Who is planning on switching to Formula Hybrid this year or next?

[GSXR05K]

I've already heard a rumor about TX A&M. Anyone else?

[GSXR05K]

I've already heard a rumor about TX A&M. Anyone else?

[John Grego]

I'll confirm the rumor...

[Steve O]

Any reason in particular for the change?

Been there, done that, looking for new adventure?


Steve Osuch
President
U of Hartford

[John Grego]

Well if anyone is familiar with our cars from the last few years, besides for the engine package, not a whole lot has changed from year to year and you don't learn how to design something if you just use someone else's ideas. Changing competitions is going to bring all sorts of new challenges from design, to integration, to team organization, yet it will have all the same elements as Formula.

Plus there are only a dozen or so teams competing, so maybe we can knock off a couple wins before everyone else jumps in http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[flavorPacket]

John, why don't you guys just change stuff and stay in FSAE then? Why leave a series that is hugely competitive for one that a strong program like yours will dominate?

[John Grego]

The series not being competitive has nothing to do with the change. Formula is not about the competition. The competition is the icing on the cake to the amazing amount of engineering experience you get from designing, building, and testing the car. Even though our car died during skidpad...twice, and only made it about 30ft in endurance, before the same electronics problem killed the car, I'm not going to call the year a failure.

Though I learned a lot I know I would have learned a lot more if I hadn't had our old cars to look at. How different would your car look if you had never seen a car, or a picture of a car, before designing yours?

SAE is about learning and moving to Hybrid will give next year's team a great opportunity to learn things that I didn't designing Formula cars.

[flavorPacket]

Well, that's a viewpoint I don't share, but certainly one I can understand. I'm sure a good team like yours has discussed this at length, and we're sad to see you go.

[John Grego]

It's going to be weird not having a team at Detroit, for sure. Hopefully next year's team will get people to remember the Formula part of Formula Hybrid and get them to stop thinking of the cars as ex-FSAE cars carrying 100lbs of batteries.

[RiNaZ]

Formula Hybrid definitely need more new teams at the competition. McGill Univ. and Embry-Riddle have been taking the top 2 spot for 2 years in a row, so more teams joining could probably shake things up.

It's a great event, more relaxed in terms of the rules and penalties (the rules are still the same, just less judges nitpicking on every single mistake that you make).