What happened to FSAE?

[Cory M]

I know this will probably be controversial but here goes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif :

What happened to formula SAE? I thought this event is supposed to be about innovation, teamwork (your OWN team), and hard work. What I see on this forum is kind of sad. Teams are buying pre-engineered rear ends from Taylor, complete with disc brakes. People sharing IGES models and design spreadsheets on this forum. Asking other teams how to design all of your parts, what FEA boundary conditions and constraints to use, how to size, how to analyze. Group buys on carbon brakes. Worst of all, teams trying to buy other teams old cars to get them started!

This forum wasn't around when I was doing FSAE but I think the mentality was a little different too. For example if I had a question on how to analyze a component I was designing I would look in a few books, talk to my advisor, or ask my teamates; I wouldn't ask someone from another team to design my parts for me. The group buy on brakes cracked me up. How do you expect your car to stand out to the judges and be superior in competition if you're running the same parts as everyone else? One of the points of this whole excercise is to use your own ideas and create something that is BETTER than what's currently out there, BETTER than what the other teams are doing. This is a competition afterall, right?

Now I understand that this isn't F1, and everyone is trying to learn and become better engineers. But it seems like the sharing here and "catalog" engineering has gotten out of hand. There's a big difference between loaning someone a part or tool at competition and giving them your entire analysis! No wonder Van Valkenburg is writing articles in RCE about how all of the cars are looking the same and lacking innovation.

One of the things I value most from my engineering education and FSAE experience is acquiring the ability to solve problems (on my own!), it seems like some people here are missing out on that. Maybe some other resources should be tapped and methods tried prior to posting here and asking the other FSAE teams how. Maybe you should be proud of the clever analysis methods you've developed through your own hard work and not give them away to someone who isn't willing to do the work themselves.

Then again, maybe I'm just a crotchety old bastard. In the words of Adam Carola: How say you?

[Cory M]

I know this will probably be controversial but here goes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif :

What happened to formula SAE? I thought this event is supposed to be about innovation, teamwork (your OWN team), and hard work. What I see on this forum is kind of sad. Teams are buying pre-engineered rear ends from Taylor, complete with disc brakes. People sharing IGES models and design spreadsheets on this forum. Asking other teams how to design all of your parts, what FEA boundary conditions and constraints to use, how to size, how to analyze. Group buys on carbon brakes. Worst of all, teams trying to buy other teams old cars to get them started!

This forum wasn't around when I was doing FSAE but I think the mentality was a little different too. For example if I had a question on how to analyze a component I was designing I would look in a few books, talk to my advisor, or ask my teamates; I wouldn't ask someone from another team to design my parts for me. The group buy on brakes cracked me up. How do you expect your car to stand out to the judges and be superior in competition if you're running the same parts as everyone else? One of the points of this whole excercise is to use your own ideas and create something that is BETTER than what's currently out there, BETTER than what the other teams are doing. This is a competition afterall, right?

Now I understand that this isn't F1, and everyone is trying to learn and become better engineers. But it seems like the sharing here and "catalog" engineering has gotten out of hand. There's a big difference between loaning someone a part or tool at competition and giving them your entire analysis! No wonder Van Valkenburg is writing articles in RCE about how all of the cars are looking the same and lacking innovation.

One of the things I value most from my engineering education and FSAE experience is acquiring the ability to solve problems (on my own!), it seems like some people here are missing out on that. Maybe some other resources should be tapped and methods tried prior to posting here and asking the other FSAE teams how. Maybe you should be proud of the clever analysis methods you've developed through your own hard work and not give them away to someone who isn't willing to do the work themselves.

Then again, maybe I'm just a crotchety old bastard. In the words of Adam Carola: How say you?

[absolutepressure]

I'm pretty new to FSAE, but I am surprised at all the purchasing talk that goes on. I realize that some parts have to be bought e.g. wheels and brakes, but some of the others I think can be built. On the other topic, from what I see, it's more theory sharing, or corrections on certain theories/postulates so that when competition comes, you can race against more competitive cars. If someone gets the cooling equation wrong, you may get 2nd by default.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

welcome to the modern world of engineering. Look at the big 3, there all suffering big time. Why? Things can be done elsewheres for cheaper. Same here, why build a drivetrain if you can buy one. Once you figure in materials, splining of the driveshfts, buying a diff and building a custom housing for it, cv joints, it adds up and takes a lot of time and resources.

Also, this is a learning "competition" not a sporting event. Noone is out to reinvent the wheel, if someone else did the math and found out it worked, why not accept the fact and follow in there footsteps. You are just spinning your tires doing it yourself, yes you will learn more, but only if you stay sane while doing it.

We personally don't have the experience/facilities/money to do everything on our own and thats why you see Joel (team leader), Absolutepressure (intake), ngassin(brake guy) and myself posting numerous times a week on here.

[Jersey Tom]

I think you're blowing this a bit out of proportion.

Buying pre-engineered rear ends from Taylor? No. Unless yuo expect us to design and build our own differentials from scratch. I've been brought up with one of the golden rules of design engineering being - if you can buy it somewhere else, don't make it yourself. This is especially true of rear-end stuff. Beyond the differential there's a lot of hardened, splined components. Expensive.

Have you been to a competition recently? I don't see any 'catalog' engineering. EVERY car is VERY unique, even ones that use off-the-shelf components, like from Taylor. No one is doing design or analysis for anyone else. Nothing near that. Opinions on machining versus welding? Sure. But that's entirely different.

And there's a tight limit on what's out there that you can buy and happens to fit the FSAE application.

What's wrong with sharing IGES files of an engine, or turbo? Does it REALLY rob the other team of anything? No. Its something you'd bring to a part scanning place anyway or would get from the OEM.

This forum is a good place to get opinions and some experience from other people, which I always take with a grain of salt. I don't care if its from UTA, Cornell, or whoever. It aint gospel, and it doesn't necessarily make their choices right for our team, and our application.

[Blake_DFSAE]

Well here at Dalhousie we just started a team and would like to compete in 07. This place is a huge resource because we're short on people and money and avoiding costly first timer mistakes through others advice is invaluable.

And on group buys, if it makes my car faster for less money then I don't see a problem. Sure it's helping others but this is about winning - any edge I can get over most of the competition is great.

[Blake_DFSAE]

Also, this just came to me - it really should be point number 1.

I think the ability to work with others and use all the resources provided to you is many times more valuable in the real world than learning how to build a race car. Sure, the analytical mind should always be there and everything you hear has got to be taken with a grain of salt and proven, but given a place to start is great.

Remember, garbage in garbage out. I'm set to design a set of brakes and I have no damn clue where to even start, and these boards really do help. And in return I'll pay it forward when I have more to contribute and teach. And as far as I'm concerned, that's more engineering than sitting by yourself behind a computer screen running simulations for 16 hours straight.

[CMURacing - Prometheus]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by drivetrainUW-Platt:
Also, this is a learning "competition" not a sporting event. Noone is out to reinvent the wheel, if someone else did the math and found out it worked, why not accept the fact and follow in there footsteps. You are just spinning your tires doing it yourself, yes you will learn more, but only if you stay sane while doing it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

i'll bite on this one, because its too juicy to resist.

If this is a "learning" competition, shouldn't we be reinventing the wheel? Isn't that what's done when a prof stands up at the board and derives Newton's Second Law? If we all want to become good engineers (and reverse engineering is a big part of product design), shouldn't we be working from a product and going backwards?

i think the problem boils down to an old debate we had on here, about innovation in FSAE. and i've come up with a radical (read as: not going to happen) way to encourage innovation: no subsystem can be carried over from year to year. If you run a turbo, you gotta redesign it (and not just the cornell "flip the turbo and the radiator" myth we've all heard, and is apparently untrue http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif) every time. Suspension? all new. Maybe this means new materials. new design. new, INNOVATIVE iterations. then de-emphasize FINISHING endurance. give a pittance of points (2 or so) for every lap you complete(44). 6 pts for getting to the driver change(50). 50 more for finishing all 22 laps (100). then the rest goes to time amongst teams that finished. and pro-rate fuel economy for everyone who completes say half-distance or more. this makes it possible for teams to hit the top 10 and still crap out in endurance. which, if you're changing every year, will be a big accomplishment. we redesigned just about everything on the car between 04 and 05, and we jumped 65 places (100th - 35th). we were waiting for that most improved award at the banquet (it never came, but it should have gone to us).

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> &lt;/end rant&gt; </pre>

[Nima]

I think this is the only way to get the better design in shorter time and cheaper pay...
If you have a experience in the design working at first, you will design it better and more better than a person how designing for the first time...

so you must belive this fact that your design in the first year is full of mistakes and you must try to preaper yourself for the next year...
contact me: nima_r@me.iut.ac.ir

[Chris Allbee]

With the current set of rules and point allocations finishing endurance is top priority for most teams. Thus the iterative approach of only changing as much as you need to in order to meet the letter of the rule. And I don't know how it is at other schools, but ours seems to only look at tangibles when considering the worth of this program (i.e. how much money we can bring in, what place we get) and in order win get more sponsorships, prize money, and hopefully a trophy someday...you need a reliable car with proven performance. This is INCREDIBLY difficult to do by redesigning the vehicle every year. As for the guys at RCE...if they want a field of radical concepts they are going to have to wait for a new radical set of rules. Otherwise I only see the majority of these cars staying the way they are, proven thought-out designs(by someone) with each individual teams own little touch added.

[pengulns2001]

the rules make it harder and harder to innovate every year, if everyone goes by a strict set of rules cars will eventually start to look the same... granted were not at the nascar level yet where all the cars ARE the same... if you have to go

TB-Restrictor-Turbo-Plenum-Motor... chances are your going to see that, if not maybe some teams would work on a throttless system. cost report only allows us 20k or so??? thats not much, yeah teams lie about it and spend 50 on thier car (or way more) but you can only fudge so many numbers... the frames basically have to be the same or you run the risk of not passing tech. i could go on forever

[Jersey Tom]

I REALLY wish they'd redo the cost report. Its so bogus. Cost of aluminum is off by almost an order of magnitude depending on what alloy you're using.

If you require teams to blank-slate it every year you're going to alienate a LOT of teams who just do not have the resources to do that.

That said though, year-to-year I'd say a lot of teams don't do a whole lot of innovation, us included. But when you have to go from design to working car in 5 months, with a lot of kids on senior design who are new to the car, its very difficult. When I joined up my sophomore year I was overwhelmed as it was, without having to design anything.

We'll see for our car next year.. might be able to try a couple really cool new things.

[CornellGixxer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">If you run a turbo, you gotta redesign it (and not just the cornell "flip the turbo and the radiator" myth we've all heard, and is apparently untrue http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif) every time. <pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> &lt;/end rant&gt; </pre> </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Flip the turbo and the radiator myth?? Sometimes we're the last ones to hear the rumors and stories going around about how much our budget is or how and why we did something. That was purely a packaging/weight distribution choice... nothing more nothing less.

I dont agree that buying pre-fabbed components and information sharing among teams is a sign of the downfall of FSAE. For experienced teams with decent manpower this is obviously a poor choice because the system or component will not be optimized for that specific racecar, making it less competitive. However, for new teams short on dedicated members reducing the manufacturing load and component testing needed allows them to concentrate on getting a reliable car out to competition. Finishing endurance should be the primary goal of every team... and the chances of that happening when a team of 5 or 10 are tasked with manufacturing an entire car from scratch drop significantly.

[Wizard]

Cory,

First, I wonder what your feelings are about the Tire Testing Consortium, because its basically a "group buy" and without a forum such as this, something of this magnitude could have never been pulled off. In my opinion it's the best thing thats ever come out of FSAE.com. I think FSAEer's should try to use their pull more as a group. If thats getting cheaper carbon fiber brakes, so be it.

Your comment about more parts being purchased instead of manufactured "in-house" is correct, but I don't look at this as a bad thing. If a team cannot manufacture a component better (i.e. lighter, stronger, cheaper, etc.), then why not buy it. Every team has areas where they are stong in (i.e. composites, CNC machining, fabrication), and areas where they do not have the resources they should "buy." It is more important to get a car complete and tuned than saving a few pounds (or fifty) on making components yourself.

Finally, in the last three US competitions I have been to the quality of cars as a groups has increased significantly. I would say the number of "quality" cars at competition has doubled from 2003 til 2005 (by "quality" I mean not only designed well but tuned and developed). Also, if you look at the numbers, fifteen more cars finish endurance in 2005 than 2003 (and there were five in 2005 that I was suprised didn't finish).

If buying more components and sharing information of the web means more people finishing and making a better competition I am all for it.

[muffrx4]

What happened to FSAE? Evoloution.

fact is the competition is too big for itself now and if anybody wants to start competing, it's at least a 2-3 year process to the top 5 of any comp.

Quite duanting, tyre data as an example, it's simply accelerated learning to get to the good bits. just like graphic calculators and slide rules of the past.

cheers

muff out.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

I think the judges should throw in some big rule change so that teams like UTA that have done this for years and year can't take there package from the year before and slightly tweak it, I'm really curious how strict the judges really are on the 60% new design each year....

[KevinD]

60% of the car needs to be redesigned? is that really a rule? hahaha

oh well. it poses not even the slightest hint of a problem this year. new team, new car.


but just for humors sake, doesn't every race team in the world take the car previous and slightly tweek it to be that much better? i mean, if ferrari threw away their 2005 F1 car because it didn't win the championship, and totally redesigned then entire car for 2006 where would that get them?

there is so much more to this competition then understanding how to build a car from scratch and redesigning every last bit. thats where teams sharing drawings, information, data, can make a huge difference to a new team. To win this competition now requires you to understand everything on your car inside and out, so if one team gets all their designs from someone else, it is only hurting them in the long run. not having to spend the time designing those parts can save them months of design work in the present, and allow them to have a running car in time for detroit which they might not otherwise have. having a running car for a new team is far more important then knowing the process of drawing your own engine model in solidworks, or doing a complete aero test, etc...

[js10coastr]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cory M:
I know this will probably be controversial but here goes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif :

What happened to formula SAE? I thought this event is supposed to be about innovation, teamwork (your OWN team), and hard work. What I see on this forum is kind of sad. Teams are buying pre-engineered rear ends from Taylor, complete with disc brakes. People sharing IGES models and design spreadsheets on this forum. Asking other teams how to design all of your parts, what FEA boundary conditions and constraints to use, how to size, how to analyze. Group buys on carbon brakes. Worst of all, teams trying to buy other teams old cars to get them started!

This forum wasn't around when I was doing FSAE but I think the mentality was a little different too. For example if I had a question on how to analyze a component I was designing I would look in a few books, talk to my advisor, or ask my teamates; I wouldn't ask someone from another team to design my parts for me. The group buy on brakes cracked me up. How do you expect your car to stand out to the judges and be superior in competition if you're running the same parts as everyone else? One of the points of this whole excercise is to use your own ideas and create something that is BETTER than what's currently out there, BETTER than what the other teams are doing. This is a competition afterall, right?

Now I understand that this isn't F1, and everyone is trying to learn and become better engineers. But it seems like the sharing here and "catalog" engineering has gotten out of hand. There's a big difference between loaning someone a part or tool at competition and giving them your entire analysis! No wonder Van Valkenburg is writing articles in RCE about how all of the cars are looking the same and lacking innovation.

One of the things I value most from my engineering education and FSAE experience is acquiring the ability to solve problems (on my own!), it seems like some people here are missing out on that. Maybe some other resources should be tapped and methods tried prior to posting here and asking the other FSAE teams how. Maybe you should be proud of the clever analysis methods you've developed through your own hard work and not give them away to someone who isn't willing to do the work themselves.

Then again, maybe I'm just a crotchety old bastard. In the words of Adam Carola: How say you? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

...I think the teams that do better spend their time in the shop, lab and track instead of on the message boards...

[Buckingham]

I don't think there are many teams out there that are an iges model, suspension adjustment, FE Analysis, ADAMS simulation, brake calc, carbon rotor, or runner length away from finishing endurance or from moving from 20th to 2nd.

I think the forum can be very helpful for the startup schools, but I think it can also misdirect them into spending too much time worrying about the numbers or the spec sheet, and too little time thinking about what makes a car finish (or not finish) an endurance race.

[Cory M]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">"having a running car for a new team is far more important then knowing the process of drawing your own engine model in solidworks, or doing a complete aero test, etc... " </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I disagree with this statement. When you are getting to graduate and interviewing for jobs with someone like me, we will want to know what YOU actually designed and tested on the car, what skills YOU acquired in the process. Unless you're in the overall top ten I don't think your finishing place is that important, and even then a lot of the people you'll interview with have never heard of FSAE. I actually learned the most the year our car didn't finish the competition than the two prior years when we had very respectable finishes. When you try to get a job no one will care how your car placed, they will want to know what you as an individual learned and can do that makes you a better choice than the next guy (and there will be a next guy).

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> "welcome to the modern world of engineering. Look at the big 3, there all suffering big time. Why? Things can be done elsewheres for cheaper. Same here, why build a drivetrain if you can buy one. Once you figure in materials, splining of the driveshfts, buying a diff and building a custom housing for it, cv joints, it adds up and takes a lot of time and resources." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The big 3 are suffering for so many reasons we could start a separate thread about that, or maybe another forum! To keep this thread productive I won't get into the "big 3". But, based on the rest of your comment, why even build a car at all? It can be done cheaper and easier by many manufacturers. Why not contract Lee Stohr, Phoenix cars, Swift, Panoz, or any of the great UK builders to design it for you, then have it built in China? The FSAE competition isn't supposed to be easy and cheap, it is supposed to make you a better engineer; and you don't become a better engineer without some hard work.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> "Buying pre-engineered rear ends from Taylor? No. Unless yuo expect us to design and build our own differentials from scratch. I've been brought up with one of the golden rules of design engineering being - if you can buy it somewhere else, don't make it yourself. This is especially true of rear-end stuff. Beyond the differential there's a lot of hardened, splined components. Expensive. " </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Obviously it doesn't make sense to design and build everything yourselves. My point about the Taylor rear end pertains to the complete unit they sell ready to go with bearings, half shafts, CVs, disk brake, etc. You can purchase a limited slip differential from any number of manufacturers like Quaife, ZF, Guard Transmissions, and build your own mounting system, disk brake system, etc. If done properly it will be lighter and superior than adapting the Taylor kit to your car, it will also be a lot cheaper. By purchasing the Taylor rearend you have copped out of building a huge portion of the car. You have also lost a great opportunity to show the judges that you can build something better than what's out there. You are telling the judges (and anyone else who looks at your car) that the guys over at Taylor are smarter than you are, or you're too lazy to try to improve on what they have to offer. How much did you learn by ordering this rearend? Did it make you a better engineer?

There are some cases where building it yourself doesn't make sense. For example one year we built our own brake calipers. Our calipers weren't particularly innovative and were essentially copies of motorcycle calipers that were available and better. They didn't solve any packaging issues or work any better than what the market has to offer. We built them and they worked, but we didn't learn anything new or make anything better. Now before you call me a hypocrite, note that calipers are a component and the Taylor rearend is a system, there is a huge difference. The calipers are just a piece of the brake system puzzle, the Taylor rearend is the whole puzzle.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> "First, I wonder what your feelings are about the Tire Testing Consortium, because its basically a "group buy" and without a forum such as this, something of this magnitude could have never been pulled off. In my opinion it's the best thing thats ever come out of FSAE.com. I think FSAEer's should try to use their pull more as a group. If thats getting cheaper carbon fiber brakes, so be it." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Honestly I don't know all of the details about how the Tire Consortium works, I've heard about it here and there but I'm no expert on it so forgive me. The way I understand it a bunch of the teams got together with the manufacturers and did some tire testing with results available to the teams. I think it is good because the tire companies rarely share any detailed data with amateur racers, and every book out there goes on and on about starting your design with the tires. However, if my team had done the testing and analysis ourselves, you can bet your ass I wouldn't be sharing it with all of the other teams. The same goes for all of the vehicle dynamics and brake system spreadsheets floating around, you guys should be proud of your work and not give it away to everyone. If you were able to learn the stuff, so should the other guys; and if they can't than they lose. Again, this is a competition.

The carbon brake group buy made me laugh because if you think about it, using carbon brakes is a "wow factor" for the teams that have them. For the teams that do it it is unique, probably unnecesary although there are some good reasons for using the (namely reduced unsprung weight). Let's assume for a minute that disk brakes are a huge advantage and an "edge" on the competition. If you do a group buy and several teams go for it your edge is no longer an edge. Any advantage that you gained over the competition is lost. Even the "wow factor" is gone.

I think I was misunderstood about innovation. Developing a successful car IS an evolutionary process and I don't favor change for the sake of change. As you development progresses there will be fewer revolutionary steps but I think we can all agree that there is no such thing as a perfect FSAE car, they can all be improved.

For the record, I do believe that the level of competition has increased since I was involved in FSAE, and I think that there are some great cars out there. I'm only posting stuff like this because I want to continue to see teams creating great cars, and great engineers in the process http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Mike Meechan]

Hi,

Here at Oxford Brookes, where we do believe in real from-the-ground-up design from first principles, and making new innovative parts from scratch, we call what is happening a lot now in FSAE 'cheque-book' engineering, which doesn't do a lot for the education of the new breed of engineers coming through...

[ben]

I'm with Cory on this one. The TTC was a great idea, and is very different from a group buy on components.

I would also separate out systems and components. Often buying components is just as much about manufacturing resources available. I have no problem with large amounts of bought in parts, provided the system they constitute has been developed by the student.

Fortunately it's very easy to spot those who don't have a systems oriented approach to their design. Sadly some of these are still doing well in design in the UK because of the "Ooo, that's shiny!" response of some judges - that for me is a bigger problem in many ways than some teams buying diffs, etc...

Ben

[Gareth]

Evolution is right. Over the past 4 years at UW I've seen our cars progress massively from our design winning car in 2001 and I believe a great deal has to do with better communication with other teams. This forum is a great resource for people to learn what the state-of-the-art in FSAE is. For example, the finer details of UWA's suspension aren't published here, but there is information on how it works.

I don't believe for one minute that there is enough information on this forum to have your car designed for you. There are way too many details that are simply not covered. It does, however, provide some inspiration and foundation for new ideas that others are trying.

As for the TTC, there couldn't be a worse example of how teams aren't learning by cooperating. The tire data is raw and unanalyzed, leaving it up to the teams to figure out what it means. How can this be bad? I'm a little disappointed that I haven't seen any tools being created for viewing the data, though maybe others are like me and are waiting until after this year's competition to release them... ;-)

Finally, the teams that do purchase more components than average probably enjoy above average reliability. Unfortunately, the judges aren't impressed by design done by another company. I guess that might balance out. From what I've seen, the teams that tend to do well are the ones that balance between purchased and in-house parts, but have reasons for why they chose all the components they did. FSAE ain't broke, it's just progressed beyond spec'ing bearings properly and hoping your wheels don't fall off. I've gotta think Carroll himself would be proud...there are certainly fewer rod-ends in bending these days.

[rjwoods77]

Hey Gareth,

I am pretty sure what you need to view the raw data on the CD is there. Edward showed me that there is a Matlab program on there where you change the x and y axis requirements to spit out data curve and not just the non-dimensional model. Maybe it was just on Edwards computer but I am pretty sure it is there because he showed me how to adjust the values as if he intended on me doing it myself at home. If this is the case I think you need to retract what you just said.

[CMURacing - Prometheus]

yes, there's a matlab script to do expansion from MRA's non-dimensional tire model (which is sweet, it describes a tire in 12 numbers or so), but that doesn't help you without also taking vehicle specific camber curves for bump, roll, and steer.

someone mentioned bearings...funny, because i just did bearing life calculations on our wheel bearings (which are packaging limited)...and we could drive around on one wheel, with a 300lb driver (+500 lb car), for 12,500 miles before worrying about bearing failure. hmm...

[Ryan Boysen]

From a First-Year teams perspective...

It is hard enough to build a race car from ground up, nonetheless a race car with 130 pages of rules and regulations. This forum is very beneficial not only answering contextual questions, but also with assisting getting our wheels rolling, no pun intended.

We actually encourage all of our members to visit this site. ANNDD refering to...

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by js10coastr:
...I think the teams that do better spend their time in the shop, lab and track instead of on the message boards... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Follow me.. type.. fsae.com, and a click on the FORUMS button. 3 seconds max. Don't act like none of us spend time in a shop, because that certainly isn't true. We don't rely on the responses, half the time we don't believe any of them, but it is nice staying in contact and communicating with other schools and sharing ideas.

.. my 2 cents.

[Gareth]

Yeah, I've seen the MRA model and the Stackpole curve fits, but if you want to efficiently look at the raw data then you need some kind of utility. I wrote some scripts to chop up the data into different combinations, like load, IA, pressure, etc etc so they can be easily plotted against each other. Matlab has a really nice GUI builder so I threw it all together so that the suspension designer could handle it (sorry Aaron). I will eventually package/release it so that others may use it. It looks something like this:

http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~gakenwor\plotter_example.jpg

The settings shown do not correspond to the data, so there's no help here for the teams that haven't paid for it. Regardless, many thanks to the TTC.

[Schumi_Jr]

Wow, that's so cute. He named it "Gareth's Tire Data Plotter". I hope that makes him feel good about himself http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[cieutag]

I haven't been around FSAE for as long as many of you have but, engineering isn't really about always designing everything. Your team has to know what kind of resources it has and what kind of things it can tackle and what kind of things it can't (in-house manufacturing). I'm not saying that its okay to go out and buy a car but realizing that its beneficial to buy parts and/or systems instead of designing them is part of engineering also. Engineering is about problem-solving and if that means buying a system so you can focus on designing something else then so be it.

Just my 2 cents

[Big Bird]

Spot on, Chip. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Cheers,

[KU_Racing]

I have to agree with these two guys on this one. I think the most valuable lesson I have yet learned in my engineering education is that real engineering is not about how shiny and light and expensive you can make a part. Engineering is defined as efficient problem solving- and as much as I love design work, sometimes the most efficient (read: not always cheapest or easiest of fastest or best looking or lightest or strongest, just the best combinations of the preceding qualitities) solution to the problem at hand is to call mcmaster carr or pegasus or continental and order whatever little part it is that I need.

[Cory M]

Judging by the two latest threads:

"Innapropriate Requests" and "Suspension Dimensions"

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks some of the copying or "information sharing" has gotten out of hand. Maybe because the competition is getting closer teams are realizing they need to design and build there own cars and let other teams do the same.

As to the last 3 responses that are saying engineering isn't about designing every part - I agree to a point, see my previous posts on puchasing components versus purchasing systems.

[Twonius]

I think a lot of the off the shelf engineering arises not just from lazyness (sure selection design can be a nice cop-out) but also from teams simply trying to get a reliable car as rapidly as possible. With more and more teams finishing endurance every year, the competition in the near future will be able to change its focus from simply finishing a car and completing endurance to more innovation and fully optmizied parts designed in house.

I think the case and point is the teams at the top. They're not able to ensure a top 20 finish by simply completing endurance and having an average showing everywhere else, so they have to make sure they really undertand their cars and their dynamic performance reflects this.

As for everyone else, I'd say right now is a transition where pretty much every team who didn't finish endurance is absolutely focused on that, and with the diminishing number of rookie teams, more and more will find the groove, eventually forcing them to raise their game to compete at the highest level.

Finally in regards to simply copying data from other teams, if you're dumb enough to do it, thats just one less person the people who know what they're doing have to worry about beating.