faculty advsior. Are they needed?

[chassisMAN!]

How crucial is it that each team have their faculty advisor at the event (FSAE West). Also, are there any forms that they should submit in their absence?

[chassisMAN!]

How crucial is it that each team have their faculty advisor at the event (FSAE West). Also, are there any forms that they should submit in their absence?

[Jersey Tom]

Ours didn't come to Detroit. Was no big deal. No one noticed.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

The 4 years I have been in SAE our advisor has been to 0 competitions for any team that I know of, 0 formula meetings and 0 general SAE meetings.

He signs the papers.

[Dr Claw]

signs the SAE papers?

Thats about all ours does.. It's sort of the root of our crashing the car, and getting the car finished late all the time.

We've done consistantly bad since 1996 with our current advisor - if we had one that was more involved, we would have had a few top 10 finishes in there. it's sad.

[Kurt Bilinski]

Then you know what the problem is! Yes, part of the blame is certainly an uninvolved advisor, but using him as The Excuse year after year is no good either. It's up to the team themselves to be self-motivated enough to make it happen, in spite of a lack of support.

That said, I know how bad it is, trying to motivate people who know full well that you can't do anything to them if they flake out. Kinda like being "team leader" at your job. Since you're not their supervisor/boss, you have no power to make them do what you want. Slackers!

[Jersey Tom]

Its my opinion that having an advisor who's too hands on and is trying to take the lead on major design and team decisions is a very bad thing. But so is a totally uninvolved advisor.

As I'm sure many of you know its extremely difficult to manage and motivate a group of peers on a project like this. For us there was no real hard accountability for a long time, and when people flaked off and blew deadlines there wasnt anything the captains could do about it until end of the semester peer evaluations, by which time it was too late.

Having a faculty member (or members as the case will be with us) to hold people accountable for doing their job continuously through the year is key.

[Zanini]

The guy asked a simple question so just answer it.

In 2006 FSAE-EAST my team didn't have a faculty advisor so we were assigned one by the organizers. In Formula Student going back to 2002 my team has never had a Faculty Advisor attend. Issues have come up where having a Faculty Advisor on hand may have proved useful.

The organizers are more willing to talk about rules/procedures/complaints/challenges with a Faculty Advisor because as any one can see a lot of student team members, even some the leaders, can be a little immature/unprofessional/annoying as hell.

Its probably best if you are a new team to notify the organizers that you won't have a Faculty Advisor attending and tell them who your team leader is as that person will be the team's representative if any problems arise and the organizers will know who to address any issues with. If you are part of an established team hopefully the organizers know that not bringing a Faculty Advisor is the norm for your team and you have been able to build up a good rapport with the organizers.

As for the actual role a Faculty Advisor plays on a team, that is the subject of another thread.

[js10coastr]

They are not needed, but they are helpful. We ran into some problems passing tech in '05 over a design issue that passed the three years before and the year after. It was something that we as students could not argue against because we were students and this was our car. Our advisor, had he been there, would have been able to argue our point for us with a bit more authority.

It's also nice to have an extra body to go get food or things left at the hotel.

[Dr Claw]

Well, i can tell you a team with a very hands-on advisor just won FSAE East...

Another issue is: uni-Credit team, or club team. Couple either with a non-existant F.A. and you get drasticaly different results..

Where i come from, FSAE is the easiest Senior Project (obviously for-credit) to do. It takes no immagination, and sombody else can/will do your work for you if you're home watching TV. The bonus on top of this, is you will graduate regardless of what you do because the FA isn't there to see the slacker in action.

All that is required, no matter how much the Team Leaders vouch for your uselessness, is to write your own personal fundraising check and you get a D-.

Case in point, if grades are involved, a non-existant FA is the worst thing your program can have. Hands on FA's are extrememly needed..

[Kurt Bilinski]

Point taken. My point above, though, was that not getting support from an FA would piss me off and I'd get the car done *anyway*. My approach would be, "F*ck him, we'll win without his help - and he gets zero credit for the win."

[Homemade WRX]

what is a faculty advisor?...
let's see, he bitches if deadlines aren't met...makes unreasonable assignments and never shows up...but he does find us small amounts of money (that's about all we get)

[Bill Kunst]

Like Drivetain-uwplatteville says,
The UW-P advisor was mostly of no use. He signed papers, and that is it. When the teams do go in sae comps, he likes to brag, otherwise he helps in no way.

For example, when we were building the first P-ville car, he wanted up dates all the time. We were drastically understaffed and did somethings "wrong" to get them done. He would argue for hours that we were doing them the wrong way, but would not help with the right way, saying that we should figure it out ourselves. When we made the decision to FI the engine, and not run a single carb, he bitched me out about overcomplicating the project, but had no answers to fuel settling or the restrictor issue. Later, after we had purchased components for the cars FI system, he told me that he wroked once upon a time for Holley, and that they had those parts available. I chewed his ass for being over opinionated and a complete lack of any help, and also for not helping in anyway with funding or sponsorship. He sat there looking stupid and didn't say another word.

[Drum]

I know that without a good faculty advisor for the RMIT team, things would be much more difficult. He does an excellent job. He doesn't have much input into the design of the car, but comes to almost every weekly design review and will be sure to always remind us of "the non-reversible nature of time and money" to keep us on the right track. One of the most important things is that for those times when it is FSAE team vs University, there is somebody in our corner who is a member of staff and possibly our greatest advocate. There is a mutual respect and a good friendship between the team and our faculty advisor. He knows the benefits of running a program like FSAE, and enjoys being a part of it.... I think.

Pat Drum
RMIT Racing Fan

[pablo180]

In our program, we would not be where we are at today if it wasnt for the faculty advisor here. He did formula back in his day and was fairly successful at it. He gives us the liberty to do what we want to do as long as we have plenty of justification for it. Pretty much if there is a thought process behind it, and it is feasable, he lets us run with it.

However if our own goals or deadlines arent met, he raises hell. After all it is a give and take relationship. Faculty advisors usually put their reputations on the line when they support any senior design project. If the project does well then the faculty advisor must be doing something right to motivate the students. If the project fails miserably then it reflects back on the FA. This may not be true in all cases but I can guarantee that this is what other facutly and administration think about.

I believe that it is absoultely necessary to have an active faculty advisor on the team for a couple of reasons. He is a liason between us and the rest of the engineering faculty and campus administration. He gives us feedback and input when there is a bottleneck in the design/manufacturing process. He also puts some pressure on us to get the job done right and on time. If we dont finish the car....then we dont graduate.

[benjo]

In my opinion, having a good faculty advisor would be aboslutely priceless. However if your like some of us who have not so good ones, they usually become more of a hindrance then a help.

Like most people have said, any faculty advisors comes in handy when you have to deal with the rest of uni. They will usually have a better relationship with the dean/other staff members etc. then the students do.

[McFly]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Well, i can tell you a team with a very hands-on advisor just won FSAE East... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can tell you we do not have a very hands-on advisor. He does not take part in any of the design of the car except for us asking him for advise. About the only manufacturing he has done for us is when we asked him to help out with welding when we had a deadline to meet.

The thing that he does do though that is invaluable, is the stuff behind the scenes with dealing with the deans, financial items, and many other things. He also knows many people out in the industry and has an invaluable amount of knowledge about these cars because he has seen what works and what doesn't work.

So are they needed? Definitely.

Marcus
UW-Madison

[Pete M]

Well, the rules have this to say:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">2.1.7 Faculty Advisor

Each team is expected to have a Faculty Advisor appointed by the university. The
Faculty Advisor is expected to accompany the team to the competition and will be
considered by competition officials to be the official university representative.

Faculty Advisors may advise their teams on general engineering and engineering
project management theory, but may not design any part of the vehicle nor
directly participate in the development of any documentation or presentation.
Additionally, Faculty Advisors may neither fabricate nor assemble any
components nor assist in the preparation, maintenance, testing or operation of the
vehicle.

In Brief – Faculty Advisors may not design, build or repair any part of the car. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So yes you're supposed to have a faculty advisor and yes they're supposed to come to comp with you. The officials don't seem to care much about that rule though.

Also, if your faculty advisor is "hands on" in the sense that he is designing parts of the car, then your team is violating both the letter of the rules and, imho, the entire spirit of the competition.

[csquinn]

Our advisor is a great asset to our team but is not "hands on" in an illegal sense as mentioned above. He is just always available to answer questions, usually logistics and finances. He is at his office almost 18 hours a day and can be reached by his cell phone when he's not there. He also heads up Challenge X, Baja and Snowmobile. He is an incredible asset to our team via his commitment and professional contacts. But the project is ours and he only gives his input and feedback when asked. In my opinion, he's the best advisor out there in regards to letting the students run the program themselves but always being there to help if we need it. I can definitely name alot of other advisors that are more "hands on".

[Azim]

Our faculty advisor just signs papers. It's kinda sad really, I was talking with the rest of the team and we realized that he has never seen neither our Baja nor FSAE cars run. He comes into our shop at most 2-3 times a year. The Baja team has survived for quite a while with a hands-off advisor, but it's a little difficult for the Formula team, being new and all.

There are so many situations where a more involved advisor would have been really helpful - I spent about three weeks running around in circles trying to get some simple administrative/finance questions answered by the university, and when I got tired of the red tape and sent some angry emails out to the Dean, our advisor, the ME department chair and a few other folk, the ME chair made one phone call and the issue was solved on the spot.

Oh, we did ask SAE last year about not having an advisor at competition and they said it was OK.