Formula Hybrid 2013

[LewisKoberg]

Hi Everyone,

As a quick introduction, the McGill Racing Team intends to compete at the 2013 Formula Hybrid New Hampshire competition in the full-electric category, as well as at the 2013 FSAE West competition in the electric category.
We have yet to register for the Hybrid competition, but after quickly checking the list of registered teams, we have become a little concerned at the lack of registered teams. Currently there are only two (2) teams registered in the Hybrid category and zero (0) in the Electric category.

Our question to everyone is whether or not teams have been waiting to register for whatever reason, or simply do not intend to compete.

Our first thought was that maybe most of the teams that traditionally attend the Hybrid competition are attending FSAE West, but after a quick comparison, there are only 6 (six) teams registered for FSAE West Electric that attended Hybrid last year.

It would be unfortunate to see this competition fall completely to the wayside, especially since there are many more teams now intent on building electric cars, and it represents another Electric competition here in North America.

What is up?

Lewis Koberg

[Fantomas]

Hi Lewis,
I have heard from some teams that competed with full-electric vehicles at FH2012 that they were very unsatisified with the overall organization and attitude and therefore do not intend to participate there any longer.
One concern was the Endurance track layout, which is indeed not rules compliant, if you have a look at onboard videos on YouTube like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJfIIjNVaNc.

Fantomas

[Canuck Racing]

They left events open longer so that a team that has worked thousands of hours and shard the sweat and tears we are all familiar with would have a chance to finally be able to run at least one event at their "home" track, which they no doubt helped to set-up and organize?

Sounds like an awful situation. We definitely need less people like that in the world.

Seriously - as long as it's still open to everybody, what's the problem here? Sounds better than Michigan this year when the organizers botched the brake testing and a significant number of teams barely made it to accel and skid because of the organizers poor running of the whole shebang.

[Fantomas]

Every team has to be treated exactly the same, otherwise it is not a fair competition.
For example it could have happened that team A was only able to run, because they kept the event open, but team B arrived slightly after them and were not able to run. Why have a schedule then?
My point was not, that they kept the event open for a single team. My point is that in that case they have to keep it open for every team to be fair, which is impossible.

Fantomas

[Francis Gagné]

It is our idea to compete in the full electric also. But we still need to gather money in order to build the car before making any decision. Hopefully we'll see you there (or on the road)!

[JT A.]

Our team is waiting to see if more teams sign up before we commit & pay the registration fee.

I imagine this is the case for at least a few other teams. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a situation where a bunch of teams have interest, but none sign up because they don't want to make the first move.

[dougf]

-
I was surprised to read the post by Fantomas yesterday, which read, in part:

“[some teams] complained for example about leaving a dynamic event open for longer, because Dartmouth, the "home" team of the organizers, had not completed scrutineering and thus not competed. Therefore they held the Autocross open, until Dartmouth was able to run.”

This claim is demonstrably false.

1. Dartmouth completed scruitineering on Monday. They then completed all the acceleration runs on Tuesday Morning.

2. Autocross was scheduled to close at 4PM Tuesday afternoon. As is our policy, any team that has not completed all their autocross runs, but is queued up and waiting before 4PM, may run. The three teams that completed their runs after 4PM were Dartmouth, Catalunya and Idaho. The course closed at 4:15 and the scores were posted at 4:32.

Doug

Douglas A. Fraser, P.E.
Director, Formula Hybrid Competition

[cnorton]

We plan on going to competition, but are waiting to gauge our progress to make a final decision. We have some pretty major deadlines scheduled just before registration closes, so our success in meeting those will be the deciding factor.

[Sormaz]

Originally posted by cnorton:
We plan on going to competition, but are waiting to gauge our progress to make a final decision. We have some pretty major deadlines scheduled just before registration closes, so our success in meeting those will be the deciding factor.
hah, by the sounds of it they will keep registration open longer than scheduled anyways so you guys don't have to worry much


...Sorry Doug....I had to poke my stick

[dougf]

-
Poke accepted... ;-)

We do believe that many teams are in the same boat as MSOE.

In 2012, 39 teams entered the Formula Hybrid competition, but only 25 showed up. That's 14 teams that were unable to complete their vehicles in time.

The Formula Hybrid competition is arguably the most complex technical challenge in the SAE CDS series. Many advisers now ask their teams to show that they are on schedule before sending in the entry fee.

Also, because we don't cap the number of entries, there is really no reason to send in the entry early. (Unless, of course, you feel an overwhelming need to tie up $1550.00 for a couple of extra months.)

When SAE decided to allow electric cars into the Lincoln event, we realized that there was a good chance that some teams that had previously entered our event as "Hybrids in Progress" or Electric-only would choose to go to Lincoln rather than travel to the New Hampshire Speedway. On the flip side, there are now two events a team can enter with an electric FSAE car.

To put in an unabashed plug for Formula Hybrid:

1. It is closer for all the East Coast teams.
2. It is not in 100 degree heat.
3. The teams have the NASCAR garages to work in instead of being out in the open.
4. The NASCAR oval is the sweetest stretch of asphalt you will ever have the opportunity to drive on.
5. There are fewer entries, hence more time is allotted per team.

We'll be contacting last year's teams over the next couple of weeks to find out what their plans are, and we'll post what we learn on the FH site.

Doug

Douglas A. Fraser, P.E.
Director, Formula Hybrid Competition

[theTTshark]

Doug-
One of the big things I've noticed that is of concern, is that the Formula Hybrid rules regulate the amount of money you can spend while the FSAE Electic rules do not. This leads to a situation where a team has to compromise their design to get into Hybrid, but then when it comes time to compete against the FSAE Electric only competitors they don't have the same power, battery life, quality of components, etc as their competitors. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but just merely an observation.

[dougf]

Your point is interesting.

We do have limits on energy capacity and the cost of the accumulators. FSAE-Electric (the last time I looked) enforces power limits.

Do you feel you can deliver more energy to the drive system/asphalt over the course of an event running the FSAE rules as opposed to the FH rules? Our goal has always been to set limits that will still allow performance on a par with a traditional FSAE vehicle. I believe that FSAE-e has the same philosophy.

We welcome feedback on our rules, and do want to maintain compatibility with the FSAE-e vehicles, though we are not necessarily trying to present the same competitive challenges.

-Doug

[theTTshark]

I think I feel like maybe you can get the same amount of speed, but in terms of being as reliable and light, I think not. I believe the saying goes: speed, reliability, cost, choose two.

The point Cole hit on is that your rules are very different from FSAE-E. While yes we understand that FHybrid wants to keep it's own identity, from the perspective of the students, if we can go to FSAE-E events not only here in the US but also in Europe why should we bother with a one time competition? Most of the fun of FSAE is competition, and FSAE-E allows us to compete against the Europeans and British. What other competitive challenges does Formula Hybrid try to present that's different from FSAE? No offense intended, but why try to redesign the wheel? And honestly I cannot see a single thing that Formula Hybrid can really hold above FSAE. Fundamentally the learning experience is the same because it doesn't matter what you learned about in the end, the important part is the A->B process. That's what employers are looking for.

I feel like trying to compete against FSAE-E is a losing battle. Teams are eventually going to follow where the competition is, and that's why there is a very limited list of people registered for Hybrid but yet 20 E cars for Lincoln.

[nick roberts]

Doug,

I think our teams biggest issue with the current FH rules for the electric class is the cost cap on the accumulators. Building a car that meets both the capacity of the FH rules and the power limit of the FSE rules is not a big deal. The FH capacity rules are fairly reasonable.

However, building a battery pack to take full advantage of the FH capacity rules while not exceeding the FH cost cap using QUALITY cells has proven to be difficult. If a team wanted to build a pack to FH capacity rules using Dow Kokam or Melasta cells it would probably cost somewhere around double(rough estimate) the current FH cost cap. We got by last year using less well known and unfortunately less reliable cells. This has severely limited our E car testing and development and subsequently has somewhat jaded our feelings towards FH. I cant speak for other teams, but if the FH cost cap was significantly raised or removed our team would be much more likely to design a car to compete in both FH and FE instead of focusing on just FE.


-nick

[nick roberts]

Originally posted by coleasterling:
One of the major problems with the event is the drastically different rule set. I know this is a little bit goofy, but A&M couldn't even be recognized in the World Rankings for our Hybrid domination. Admittedly, it was playing with children, but still.

-Cole


Cole, seriously? You do realize that some teams don't have 10 years of success and support to build on like you guys right? Comments like that don't help anyone.


-nick

[Fantomas]

Originally posted by dougf:
-
I was surprised to read the post by Fantomas yesterday, which read, in part:

“[some teams] complained for example about leaving a dynamic event open for longer, because Dartmouth, the "home" team of the organizers, had not completed scrutineering and thus not competed. Therefore they held the Autocross open, until Dartmouth was able to run.”

Not only is this claim offensive to the organizers, it is demonstrably false.

1. Dartmouth completed scruitineering on Monday. They then completed all the acceleration runs on Tuesday Morning.

2. Autocross was scheduled to close at 4PM Tuesday afternoon. As is our policy, any team that has not completed all their autocross runs, but is queued up and waiting before 4PM, may run. The three teams that completed their runs after 4PM were Dartmouth, Catalunya and Idaho. The course closed at 4:15 and the scores were posted at 4:32.

Given that this information is publicly (and easily) accessible, the posting by Fantomas demonstrates a level of irresponsibility that is inappropriate for an aspiring member of the engineering community.

Doug

Douglas A. Fraser, P.E.
Director, Formula Hybrid Competition

Doug,
I think it should always be possible to express critics, as long as it is in a respectful way. I therefore agree that saying the Endurance layout was a joke is not respectful and I change this to: The Endurance track layout was not rules compliant.

Furthermore I said, that it was information from teams that participated, which I just pass on.
After looking at the scoring sheets, the complain seems to not be reasonable, which is why I edited my post above, but if teams felt that something was not correct with respect to how the dynamics were run, it is worth mentioning.

Given that the FH forum requires each member to be approved by a moderator and that there seems to be no feedback mechanism for your competition, this was the only way to give this feedback.

The respective team mentioned other issues, which, as far as I understood them, will keep them from registering this year and go to Lincoln instead.

I think that criticism should be taken with an open mind and make the critized think, what could be changed instead of trying to defend against it. That is a basic of feedback mechanisms and I know that all bigger competitions, at least FS UK, FSAE-MI and FSG provide feedback and evaluation mechanisms for the students in order to improve their experience each year. FSG even lists the top feedback from last years competition at the team welcome and tells the students what they will change in order to improve on these issues.

And to add to the other replies regarding the rules:
Why did you not just take the FSAE-Electric rules for your electric only class? Would have made life so much easier for every team intending to participate at FH.
I totally understand the frustration involved.

Fantomas

[dougf]

-
Thanks for all for the feedback.

I'll address the issues as best I can.

Fantomas: Thank you for revising your post.

Regarding the course layout, we are held to the same standards as FSAE, but we try to push the envelope a bit to reward effective regenerative braking.

The course is laid out on the NASCAR oval by the New England Region of the SCCA, and checked for compliance by Michael Royce, who was chair of the FSAE rules committee for 10 years. I would be truly surprised if it was "not rules compliant" as you suggest.

Nick Robers, thettShark (and others): The cost cap on the accumulators was originally intended to keep the "big bucks" teams from buying technology that other teams could not afford. However, the accumulator cost limit is not driven by our primary goal which is to encourage the design of efficient drive systems. It is our accumulator energy limit that is more important.

I will go out on a limb here; If there is consensus among teams that the accumulator cost limit is too restrictive, I will bring the issue before the rules committee. It is conceivable that the restriction could be lifted or changed for the 2013 event - provided there is no objection from teams that may have already invested in systems that are compliant to our rules as posted on 8/24/2012.

If you would like to weigh in on this issue, please email me directly: doug [at] formula-hybrid.org Please remember to include your institution/team name.

Finally, back to Fantomas: Formula Hybrid has it's own forum, as well as an online support page, which we watch more closely. Suggestions, comments and criticisms are always welcome.

Regarding electrical rules compatibility, I would strongly suggest reading the introduction to the FH rules (http://www.formula-hybrid.org/...ybrid-2013-Rules.pdf (http://www.formula-hybrid.org/pdf/Formula-Hybrid-2013-Rules.pdf)- pp 2-3). This outlines the evolution of the electrical rules since 2007 and also clarifies the intention of all the SAE electric-drive organizers to maximize vehicle compatibility between competitions.

What makes Formula Hybrid different is our strong emphasis on efficiency. The automakers recognize this. Ford is even preparing a webinar specifically for FH teams, that meshes with the Ford Efficiency Award. They take this stuff seriously. (Watch our site for more info.)

Although we are definitely encouraging the FSAE-e entries, our top category is still Hybrid. Hybrid is the greatest engineering challenge that an SAE team can take on. If you want to get hired on the spot by one of the top automakers, arrive at FH with this kind of experience. You will, at the very least, leave with a pocket-full of recruiters business cards.

Thanks for the feedback, and the opportunity to respond.

-Doug

[JT A.]

As a mechanical engineer who has helped with our hybrid car in 2011 & electric car in 2012, one thing I have noticed about Formula Hybrid is that the way points are awarded does not match up with the intent of the competition

You say that "a strong emphasis on efficiency" is what makes Formula Hybrid different, but the points structure of your competition doesn't reflect that at all.

Only 55 points out of the total 1000 are specifically awarded for "sustainability" (25 from presentation and 30 from design). 700 of the 1000 points come from races.

The event organizers & design judges can say the competition is about sustainability, efficiency, innovation, technology, etc all they want, but the fact is that FH competition strongly rewards teams that build the simplest car possible, get it through tech, and just do all the events.

Texas A&M recognized this and took that strategy to the extreme. I can't fault them at all for doing this- they looked at the rules & structure of the competition and found a strategy that gave them the best chance of winning, and it worked. I'm not going to lie though, after going to FH in 2011 and watching them win by putting around at half throttle, not even using their electric system, I couldn't help but feel like the competition was a bit of a joke. To me it seems like deliberately not using your electric system in endurance completely bypasses the intent of a hybrid competition. Again, I don't fault A&M for using this strategy, but I do think it was a mistake of the event organizers to not recognize what was going on & changing the rules to require teams to actually run the cars as a hybrid system. Allowing them to win for 3 or 4 years in a row like that is just laughable. Its no wonder they got bored and left.

[dougf]

-
I'd like to express my appreciation again for the feedback we've received from this group.

It is still our intention that vehicles built to the Formula Hybrid electric-only rules should be compatible (and competitive) with FSAE-e cars.

The comments regarding the FH accumulator cost limits were particularly helpful.

We have opened a discussion on the Formula Hybrid forum, and are inviting comments on this rule. There is the possibility that it could be changed for 2012.

Please visit and let us know how you feel about this.

FH Forum (http://www.formula-hybrid.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=541&p=1728#p1728)

-Doug

(We realize that the FH forum signup requires moderator approval, but 2/3 of the attempted signups are spammers. If your email address has a .edu suffix, or your website URL is academic, you'll sail right through)