on the car?". The rockers are a good place to start. The fact that three decades of Design judges haven't even hinted at this speaks for their "design" abilities.

3. I have mentioned a few times on this forum the "motion screw" or "Instaneous Screw Axis", and the fact that this seems to be almost unknown in the automotive industry (including motorsport). This "screw" is perhaps the most fundamental concept in 3-D kinematics, to the extent that a quick Interweb search reveals that even knee surgeons talk about it. The fact that most Design judges are NOT EVEN AWARE of this "alpha" of the kinematic alphabet (they are stuck in 2-D flatland) speaks even more of their lack of judging credentials.
~~~o0o~~~

So, how should a team approach the Design event?

1. Treat it as an introduction to the real world, where all too frequently the imbeciles get rewarded for their incompetence, while those who deliver the goods are ignored. Get used to it! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

2. Think of the Design judges as being like those mythological mermaids who would lure the stupid sailors (= stupid teams) to their death on the rocks of "Optimal Bliss". The trick is to tie your captain to the "Mast of Abstinence and Reliability", plug his ears with cotton wool so he can't hear the sirens' songs, and then sail straight past the jagged reefs of "Design Event", and on to the clear waters of "Victory in Endurance". Err, or something like that... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Ie., just build a fast brown go-kart.

Z

(PS. Apparently the captain of the "Costa Concordia" was trying to impress his girlfriend by sailing close to the rocks... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)

[bob.paasch]

Originally posted by Pete Marsh:

Also, I was not referring to the design event proper, rather the "light weight design concept award" which I believed looked at mech design and layout, allowing for different concepts of engine choice and chassis materials to compete head to head. There I thought we looked good for a win. As Tobias pointed out, this is NOT the design event.

I was not disputing the results, or standard of the cars, in the design finals. As a competitor, I would of course liked to do better, and believe we were better than 4th on the day, but I think this is a normal feeling for all but the winners. I was not at all upset with the results, and believe Delft to be a deserving winner of the design event, clearly a beautifully designed and built car and very fast to boot.

Those results you are referring to are the design finalists, not the same cars I was referring to. I can be sure Munchen didn't have 50mm rear toe base with 16mm x 0.9 tubes!


I'm questioning the wisdom of diving into this mess of a thread, but here goes.

Here are the FSG "Audi Lightweight Concept" Award winners:

2007: TU Graz
2008: TU Graz
2009: Oregon State University
2010: TU Delft
2011: Hmmm,I don't remember and I can't find it on the FSG site

Some further information:
The 07 Graz car was 2nd overall at FSG.
The 08 Graz car was 3rd overall at FSG
The 10 Delft car was 1st overall at FSG.

UWA lost the 09 Audi lightweight award to OSU. I assume this is the award you have issue with. The 09 OSU car was 2nd overall at FSAE California, and 1st overall at FS Austria the week after FSG. We had the 2nd place autocross (nearly 4 seconds faster than UWA), and were a set of melted muffler rivets away from 3rd overall at FSG. I hardly think we were unworthy winners of the 2009 Audi lightweight award.



Now trying to be on topic

The confusing issue with the "lightest car for each concept" (which I believed the extra award at FSG was about) is how you deal with varying treatments of issues such as safety and durability.
Should a car that can barely do the distance, is too floppy to go fast, and has the absolute minimum safety structure be applauded as an awesome solution we should all aspire to?

I think if you look at the history of some well established "evolutionary style" teams, you will see weight initially fall with each car, then go back up a little or settle around some value. And if you narrow that to consistently fast and reliable cars, this weight is not the lowest for each concept category.

It seems to me, that below some certain weight, you have to give something up. Driver cell, kinematic rigidity, overload capacity, something has to go. This is what I think should be judged.

In short, how much wasted fat is on the car? not just how light can you go.

Pete

Pete, I could not agree more. The lightest car for each concept is pretty meaningless if that car never did well at a competition. This thread should probably be "Lightest car for each concept that won a competition."

But I go back to Kev's excellent post from "Any way to objectively choose engine?". To win a major competition, a car is going to have to push the envelope with respect to weight and reliability.

As for the design event:


Originally posted by Kevin Hayward:
Feedback is definitely a problem with the Design event. Carroll Smith used to give a great review of the finalists and why they ended up where they were. I don't think there were anywhere near as many complaints. Most of us are fairly reasonable, and when it is explained to us clearly why certain teams did well it is easier to accept.

Up until this point, the Michigan and California events have continued Carroll's tradition of talking the top cars at the end of design finals. FSG has not because of holding design finals before the endurance and not wanting to announce the winners until the final awards ceremony. With the new design schedule at the US competitions, it will be interesting to see how they handle feedback on the top cars.


In general I do have a problem with non-reliable cars winning design. It was an unwritten rule in the US that the car winning design had to finish endurance. There may be extreme cases where this may not happen, but I would look pretty hard on a team who deliberately sacrificed reliability for minimal performance gains.

When you pick the design winner before endurance, there will of course be some design winners that do not finish endurance.


Originally posted by SoonerJack:
Sometimes it's very disturbing to compare Silverstone and Hockenheim.

There is a saying: "UK judges focus on manufacturing, German judges on awesome design features".

I don't know if it's true but look at GFR 2011:

- Michigan (ok without wings): 1st
- Cali: 2nd
- Germany: 1st
- UK: I don't know.. 15th or something like that

In Germany the Top 3 in Design matched exaclty the Top 3 overall. Maybe not that bad (if you judge only the car, not the knowledge).

I guess in UK they are more looking at simple cars (in the feedback 2011 the put Bath as a good, TU Graz more or less as a bad example for a "too sophisticated" car).

Bath on the other way round placed only 15th in Germany...

Zurich did pretty bad in UK too, won Germany, won Spain and placed second in Austria.

I don't know but I guess GFR and Zurich went with the same team members at least the "important" ones.


Even after a long discussion with the Head Design Judge at FSUK, I still don't understand what happened at FSUK last year. I assure you, GFR had our "A" design team there. Essentially the same students that won the design event, with a lesser car, at the '10 FSUK competition. Sometimes you just have to move on... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[PatClarke]

I am still waiting for some kind of explanation for UWAs poor Design score in the recent FSAE-Aus. Sure, they lost 50 points for a second hand chassis. But, given their obviously fast and fuel efficient car (mostly 1sts and 2nds), where did they lose all the other Design points?

Erik, there is no secret here. There is a double penalty when you enyter a second car. Firstly there is the points penalty, then there is a second penalty in that the car can not qualify for the Design Finals. So, instead of being scored from 200 points (The winner) their points are going to be something less than 150 points, eg best of the rest. Here the team lost some Design points because the people who designed most of the car had graduated and the knowledge pass down was a bit less than the judges would have hoped.

Erik, it is NOT about the car!

The team know and understand this. The Design Judges know and understand this. Simply the price paid when next years team bring last years car to the event.

Enough said

Pat

[NickFavazzo]

Pat, in the rules it does not say teams cannot qualify for finals with a second year car, neither does it say exactly how much the penalty is and when it would be applied, we went there knowing we may loose up to 50 points and that if applied on our prelim score we would not make finals, if we made finals it may have been subtracted from the final score then. The rules say that the penalty is up to the judges discretion (up to 50 point penalty) so we were confused with the result but we are not complaining, though having the ambiguity cleared up for future teams would be good.

I am at work atm so only a quick reply with out rule quotes..

Taking a second year vehicle is a big decision and ours was based on the fact that with the team as small as it was at the beginning of the year, producing a vehicle was not going to happen, instead we refined subsystems and finished the car as well as focus on new projects and to develop the newer stdents skills, we met our team goals and came away from comp with almost 30 students who experienced comp (starting from 5).

In hindsight I am very happy with our result and what we achieved in 2011, but it would have been nice to make finals and show the premier judges our design, which I am proud of.

What would be great was if there were premier/more experienced judges and spread more amongst the newer judges.

Back on topic though, I think the "lightest concept" is a bit of bull, why not reward the lowest COM, or lowest yaw inertia, best sprung/unsprung ratio...

The above are only the result of an overall design decision, if you have a light car you take into account you may break things, if you want a low COM you do it because of your concept not because there is a trophy for it, sure light is good but if you break an upright on the last lap of enduro because you were running an ultra light upright you would kick yourself, especially if an extra 50 grams saved machining time/cost and let the part survive!

[Fantomas]

Come on guys, stop whining about the light weight concept award.
It is a sponsor award which means that a company pays to be able to give it away and gain visibility. The requirements to win it are set arbitrary by the company and all the judges belong to that company. I would also not be surprised, if politics play a role in the decision for a winner.

Regarding design:
Of course it is subjective. It greatly depends on the judges that you get in your initial round of judging.
I met judges which really struggled to talk english. At some comps in Europe only half of the judges are able to speak english and the others translate for them.
I also met judges asking during judging why we would put a restrictor on our intake as it made no sense for them...RTFR.

I would not blame the concept of the design event for it.

And regarding the comparison of fast cars and design winners: There is absolutely no need for consistency and I don't know where this opinion comes from that there has to be consistency. In a perfect world the design winner would also win the dynamics overall, but we are living in the real world.
A team could bring a car to comp in which they did not even design a single part and rock the dynamics, because they know how to "use" it, but fail design.
Another team could design and calculate by sacrificing test time until the last minute. Will they win design? The chances are not bad.
Will they win the competition? Probably not.

As said many times before: This is all about compromise. There is no such thing as a perfect car or team or design event.
Get used to it.

Fantomas

[Scott Wordley]

While we are all throwing more fuel on the fire...

Pat, can you please explain how this "double penalty for entering a second year car" was applied with respect to the ADFA team at this year's Australian Comp?

I don't mean to pick on ADFA (I am a big fan of the car and the team) but I was wondering how they can enter a car which they openly and repeatedly identified publicly as being a second year car, and yet they were still scored 150 points in Design?

For reference see their newsletter here, front page second paragraph:
http://seit.unsw.adfa.edu.au/s...-%20March%202011.pdf (http://seit.unsw.adfa.edu.au/studentactivities/saevehicle/newsletter/2011/ADFA%20Racing%20-%20Newsletter%20-%20March%202011.pdf)

I think I recall seeing them mention this fact on these forums as well.

150 points is not "something less than 150 points", and based on the penalisation process you described would indicate that they were judged equal winners (200 points) BUT for the fact that their car was not new.

Is it possible the Aus design judges missed this fact and they escaped the 2nd year car penalty?

I didn't want to mention this at comp as I had no desire to see their score reduced, but as we are on the topic it would be nice to clarify what actually happened.

We are currently under the impression that the only reason we made finals and scored higher than ADFA in design (by 10 points), is due to the fact we built a new car. Which, I should stress, is potentially a completely valid state of affairs, no sarcasm intented here, as I said I have a great deal of respect for what the ADFA guys are doing.

But based on the comments regarding UWA, it looks to me like an oversight...?


PS: Z, I would like to think of myself as our team's "Mast of Abstinence and Reliability". Apart from the bit about having team leaders tied to me!(someone was bound to point that out)
The problem is, it takes 2-3 years for team members to stop mistaking me for the anchor!

[Markus]

Originally posted by SoonerJack:
Sometimes it's very disturbing to compare Silverstone and Hockenheim.

There is a saying: "UK judges focus on manufacturing, German judges on awesome design features".

I don't know if it's true but look at GFR 2011:

- Michigan (ok without wings): 1st
- Cali: 2nd
- Germany: 1st
- UK: I don't know.. 15th or something like that

Haven't yet been to States yet so can't compare to those but:
To my understanding FSUK design judges put a lot of emphasis that the car is actually a "new" design and not an evolution version of the last year's car. That would pretty much explain GFR's weaker design points as they choose the evolution approach for 2011, and personally I won't be surprised if they do the same for 2012 too.

Then again I think FSG is more about knowledge and strategy, and GFR provably knew their game.

But that's how ski jumping is... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[bob.paasch]

Originally posted by Markus:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SoonerJack:
Sometimes it's very disturbing to compare Silverstone and Hockenheim.

There is a saying: "UK judges focus on manufacturing, German judges on awesome design features".

I don't know if it's true but look at GFR 2011:

- Michigan (ok without wings): 1st
- Cali: 2nd
- Germany: 1st
- UK: I don't know.. 15th or something like that

Haven't yet been to States yet so can't compare to those but:
To my understanding FSUK design judges put a lot of emphasis that the car is actually a "new" design and not an evolution version of the last year's car. That would pretty much explain GFR's weaker design points as they choose the evolution approach for 2011, and personally I won't be surprised if they do the same for 2012 too.

Then again I think FSG is more about knowledge and strategy, and GFR provably knew their game.

But that's how ski jumping is... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay, let's put this to bed.

"New" design was not the issue for GFR at FSUK. From our design scoresheet, we received a big deduction in the "practical design aspects" category. We were told the carbon tub and wings were too complex, expensive and difficult to manufacture, and would be too difficult for a weekend autocrosser to repair.

[Edit] I disagree with the FSUK design judges assessment. The 2011 class 1 and 1A design winners both had carbon tubs, I don't believe GFR's was any more difficult to manufacture than those. I know for certain the 2011 GFR tub was easier to manufacture than the tub on the 2010 FSUK design winner.http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

The wings add some complexity, but they also made the car faster. In general, faster is considered a good thing in racing. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif [End edit]

As for "new" design, we took one of the 2 or 3 fastest FSAE cars in the world in 2010 and made it 2-3 seconds faster. The aero was very visible, but the other changes were not. We knew why and how the car got faster, and shared that with the judges at all 5 competitions.

I agree with Soonerjack, the FSUK judges do focus on manufacturing, more so than any other competition that I've attended. But I think it's FS Austria where there's a little more focus is on awesome design features. FSG design is a lot like Michigan, with focus on solid engineering analysis and testing. Again, my opinion.

[Leibi]

Hi,

the Audi Award 2011 was won by High-Octane Motorsports (University of Erlangen). We also won Design Event in Austria. Our 10" Aprilia SXV 550-powered car weighted 157 kg.

I agree with Bob, concerning how the focus is set in the Design Events at FSG and FSA. I my opinion @ FSA you have to tell more about your design features and what your reasons have been to build them. @ FSG they want to know more about the basics and the theoretical aspects.

Regards,
Leibi

[Bemo]

Originally posted by Thijs:
By the way Bremo, the 125 kg DUT06 successfully finished endurance, and came 3rd overall at FSG 2006.
So I have to say sorry. That's what happens if you just believe what teammates tell without checking yourself...