Choosing not to follow Colin Chapman

[Kevin Hayward]

I had been meaning to post concerning philosophy of design but Geoff beat me to it ... thought I wait it out and post a little later so here goes ...

I want to start by saying that Colin Chapman is one of my engineering heroes. His innovation in racing (a lot of which was his employees) was amazing. He was behind a lot of vehicles that changed the face of racing.

But I think the Colin Chapman way of designing racecars and running teams is not necessarily the best way to go, especially for FSAE vehicles.

The Lotus 79 is a great example of this. The car was incredibly dominant. Ground effects changed F1 racing in both how the cars were made and eventually the Lotus 79 successors changed the way the regulations were written. However it was not Lotus who perfected the idea. After 1978 (the year of the Lotus 79 dominance) they never again won the championship. In fact the next year they finished a very distant 4th. Chapman also had a reputation for building unsafe cars in an attempt to lower vehicle weight.

It is true that some of his ideas such as:

"Add lightness and simplicity"�

Form cornerstones of good engineering but his overall approach did not yield the lasting success one would expect of a man of his genius. The team he had built was too dependant on him. When he died he left a company that had built some of the worlds best cars on the brink of financial ruin.

I think that it is worth looking honestly at FSAE and seeing what is successful. There are fantastic ideas as to how to build cars. Delft has produced some amazingly lightweight vehicles. Western Washington built a v8. Leeds popularized the use of monocoque tubs. UTA has reproduced the banned Lotus twin chassis idea. The list goes on and on.

However, Cornell has been the most successful team, and by a fair margin. Year after year complaints are made that they do not innovate enough. Yet year after year they are still the team to beat. This is not attempt to kiss some arse, but just a statement of fact.

People call for more innovation. But innovation can lead to engineering masturbation. An innovate car may change the rules of the comp and blow everyone away for a year ... but will the team manage to keep producing at that high level. Will other teams catch on very quickly and then do it better, as has happened throughout the history of F1.

I also doubt the constant chase for lightweight above all else in FSAE. The reasons why have been discussed in these forums over and over again. I think those that defend the approach should offer up some very good reasons why the lightest cars are not the dominant cars. Again I will not try to argue that being lightweight is bad ... but if it is number one on the list of priorities then I think there is a problem. I think the same applies to chasing simplification above all else as well ... for similar reasons.

A car that breaks down over the finish line may in theory be the best optimisation for racecars but I think works very badly for FSAE ... or motorsport in general. A car that is designed that close to the edge, will be a pain in the butt. When testing it is better to test rather than spend the whole time fixing vehicles.

Maybe we should (as a community) be more concerned about some of the tenants of systems design and robust engineering. We often call a part that is designed for multiple purposes a well designed part. Robust design calls for one part per function. I call attention to the Lotus design of a road car fuel tank in some of its earlier Fibreglass cars. The outer skin of the car also acted as the skin of the fuel tank. In practice this was a nightmare as people drilled into the side of the car to attach badges etc. It could be argued that the people drilling were at fault for being mentally unstable but a robust design philosophy would have alleviated that problem. Robust design also tends to lead to a lower part count rather than a higher one in practice. In most cases (of which you will all see in your own cars) multiple parts are used to perform single functions.

I am going to stop this essay here as I hope this post will produce some discussion. After-all not many people are quick to point out the flaws behind a Chapman-esque approach. The same people tend to be very quick to criticise the more "boring"�engineers out there.

So flame away.

Cheers,

Kev

p.s. Z & Rob Woods – I will be disappointed if you don't respond to this one

[ben]

Totally agree with you Kevin. As I mentioned on the FS thread I'm not at all convinced by the Delft approach. Testing always seems to suffer when you push to the limit and I don't think the Delft team is focused enough on operating the car at the track compared to the focus that's clearly shown in the CAD room.

Interesting you should mention design concepts at all really. The biggest disappointment to me judging this year was that virtually all the teams I judged failed to articulate an overall concept or strategy behind what they'd done.

The best in this regard was Amberg-Weiden who said "we are a first year team and we aimed for 300Kg and a reliable car so we could test and learn"�. Now in the context of the FSAE state-of-the-art that is excessively conservative and they didn't score that highly because of it, but the point is that for them this concept drove everything the team did.

Cornell apply a systems approach very well to identify what will make the car go faster and then refuse to run a system if the reliability can't be demonstrated. It is very disciplined to not throw all the toys at a design, but their win record shows that they might be right.

Ben

[murpia]

I second Ben's disappointment at the lack of a coherent design concept for many teams at FS this year. I tried hard to draw this out from the teams I was involved in judging.

In many cases the answers were pretty vague, along the lines of 'low weight and low centre of gravity with maximum reliability...' without actually applying a metric or an engineering target to follow during the design process. Without appropriate vehicle targets to follow, it is difficult if not impossible to set appropriate targets for each sub-system and then onwards down to the individual components themselves. Note that concepts such as 'reliability' can be analysed using established techniques such as FMEA.

In fact the better teams I judged for this aspect turned out to be Class 3 teams. Perhaps without the pressure of building a car they can concentrate better on following proper engineering practice? No team in any class that I judged at FS this year, in my opinion, conducted a rigourous enough analysis of the various vehicle concepts available (600 I4 vs 450 single, 13" vs 10" wheels etc.) before deciding which one to go for. And since I haven't performed such an analysis myself either, I will reserve my judgement on which is best except to say 'to finish first, first you have to finish...'

Ian Murphy
2005 FStudent Design Judge

[vinHonda]

Very interesting thread. After participating in the building of 4 cars, none of which I designed, but drove and managed those teams, I must say it really comes down to what the goals of the team are: are you trying outright WIN? perhaps that is what your sponsors and faculty desire. Maybe you are looking for INNOVATION? Maybe you're just looking for a win from the BAR Honda group to score a factory tour? At the end of the day, it comes down to what the goals of the competition are......obviously, it is the pinnicle goal of each team to bring both INNOVATION in a WINNING package. Isn't that every engineer's dream?

But I echo Ian and Ben's comments.... how is it possible that a team can be awarded top rankings in design event when you havent done due justification in some of the choices. However... I have heard some experienced judges take "we just didn't have enough money" as a fair answer!!

But back to engineering practice..... interesting to note Ian that the class 3 teams had a more thorough analysis of the vehicle compared to the class 1 teams..... and the hypothesis that it is due to the pressure of building a car....that is also probably true. To build a solid car and document it requires massive efforts...almost 2 years.

A good suggestion to some teams: take time to build a well tested (keynote to Toronto's wins) car. And take more time to document why it's good.

F1 spends loads of money on those two things really: research and testing. all the analysis pays off with INNOVATION and all the testing confirms it.

Cheers,

[Z]

Kevin,

Just a short comment now (its midnight and I've got a guy with a 30 tonne excavator coming at daybreak - want to make sure he starts digging in the right place!).

Colin Chapman's philosophy that "the car should fall apart just as it crosses the finish line" is definitely not my idea of good engineering! I reckon that cars can be both lightweight and strong/reliable, but the secret has more to do with the "simplificate" than with the "add more lightness" part of the equation.

I think Chapman's, and also Jim Hall's, main strengths were that they saw racing as a game (which it is) rather than as a business (which it can be). There have been many successful racing businesses. Look at Minardi in F1. I don't know exactly how much Paul Stoddart payed for it ($50mill.US?), but it was a heck of a lot more than Minardi (the original founder/owner) ever put into it in his 20+yrs ownership. A fair profit, and they've never even looked like winning a race!!! Keep the sponsors happy, watch your expenses,... and you're financially successful. But also very boring. Chapman and Hall seemed to be more interested in having fun, pushing the limits. Anyone can follow the crowd, and make a buck while doing it, but it takes a more adventurous spirit to explore the unknown. I reckon motorsports, and the fans, were much better off with the Chapmans and Halls than with any number of Minardis.

As far as "innovation" goes, well there's lots of types. There is innovation-(aka-complication)-for-the-sake-of-it, which, as you say, is masturbation. But good innovation can be a very cheap and effective way of beating the opposition. Although I'm not keen on the obsession with aero that pervades much of modern circuit racing, it really can be very cheap and effective. No moving parts, joints, oil systems, cooling radiators, etc., etc. The expensive, difficult part these days is the development (and that's mainly because of all the silly rules). But if you could go back to 1975 F1, and you had a good working knowledge of ground effects, boy could you clean up! Just a couple of side pods and sliding skirts, and +50% on the corner speeds! As for the other teams catching up (by copying), who cares? There are countless innovations waiting to be exploited, and all of them free. There are very few people who are prepared to look for them, let alone try them.

Regarding lightweight cars again. I posted on this elsewhere, where I stated (IMO) that weight doesn't matter much for non-aero cars (it is a second order effect), but it is important if you are using aero-downforce. Regardless of aero, I personally like lightweight cars because I reckon they are cheaper! The heavier the car, the bigger and more powerful the engine must be ($$$), the stronger that all the components must be ($$$), the faster the tyre$$$ wear out, etc. The best way to get "lightweight" is to get rid of unnecessary gadgets and gimmicks. If it ain't there, it can't break, costs nothing, weighs nothing...

Anyway, I might add more tomorrow night...


Z

[Kevin Hayward]

Z,

Some good points. I do think that viewing motorsport as a game is a luxury in more modern times. The sums of money involved have become too large. Even in FSAE a lot of the students are using the competition to improve their career prospects. I agree that viewing motorsport completely as a business is not so good and probably responsible for a lot of the crappy racing there seems to be around the world.

Even viewing motorsport as a game there has not been a game I have played that I have not wanted to be able to win. Actually more than that I like to be able to win regularly. This might not mentally healthy, especially considering how long it takes me to learn some games. However, I would hazard a guess that a lot of people on these forums would be the same.

I ceratinly would not advocate following the crowd while making a buck (or its equivalents in FSAE). How do you beat Cornell regurlarly when you try to build the same car as them?

I do disagree with the point that you can maintain a superior position based on coming up with more innovative designs than the competition for long periods of time. Comes back to the argument I have heard Carroll Smith raise concerning the balance between design and development. Sometimes one will give more advantage than the other.

Hope to hear more thoughts.

Kev

[rjwoods77]

I think colin chapman was the man. And I think he was completely right about the finishline breaking thing, but not for the reasons most think.

I think lightweight is absolutly crucial, IFFFFF, you are trying to compete with cars without power production problems(cbr with turbos) with a lesser motor and car. Cars that make the big power do so strictly on talent and money. Without one the other suffers. So the basic point is if you dont have rocket scientists and the cheese(money,facilities,equipment)to back it up, you need to go a different route. That route, in my opinion, is to cut the hell out of the weight and use a smaller motor in efforts to bridge the power to weight ratio, and hope(or engineer) that the dynamic traits of a lighter car will make up the dividend. So far RMIT is closest to this. A little more development and less weight and they should be equal to the best cbr cars if they already arent there yet(since the total scores have subjective points in the mix). This is our/my current design path. I know I cant compete with Cornell on building a spaceframed cbr quad double a arm car. So I am taking a different route that puts me a power to weight ratio but I hope to make up in faster cornering and braking as well as better corner exits. I cant beat them at their own game so I am playing my own to see if I can match them. I give respect to delft for what they are doing. But we cant be hard on them because there are about 100 other teams that arent out of their diapers yet.

Now back to colin chapman. His principals are dogshit in fsae but not in formula 1. Why you ask? Because he was designing for the competition. This is something I feel that most fsae people lose sight of. I have said it a thousand times and gotten a thousand pieces of monkey shit thrown at me for it. These cars are supposed to be designed for autox customers that would most likely never buy another one. These things are supposed to be designed for some poor chump to stuff in a shitbox ford ranger and take racing on the weekends. They need to withstand some sucker drilling holes in it to mount stupid things he doesnt need. They need to withstand being accidentally dropped out of the shitbox ford ranger and have that shitbox ford rangers rusted bumper fall off and hit the car without damaging it. You see what I am getting at. I have been to a ton of autox to watch. The people I always see have no money for fancy stuff like trailers, tow vehicles, and other bougouis crap that you would see on a national level autox(or so I hear). I use this design theory on our car which prevents me from going certain routes. As long as it can be produced at a real cost on a mass production level(? cars) that is somewhat affordable (under 10k) then people would consider it. Some would say that people would never buy one of these for any price when they could get a second car. I disagree but that is just my opinion. The point is that the cars should be designed to the competition. You need some real good durability and make things relaively simple to adjust. Colin did what he did because the cars didnt have to be durable. Just had to last the race.

I like some of the innovations. I think WWU is a perfect example of comprise to obtain goals. Awesome chassis and it is about the same money to make a spaceframe(welding costs will kill you in the real world). I was talking to James Waltman and told him the only thing i didnt like was the carbon skinned panel. I though that an metal skin would be better just for durability reasons. They never clean the parking lots to the skins would get chipped pretty good over time. I dont think it would survive a rake falling on it in the garage too well(i am just talking marking up and diviting the skin do to natural human stupidity and natural causes). But that innovation they did is just simply awesome. The nice thing is they did it but kept manufacturing in mind. Delft's car is cool but you have to be joking if you think that thing would ever be made for a decent price.

I could write more but I will stop here. People just need to sit back and not dulude themselves in thinking that this is all or nothing racing that need crazy innovation. Colin was smart but some of his ideals eat shit for fsae. There are lots of smart people in formula as far as judges and participants, but nobody is safe from having there philosophy held to scrutiny.

Disclaimer:

I know I am leaving a bunch of holes in this because I am writing at work. Dont bother trying to pick it apart because I offened some stupid engineering feelings. Just assume I have commen sense. I realize there are 50 different was to skin a cat but I wont bother talking about each one.

[Denny Trimble]

Rob,
I think you take the "production for sale to autocrossers" thing a little too seriously, but we're each entitled to our opinions.

FSAE cars won't be mass produced. They will be built as prototypes, which may have later lives as autocross cars. Reliability is very important, I'm sure we all agree on that. Nobody wants to own a car that breaks frequently and requires a machine shop to make one-off spares, whether it be the team before competition, or the car's eventual owner who wants to race a season of local and national events. And yes, the Seattle autocrosses are full of people who buy the latest car that can win its class at nationals, with trailers and even semis, oh my!

But mass production cost - it's just one of those "concept of the competition" things that doesn't really mean much to me when it comes time to design and build the car.

It's always a compromise. One of my favorite sayings came from Tom Ritchey (I think), a bicycle guy. You can have two of the following three things: light weight, high strength, low cost. It takes serious effort to get close to having all three.

I realize I'm probably not helping my prospects for getting a job in the auto industry http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif But, when the deadlines are approaching, I spend my effort on performance, not manufacturing cost. With CNC time and aluminum stock so ridiculously cheap in the cost report, why not?

Enough rambling....

[nathan s]

Figured I would throw in my pitch because I am amazed that I agree with Rob on most of his points.

First of all, as our team leader has beat into my head, the object of our competition is to design and make a prototype autocross type car as a mock engineering firm. (Evidently that is what all that cost report stuff is forhttp://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif). With that in mind, the car should be robust, yet inexpensive enough for Average Joe to own.

As for innovation, in some cases it is the worst thing in the world. I think many young teams are too concerned with trying to be innovative rather than trying to build a car they can make better later on. So far we have had a 4yr, a 2yr, and hopefully this will be a 2yr. As a young team, we have tended to disregard what the previous team has done instead of building off of what they did, because the current team felt it knew better.

In my opinion, it is better to build a solid car, and have your innovations on the back burner, in development, until they are ready to be implemented. That is what I have done with our aero-efforts, amoung others. When we are ready, I hope to give teams like UTA a run for their money. Once a program is solid and has a decent car, it can improve the design and incorporate innovations.

[Kevin Hayward]

Nathan,

Whats the deal with the Hang-A-Roo game on your website.

Are you trying to insult our nation?

Kangaroos are on our coat of arms ... and our dinner plates ... and the front of large trucks.

Not very politically correct http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Cheers,

Kev

[TG]

Kevin,

I think innovative designs are key to FSAE. The rules were designed as such to allow for new and different designs in the cars. But the innovation must be carried out in a way that makes the concept work. You guys were a perfect example of that with your suspension system in this years car.

More on that. My dad has told me this about design which I agree with: First make it work, then make it perform, finally make it cost effective. You start off with a concept and before anything you make the thing work, otherwise it is worthless. Obviously you have benchmark performace and cost in mind, but you don't have to meet them at first. After you get it working do you spend time making it better in performance and cost (that's optimizing, a term in which Ben was criticizing the teams at FS for using inappropriately).

Also, not everything may not work the first time or ever. So you better have a fall back if it is a critical item. I know Ferrari was testing their 2009 suspension earlier on this year in the spring. They were trying to design in comfort into it by putting in designed play into their compliance bushings. It happened to be that it didn't work because the manufacturers of the bushings couldn't produce consistant (not sure if it was a precision problem or accuracy problem or both) preliminary batches to get the results they were looking for in tests. Whether they will try this again in the future or not is to be seen (read: I'm not that privy to the info). But it goes to show that sometimes even if you put much effort into the design, it may not work.

All in all, I think innovation is very good. You just need to put the effort in that is required to make it work and hopefully work well. This would be why all the design judges like to see both design work and testing, esp. on new things.

[rjwoods77]

Just to add. I have been around engineering firms and design firms for a number of years now. Some big and some little. The one common thread between all of them is that profit margins rule the design and not the other way around. If the returns arent there then the product isnt built. Its cold and cruel to people like me who like to dream up fantastic ideas and get them shot down immediately because the cost is too high. Companies skimp on bolts for shit sakes. I laugh when I see AN shear bolts on fsae cars because some sales and marketing dipshit that you we will all end up working for(if you already dont) will be like "thats 15 cents more expensive than a grade 8 bolt. We cant use that. Better yet, lets make it a grade 5 bolt and increase the size to get the strength back into it because I can save 50 cents over that fancy shamancy AN shear bolt" When they buy parts for 5 cents less each for washers they get hard-ons bigger than Ron Jeremy. One of the reasons I hold fast to the "mass-production" ideal is that if it werent for the possibility of making money on one of these then they would never get built. Many of us get comfortable with the funds and facilities that we have(me included). Just think for a moment if nobody funded these cars. Could you honestly see anyone building them given the average competetive car has a non-discounted value or arounf 20K. Thats what I try to envision. So when I am designing parts I think of things like:

How many of these can I mount on a tombstone in a HMC?

Can I do this roundish part with an automatic bar feed attachment on a turrent lathe with live tooling?

Can I change this design a little to make is so I can get extruded aluminum net shapes that require fewer final machine ops(very common)?

Are the angles on the tube notches spaced out enough that I can use a multiple hole saw pnuematic drill jig that I can end form with a push dual hand levers(very commom)?

Would it make more sense to get them multi-axis laser notched so I dont have to cut up 24ft long pieces of stock(saving saw time,manpower and tooling costs)?

If I am doing this in bulk wouldnt make sense to farm out the parts to China where I can get them made for 1/4 of the cost that they would here in the states?

Questions like that are never asked if this wasnt under the guise of mass production. Do i think it is feesable to make these cost effective on the mass market and make a profit? Definitly yes with enough outsourcing to foriegn countries and bulk ordering of parts. Is the customer base there to support it? No because autox blows and it isnt real racing and not enough people with money do it. Could it be popular. Hell yes if the cars were no more expensive then a nice motorcycle (aorund 10k)

Without hurculean late braking between competitors I find racing boring. I still watch it because regardless of my opinions I still think there is plenty to learn and experience.Thats why asphalt oval racing sucks. DIRT oval is the shit along with open wheel road course racing.

One furthur thing. The one thing that Colin Chapman said that holds true always is "Make one thing do 2 jobs" or some sorts of raping of this famous comment he once made.

[yofa]

i fully agree, but i didn't have the cajoles to say it in a public forum, but i must add this:

sometimes, leaders have to say something thought-provoking to drive widespread change. perhaps, at the time of chapman's comments, he felt that major surgery had to be done to lighten his car, simplify it, and make it less of a tank. something had to be done to stop the complacency.

he probably didn't mean it to apply to all racing and forever, and certainly didn't have fsae in mind when speaking those words. i believe he's just been over-quoted, and i won't blindingly follow his philosophies just because he's the great colin chapman. i'll gather the self-confidence to make up my own damn mind, thank you very much. i do however maintain ultimate respect for the man. i'm not an f1 history buff, but i believe his team nose-dived after he passed away, which shows his great influence, instincts and talent.

adding to that, the more i think about the constraints of building an fsae car, the more my ideal design looks like the cornell car. they have got it right, there's simply no other way to put it. i hope it's not strictly because their car is burnt into the back of my brain, but if you strip off the paint off all the f1 cars, only us most die-hard fans would be able to tell them apart. if we were so blessed with budgets, we too would probably all look alike.

[rjwoods77]

Once again another point to consider. Just like anything what you put in is what you get out of this. But you have to keep in mind that what you are trying to get out of this should be in line with your future plans. If you think like a real buisness then you will see things in a different light. Most of us get a very good amount of practice learning usable design and manufacturing methods. But if the things you are learning dont apply to the test you will later get(a real job with real restictions) then you arent going to be that marketable. People always talk about how this is a great platform to launch a career in auto whatever. But if you cant design stuff real quick(deadlines that make fsae look like a joke), cost effectively(you have to know with what machinery and how it is being made. For instance shop formans like parts with the least number of operations(that is how many times you have to reposition the part in the holder), the least number of tools needed(cuts down on tooling costs, time for tool changes on the machine,resharpening and tool crib costs,machine setup,on and f'ing on)). Lean manufacturing. Not to even mention ISO process auditing,the mounds of paperwork for process control,ecr process,etc and dealing with an undereducated machine operators(cheap labor vs quality employee is always a battle).

So you can walk into a interview and say "I designed a rack and pinion". They will ask you "how long did it take you from design to finished product and how much did it cost". You will say "Well we did it under the guise of mass-production but we ignored that because we didnt want to consider that variable because it took the fun and performance out of it". They will say "You suck get out of my office".

Obviously in so many words and with obvious exceptions. So you all can ignore the buzz-kill of mass production design all you want. You get out what you put in.

[Z]

Ah, excellent thread you've got going here Kevin.

Now, all you "panty wearing, nerdy engineering geeks", or whatever it was that Rob Woods called you, you should reread several times Rob's posts above and pay a lot of attention to them. I absolutely agree with all Rob's comments regarding building a realistic, low-cost car. If for no other reason, then because trying to make a too sophisticated car (for "better" performance) will almost always leave you with an uncompleted, or under-tested, or unreliable car. The "sophistication" always expands to gobble up all available resources, and then some.

On the subject of "innovation": Is an innovative car necessarily complicated/sophisticated. No. To me it just means different to most everyone else. (To some marketing types, if you paint it a different colour, it is a "revolutionary innovation"!). To me, a "brown go-cart" wouldn't be innovative in go-carting circles, but it would be in FSAE. Also, many people claim that innovation is expensive. This is nonsense, as the above example shows. I honestly think that there are a lot of dullards out there that don't like getting beaten by a cheaper, but different, car. So they start crying "Not fair! They're cheating! Its all going to get too expensive... It should be banned... moan, whinge...".

Just say we divide design philosophy into two camps - the "innovators" and the "polishers". Are these mutually exclusive? Ie. does a team have to adopt only one approach? No. I think the sensible approach is to do both. The innovators work on parallel projects, and the polishers take the proven innovative concepts from previous year projects, and turn them into this year's FSAE car. Examples of some innovation projects could be; bespoke engine (cheap and with size, torque curve, etc. best suited to FSAE); automatic transmission (no gear changing or clutch); and aero (for max. corner speed). But isn't the development expensive? I reckon it is a lot cheaper to go from 0 to 50% of potential aero downforce, because you are the first team to use it, than to polish from 98% to 99% of the max available, because everyone else is already at 98%. Besides, that 1% polishing gain is bugger all anyway.

I note that when many "innovative" projects become developed enough, and are used by everyone, they are no longer considered innovations. Are turbos innovative? Is any sort of aero innovative (in general motorsports)? Are carbon composites innovative? Nowadays all those things are considered mainstream. It seems that only when a project fails spectacularly that it is considered "another hair-brained innovation". H. Sapiens fear change, hence "innovation" gets a lot of bad press. Most race teams are "polishers", and most race teams are losers (only ever one 1st place!). But I've never heard it said of any tail-end team that "they are spending too much time polishing, they should really settle down and start innovating".

Z

[SR-Mike]

I like this thread a lot especially regarding the identification that there is a distinct lack of well defined vehicle concepts among many of the cars, including ours. And secondly seeing everyone's various opinions on vehicle innovation.

So what do we all mean by innovation? Innovation - "being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before". I know we don't all take this definition literally but it is worthwhile pointing out that to find any true innovation in recent cars would be very hard. Engineering and automotive engineering in particular has been around for long enough that pretty much everything, especially things within the scope of an undergraduate project have been done by someone, somewhere. So then if you look at it we are all just copying small bits of other peoples ideas and making them into a car, no matter how "innovative" the cars look. But the act of using other people's ideas is not nearly as simple as it sounds, it is all about how these ideas are applied to a problem that is important.

I feel that the most important aspect in creating a successful car is the construction and justification of a well defined vehicle concept that is able to integrate all these different ideas successfully. Most teams I've seen seem to take the easy route and justify their vehicle concept based on the fact that similar cars have done well in the competition historically; and this approach is not totally flawed from a (potential performance/effort) ratio point of view but it lacks any real engineering thought.

A far better way to approach the problem would be to start by looking at the competition requirements and teams recourses, and from this point beginning the design free from any initial design preconceptions. Each idea would have to be analysed and assessed based on its performance, cost and manufacturability merits. From this starting point it should be possible to construct a specialised FSAE vehicle that should have a distinct potential performance advantage. But the best thing about this approach is that "innovation"� here needn't necessarily at complexity to the design, it could even make everything much simpler.

I was responsible for one of the most unconventional vehicle designs in this years class 3 formula student competition, and I tried my best to follow this design philosophy while working on it. By no means did I succeed in this quest (time, resources, a sick class 1 car to worry about) by I got a feel for what potential benefits could be found from not restricting your design to the standard FSAE car concept (sportsbike engine, engine behind driver etc).

After working on 3 and a bit cars, and counting, I have the up most respect for everyone who competes in formula student as I know the monumental amount of effort involved and in particular for the guys in the Cornell, Toronto type teams. These well established and hugely successful teams who have found success have the luxury to spend all their time and resources on design iteration and tuning, and through this process I reckon they have probably nearly reached the performance limit of their particular concept. The rest of us don't have that luxury.

So as rob pointed out most of us wont be able to beat these teams at their own game, not over a year anyway, but if we take a step back and look at the problem before we try and find a solution, and if by doing this we come up with something different but for the right reasons I think anything is possible. So in that way I think Chapman had the right idea.

But the main problem I've noticed is the inconsistent sprint and enduro tracks, which add a relatively huge uncontrollable variable into all this as to make me question the validity and hence worth of this level of concept analysis.

Mike
University of Strathclyde Motorsport

[John Bucknell]

Particularly excellent thread so far.

As a counterpoint - FSAE is maybe your last chance to be a decision maker until you are way up the management chain in business. Use this opportunity to do things the way YOU want regardless of the 'intent' of the competition. If you want to try to win it all, so be it. If you want to build a car with FWD, so be it...

Also, as the FS judges mentioned - take a class on systems engineering and/or rational problem solving/decision making (I recommend Kepner/Tregoe) if you can. These tools will help focus your team on what you are really trying to do. These top-level topics are absurdly absent from most engineering curriculums - I'd make them mandatory if I could.

[Denny Trimble]

Originally posted by Rob Woods:
So you can walk into a interview and say "I designed a rack and pinion". They will ask you "how long did it take you from design to finished product and how much did it cost". You will say "Well we did it under the guise of mass-production but we ignored that because we didnt want to consider that variable because it took the fun and performance out of it". They will say "You suck get out of my office".


For further discussion (and since it seems to be aimed at me):

http://students.washington.edu/dennyt/fsae/cnc/Rack_Complete.JPG

How long did it take? One week: starting from a purchased pinion gear and rack bar; designed housing, selected bushings and bearings and potentiometer. Machined housing etc. myself in our shop. It was finals week and I had no finals, so, perhaps 50 hours total. The previous student's design was not feasible, so I started from nearly scratch late in the game.

How much did it cost? Purchased parts ($60ish), material (free) plus CNC time (free) plus assembly time (free). I could go into detail about the setups of that particular part, but I won't. Basically, I wanted to make it as light as possible, while maintaining an acceptable level of stiffness (did FEA analysis on a few concepts), and I had to be able to make it myself in a short amount of time. Mission accomplished. I didn't even need any fixtures for the housing center section:

http://students.washington.edu/dennyt/fsae/cnc/Rack_Housing_Machining.JPG

If I were to design the same part for mass production (and not "pretend" to do so), yes, I'd spend more time making it more cost effective. But that's not an option most one-year-car teams have. I mean, are you going to change your rack housing design so it can be made from an extrusion, then go mill it out of billet and take extra time actually prototyping it since it wasn't designed to be made from billet? What a waste of time...

And, thank you John for pointing out the fun of making your own decisions. I used to design parts for someone else, and they paid me for it. Now, nobody pays me for these parts, so I make them the way I like to, and get some satisfaction out of that.


Originally posted by Z:
...trying to make a too sophisticated car (for "better" performance) will almost always leave you with an uncompleted, or under-tested, or unreliable car. The "sophistication" always expands to gobble up all available resources, and then some.


Just a data point for you, our car (which you have ragged on before for being too complicated, and which is considered by our team to be our most sophisticated car yet) placed 5th overall and 2nd in endurance/economy in Detroit this year. I guess that's a pretty big "almost" in your "almost always".

There's an awful lot of "selling" going on here from a couple guys who haven't (to my knowledge - please correct me) attended an actual FSAE / FSAE-A / F-Student event.

And Z, if you're hoping to stir the pot and somehow influence that next great engineer who will amuse you with his wonderful brown go-kart, please spare us. You can send your private messages to Rob Woods himself http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[SR-Mike]

Denny I think your being way too defensive. Rob and Z are 2 of a small minority of guys on this forum who are prepared to challenge the fundamental design principles taken for granted by most FSAEers, and I in particular find that very refreshing, and thought provoking.

You really need to take a step back from you CNC and look at the bigger picture. As far as I can see you are in the enviable position of having almost unlimited material and machining resources. That is not a luxury that many teams I'm aware of have. Lets put it this way if I was to think we needed an identical rack on our car we would be looking at a manufacturing turnaround time, by university technicians, of probably in the region of 2 months with eventual costs to the team of about £300 (about $600 approx).

I'm not saying that that solution isn't right for your team given your resources but to almost everyone else it is totally unjustifiable. So I think Z and Rob say a lot of stuff that makes complete sense to teams like mine where simplicity could give huge paybacks in terms of overall cost, time to manufacture (hence allowing more available testing time) and if you've got your sums right at the start a potential performance advantage over even the most "polished car"�. So I think their opinions deserve to be taken seriously for the benefit of other teams, at least.

Or maybe I'm underestimating everyone's available resources.

Mike
University of Strathclyde Motorsport

[Denny Trimble]

Originally posted by Rob Woods:
Many of us get comfortable with the funds and facilities that we have(me included). Just think for a moment if nobody funded these cars. Could you honestly see anyone building them given the average competetive car has a non-discounted value or arounf 20K.


Now you're pretending again, Rob... these cars are funded, they're school projects as prototypes, they're not mass produced.



So when I am designing parts I think of things like:

How many of these can I mount on a tombstone in a HMC?

Can I do this roundish part with an automatic bar feed attachment on a turrent lathe with live tooling?

Can I change this design a little to make is so I can get extruded aluminum net shapes that require fewer final machine ops(very common)?

Are the angles on the tube notches spaced out enough that I can use a multiple hole saw pnuematic drill jig that I can end form with a push dual hand levers(very commom)?

Would it make more sense to get them multi-axis laser notched so I dont have to cut up 24ft long pieces of stock(saving saw time,manpower and tooling costs)?

If I am doing this in bulk wouldnt make sense to farm out the parts to China where I can get them made for 1/4 of the cost that they would here in the states?


If you seriously spend time considering those aspects when designing the car you're going to build in your shop (or have your friends with the nice tools you mentioned make for you), we'll have to name this bizarre form of mental masturbation after you.

While I'm making my disgraceful, expensive, complicated, never-to-be-mass-produced parts, I'm actually learning about fixturing, programming, cutting parameters, on and on. Perhaps some day I'll be back making boring, cost-effective parts for some company, and that knowledge will come in handy.

Kevin, sorry to help derail this thread. On the topic of design philosiphy, the past two years we have gone to great lengths to re-examine our previous assumptions about everything, using whatever analysis tools and physical testing we had at our disposal. This highlighted the areas of our car that needed serious work. Some would call it "polishing", if that's what you mean by, for example, evolving uprights to be appropriately stiff (3x what we had in 2003) while gaining as little weight as possible.

As for top-level concept design, most of that pivots on the tire data and course map. Unfortunately, coursemaps are always changing (I can't believe what I see of the FS courses), and we don't yet have good tire data. So, we run our simulations and make incremental changes in wheelbase, track, cg location from year to year and see if it works out as expected. I guess if we were smart and diligent we could test small changes in wheelbase and weight distribution on the current car, and the effect of vehicle weight by adding ballast (all on the slate for this summer, but may not get done pending team effort). With all of this, we could make better decisions about the size, shape, and powertrain configuration for our vehicle. But, the best simulation I can do right now says that RMIT should have been 1/4 second slower than us per lap in Endurance, but they somehow turned a faster lap than us by more than 1 second. It's obviously not because they have better drivers http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif so my simulation must need better data...

At least, that's what I tell myself...

[Denny Trimble]

Mike,
You snuck that in as I was typing. Yes, I'm probably being too defensive, but I can't sleep so why not bitch on the forum... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

And thanks for reminding me that most teams probably don't have the same resources we have. Sorry if I make that assumption too often. Our closest neighbors in FSAE are at Western Washington Unviversity, home of the V8's and other monstrosities, and we used to have very few CNC'd parts on our car, so I guess I've always thought we were underdogs in the CNC department.

I do value the contributions of Z, and I agree it's good to talk about crazy ideas and to reevaluate our assumptions. But that doesn't mean he's untouchable... nobody is. Everything is open for debate http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[ben]

The other aspect of this debate isn't just resources but experience.

Denny: Your sig says you've been a member of the team for 5 years and I'm assuming you'll be around next year given your mention of summer testing?

To put that in perspective, I started at Birmingham in 1999 and wasn't able to design parts of the car (project work for upper years) for my first two years. I then took a year out in industry. I returned in 2002 and was able to design the suspension of 1 car and oversee the entire design of a second. I then graduated and now have a job in motorsport.

Surely FSAE is a means of furthering one's career prospects and ensuring that there's a healthy supply of engineers for the industry. I'm not sure being on an FSAE team for 5 years and incrementally improving at that level of detail is really the point?

I don't mean that in a nasty way Denny, I respect you hugely and you've done some great work, I'm just interested in how you view the point of FSAE.

Ben

[rjwoods77]

Denny,

Dude relax. I am not aiming anything at you at all. I am in the process of making my own rack so that was basically a rambling of my own brain to itself. I totally respect you, your knowledge and what you have made. I am not being critical of you whatsoever. The number of times that I have called you were all an effort to pick an experienced fsae head. The are only a few people around here that have a real clue and you are one of them.

While I think the way I do, I am not suggesting that other people have to think that way. I am just stating a different, in my belif, appropriate way of thinking and doing on these cars. Either think about what I say or throw it down as mindless rambling. I really dont care either way. The reason all this really got triggered was that I am working for ssbc(stainless steel brkae corporation)this summer. They put me on designing their brand new caliper that only took me 3.5 weeks to complete. There would be no way in hell I would have been able to do it in that time and with few to zero mistakes without keeping all that stuff in mind that you think I am a wack job for even considering. Design by marketing is a rough experience and I thought I would put it out there because it is a very valid consideration to the design of these cars if you are looking to get the true, full experience out of this. I assume you already understand most of what I talked about but again you are one of the few that have a clue.

I wasnt even referring to any inherited fabrication knowledge in any of my statements. That is obvious that we all do get some degree of that. Again in your case more than others. I already know most of that from working in machine shops for the years that I did. Great stuff to pick up but in the real world you wont touch that stuff(obvious exceptions). I think it is more important to understand how to get your parts to the point where they can be made more so than actually knowing how to program on a controller or mastercam style program. I always felt that making it is the easy part. Getting all the resources together(parts supply,material supply,sales quotations,etc.) is the real bitch. I personally choose to spend my time more on that then worrying about actually making it. I am targeting my learning more toward the real world engineering side of this. I have access to so much stuff that I dont have to worry about it. But that is my benefit and I utilize it. Just working with my strengths like everybody else does.

In the aim of pure performance all of that stuff is meaningless. But none of us are even in that position. Well, maybe a few. So truce to the war I wasnt starting. You keep doing what you do and i'll do what I do and we will see each other at comp. What you put in is what you get out.

[Denny Trimble]

Ben,
I'm actually trying to wind down my involvement, and finish up my research work this summer or fall at the latest. So, I shouldn't be around after that. But, you never know... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

I don't think being on a team for 5 years is the point of FSAE. I got credit for the '98 and '99 years as an undergrad, but the rest of the years it's just been a fun, compelling diversion. My research work for my MS is not related to FSAE, and I'm not getting any credit or pay for FSAE. But, I'm learning what I want to, and having a good time while I can. There's really nothing like working with your core team members towards a common goal, I'm addicted to it.

Rob,
Yeah, I guess I overreacted. And if you're actually designing parts for production, well then good for you http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Z]

Originally posted by TG:
My dad has told me this about design which I agree with: First make it work, then make it perform, finally make it cost effective. You start off with a concept and before anything you make the thing work, otherwise it is worthless. Obviously you have benchmark performace and cost in mind, but you don't have to meet them at first. After you get it working do you spend time making it better in performance and cost.

Tim Gruhl
ASU Motorsports

I think this is very good advice.

On another thread it was generally agreed that if you are a first year team then it is a good idea to build a car with a highly adjustable suspension, ie. you start with a complicated car. The adjustability allows you to get the suspension "working" in the first place, and further fine tuning gets the "performance". The third step, "make it cost-effective", involves getting rid of much of the adjustability, ie. "simplificating". And there's the rub...

By way of explanation, many of the companies that I worked for didn't take step 3 too seriously. Some engineers don't like "dumbing down" their designs. The bosses think that the engineers who are trying to simplificate the design, say, by minimizing part count, are just playing with their toys - "Hey, it works OK! Now let's move onto the next project!". The beancounters just want to replace each part with a cheaper, lower quality part, without actually changing or improving the basic design. Of course, a lot of this was due to "windows of opportunity" and gullible customers who were prepared to pay extra.

I think that the nature of FSAE - a rush to get a car built and working - means that there is (sometimes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif) a similar lack of commitment to "refining" the car, ie. "making it cost effective". That's why I liked Rob's comments on the previous page. Namely, keep low-cost in mind right from the beginning, and you've got a better chance of ending up with a lightweight, reliable, efficient, economical, simplificated car.

Z

[Eddie Martin]

Well I think a lot of teams out there think about what they want to do and not what they can do. When you look at this competition the two main factors that should affect all your design thinking, in my opinion, is your team's human resources and how to score max. points out of a 1000.

Most fsae cars I see are under tested, under developed and hence aren't normally as fast or reliable as they should be for this competition. When you look at one of the main objectives of the competition (scoring 1000 points) the thing that stands out the most within the points structure is the enduro/fuel with 400 points. (the other main objectives being safety, learning and fun). You must finish this event and finish well to have a chance of doing well in the overall standings. To achieve speed and reliability, testing is needed, hence having a day or two of shakedown or running for the first time in the brake test, is a recipe for disaster, plus its no fun when a car is late and you don't get a change to drive and understand it. So when making decisions about the overall design and individual systems you have to work out how you can get in 3 months of testing with the man power and facilities you have available. People talk a lot about Cornell's design concept a lot and it obviously works extremely well for them but they overlook the fact that they have the car driving at least three months before the competition every year. In my opinion this gives you a huge advantage in terms of development, tuning and driver training time and is more important than saving the last 5 kg or having some "fully sic"� system on the car.

When looking at a design concepts from super simple to really complex it really depends on your resources, but if you can build a really sophisticated car and still get a solid couple of months testing in, more power to you. If you have a 20 people or so who are committed, intelligent and experienced trying new systems, like forced induction, aerodynamic devices, custom dampers etc. is a great idea and I think they should definitely be done in this competition. The competition is richer for having lots of different ideas but innovation is a strange word. As Z bought up what is really innovative these days? Turbos, awd, wings etc. have all been done a lot in many automotive and racing applications. The only things I have seen that are "innovative"� in FSAE in the last couple of years are from UWA with their quick cure tubs and kinetics suspension system.

Personally I'm a big believer in lightweight and simple. As one of the only racing classes in the world with no minimum weight it must be a priority to get light because you can't can't get past F=ma. If you do a detailed weight analysis of an fsae car you can see that it is very possible to get a 600-4, tube frame with 13's under 200 kg. Also because of the make up of teams, eg. students with varied amounts of experience and understanding, it's probably a good idea to keep things simple and get them finished early. If you then have time left in the campaign, a more sophisticated system that could gain time can be tried.
If you look at rockers and push/pullrods as Z has mentioned, they weigh very little but they are another component to design, build, install, maintain and possibly fail. You can get a more suitable motion ratio, reduce unsprung mass and lower cg. (in the case of pullrod) with them but it is a compromise. Once you choose your tyres everything on the car and every design decision is a compromise. At the end of the day I'd rather be testing the car around a track than be standing in a work shop making parts. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif