Joined new FSAE Team. Can someone confirm what this advisor is saying??

[SASOS]

So I just transferred schools and went to the FSAE orientation.

I did one year before transfering.

Here are the things that he said in the meeting, which seemed a little off. Can anyone confirm?

Advisor: "All of the top level decisions will not be made by the students, but by the advisor. This means the engine choice, chassis overall design, suspension and forced induction will be made at the top level by the advisor and the students will be in charge of implementing the design by working in CAD, etc."

When a student asked about how the engine choice was going to be made, he said, "Don't worry, thats not up to the students to decide".

Then he said something that made me almost fall out of my chair, "Look the car that wins acceleration will never win the whole thing". I wanted to raise my hand and say "But ETS..." but I resisted. Then he said "The best car is the one with the best power to weight ratio".

I'm confused, can someone clarify if the advisor is able to make all these decisions? I thought this was a student run competition? At my last school the club made all the decisions...How involved are your advisor at your school?

Thanks!

PS: Article 5 and Article 6 address the faculty/student involvement.


ARTICLE 5: FACULTY ADVISOR

A5.1 Status

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.

A5.2 Responsibilities

Faculty Advisors may advise their teams on general engineering and engineering project management
theory.

A5.3 Limitations

Faculty Advisors may not design any part of the vehicle nor directly participate in the development of
any documentation or presentation.
Additionally, Faculty Advisors may not 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.
11

ARTICLE 6: VEHICLE ELGIBILITY

A6.1 Student Developed Vehicle

Vehicles entered into Formula SAE competitions must be conceived, designed, fabricated and
maintained by the student team members without direct involvement from professional engineers,
automotive engineers, racers, machinists or related professionals.

A6.2 Information Sources

The student team may use any
literature or knowledge related to car design and information from
professionals or from academics as long as the information is given as a discussion of alternatives
with their pros and cons.

A6.3 Professional Assistance

Professionals may not make design decisions or drawings and the Faculty Advisor may be required to
sign a statement of compliance with this restriction

[SASOS]

So I just transferred schools and went to the FSAE orientation.

I did one year before transfering.

Here are the things that he said in the meeting, which seemed a little off. Can anyone confirm?

Advisor: "All of the top level decisions will not be made by the students, but by the advisor. This means the engine choice, chassis overall design, suspension and forced induction will be made at the top level by the advisor and the students will be in charge of implementing the design by working in CAD, etc."

When a student asked about how the engine choice was going to be made, he said, "Don't worry, thats not up to the students to decide".

Then he said something that made me almost fall out of my chair, "Look the car that wins acceleration will never win the whole thing". I wanted to raise my hand and say "But ETS..." but I resisted. Then he said "The best car is the one with the best power to weight ratio".

I'm confused, can someone clarify if the advisor is able to make all these decisions? I thought this was a student run competition? At my last school the club made all the decisions...How involved are your advisor at your school?

Thanks!

PS: Article 5 and Article 6 address the faculty/student involvement.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">ARTICLE 5: FACULTY ADVISOR

A5.1 Status

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.

A5.2 Responsibilities

Faculty Advisors may advise their teams on general engineering and engineering project management
theory.

A5.3 Limitations

Faculty Advisors may not design any part of the vehicle nor directly participate in the development of
any documentation or presentation.
Additionally, Faculty Advisors may not 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.
11

ARTICLE 6: VEHICLE ELGIBILITY

A6.1 Student Developed Vehicle

Vehicles entered into Formula SAE competitions must be conceived, designed, fabricated and
maintained by the student team members without direct involvement from professional engineers,
automotive engineers, racers, machinists or related professionals.

A6.2 Information Sources

The student team may use any
literature or knowledge related to car design and information from
professionals or from academics as long as the information is given as a discussion of alternatives
with their pros and cons.

A6.3 Professional Assistance

Professionals may not make design decisions or drawings and the Faculty Advisor may be required to
sign a statement of compliance with this restriction
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[woodsy96]

What the advisor is saying is "I am older than you and know more than you and you guys shouldn't learn anything because I don't want to feel inferior and students aren't capable of making these decesions and I am a complete knob."

Perhaps ask the rules committee for clarification but basically what he is doing is completely against the spirit and intent of the competition.

Our team is like your previous one - our FAs give advice and help us sort some more compicated issues (like team admin stuff, absolutely nothing to do with the car) and there is no part on the car that is touched by faculty.

[SASOS]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by woodsy96:
What the advisor is saying is "I am older than you and know more than you and you guys shouldn't learn anything because I don't want to feel inferior and students aren't capable of making these decesions and I am a complete knob."

Perhaps ask the rules committee for clarification but basically what he is doing is completely against the spirit and intent of the competition.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thats exactly what it felt like. He boasted his experience and expressed the lack of experience of anyone on the team at the start of the orientation.

I'm not really sure if I want to join at this point, what would you guys do?

[BMH]

Are we from the same school? haha A lot of this sounds fairly reminiscent to our adviser.

He often comes in and tells us where our radiator is going to be placed, that we are going to use a bushing set up for the a-arm pickup points, etc. The worst part about it is, that the stuff he says, doesn't make a lot of sense or isn't the optimal design.

It annoys the crap out of us, so often we just kind of act like we are listening but let it run through one ear and out the other. He also likes to blow smoke up our @$$es saying past teams did this and that when they designed X component, when I know for a fact that they didn't.

Formula SAE is a very expensive organization, and part of me can understand that the adviser(s) want to make sure that there aren't any failures. However, by stating that x system will be designed this way and blah blah blah is not the way to go, and as stated above, defeats the purpose of the competition.

[Bemo]

I guess it is quite different how involved the FAs are in the project. In our case the team is completely run by the students and all design decisions are made by the students.
Our FA helps us with contacts to the industry and university administration etc. but nothing technical. In my opinion that's how it should be. And as far as I know, this is how it is amongst most top teams (at least here in Europe).

And if I here the other stuff this guy is saying. Well, he may be a professor, but he is as wrong as one can be. We already managed to win acceleration and overall for more than one time. And we NEVER had the car with the best power to weight ratio at a competition. But we did 9 overall wins so far...

[df_fsmb]

With us, it is the same as Bemo said. We set up the team on our own one year ago and then after few months we got a FA who is a great person and helps us with the industry connection, but nothing technical.

We build our first car and of course made a lot of beginners mistakes, but we take all the responsibility and know what to do next year. It is not that bad either, as it overtook half of the cars in FSG AutoX two weeks ago.

[exFSAE]

I can confirm that this type of attitude by an adviser totally negates the whole concept of FSAE, i.e. students learning by making decisions, following through, and seeing the end result.

That the students have relatively little experience compared to the FA is EXACTLY why the students need to be doing the work.. so they can GET the experience.

IMO best role for the FA is to have someone with experience that can answer technical questions, give advice, and ensure good engineering practice is being held during the decision-making process. If the project is for class credit, the extra benefit is being able to make sure people are held accountable for their deliverables and timetable.

[MegaDeath]

It sounds like your advisor is a total tool. I wouldn't join that "team" if I were you, I would stay as far away as possible.

[BrendonD]

Technically, no he can't, and really, he shouldn't. It's bad for a variety of reasons:

1. Buy-in. Why would you bust your ass on a project you don't have control over? Anyone who's done this will agree that having yourself completely invested from the get-go, i.e. concept and design direction decisions, is a large contributor to the quality (and often quantity) of work you will put in. What you've described sounds boring.
2. Desired Outcomes. What is your advisor seeking to gain by making these decisions? As woodsy touched on, I guess he doesn't want to feel inferior on a project... I think he is missing the point, which is to produce engineering graduates who understand the complete engineering process. What you've described does nothing to promote those outcomes, it sounds like he's looking to produce a winning team, and while we all enjoy the prospect of winning, doing so in this environment takes years building an infrastructure around a vehicle development program, and again, isn't the point of this whole thing.
3. Team leadership. By taking most of the decisions out of the students' hands, he's hollowed out any authority they might have as potential leaders of the team. A flat power structure is great, but you will need to make decisions at 2am in the machine shop when an issue comes up, and there need to be people empowered to make those decisions. If you're always waiting on your 9-5 advisor, your odds of getting anything out the door decrease dramatically.

When we started up we had little, if any, guidance and I truly think we were better off because of that. Now that we're getting to the point where alums and people at the University want to be involved in advising, I'll be taking a stance that we can't make any decisions for the undergrads, only review and comment on designs THEY come up with, and also to make connections in industry, and help out getting money/resources together.

BMH described a not-uncommon situation of advisors "making decisions", but also the not-uncommon solution of "in one ear out the other". It would appear you have less of a choice in the matter.

What you've described isn't Formula SAE, it's a professor's pet racecar project. If this guy isn't going to give any control to the students, I'd walk. Even better, who says he's got to have a monopoly on racecars at your University? Be adventurous and start your own student-run team and compete against him.

[exFSAE]

I'd say the vast majority of FSAE grads do not go into automotive engineering - mostly because they would rather pursue other things.

[SASOS]

The advisor also said something that rubbed me the wrong way. He said, "The only reason to join FSAE is to get into the automotive industry".

When I joined FSAE, I never intended to get into the automotive industry. I joined primarily for the challenge, friendship and competitive spirit of FSAE. It was the most difficult project at my other university and it required alot of effort to succeed. People had to come together, despite their differences and build a car out of nothing. Lots of ideas and ego's flew around but in the end we got the car done and everyone was happy with the final product(for the most part). I currently work in a non-automotive field and I am happy with what I do.

Is FSAE really intended for people to become automotive engineers like the advisor says?

[Rotary Sprocket]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SASOS:
The advisor also said something that rubbed me the wrong way. He said, "The only reason to join FSAE is to get into the automotive industry".

When I joined FSAE, I never intended to get into the automotive industry. I joined primarily for the challenge, friendship and competitive spirit of FSAE. It was the most difficult project at my other university and it required alot of effort to succeed. People had to come together, despite their differences and build a car out of nothing. Lots of ideas and ego's flew around but in the end we got the car done and everyone was happy with the final product(for the most part). I currently work in a non-automotive field and I am happy with what I do.

Is FSAE really intended for people to become automotive engineers like the advisor says? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

FSAE is not for people to become automotive engineers, the most important aspects of joining an FSAE team are as you stated above. The experience you gain from this can be applied in any disipline, even outside of engineering. That advisor sounds ridiculous when he says the only reason to join is to get into the automotive industry. Heck I design water pumps now and even though it's not "automotive" I still use every bit of knowledge I gained while on our FSAE team. I agree with BrendonD, try and start your own team. If there are other students that feel the same way as you, you'll have a pretty good number to start with.

[RollingCamel]

At least he didn't tell you to place the air box before the throttle body and then all the runners take up air from a point just after the throttle body....or just use aluminum for the chassis just because a Mini-Baja team did it long time ago although all the disadvantages such as there is a minimum order of 1/2 tons, of course with all the design and manufacturing disadvantages.
With such characters I had and always have a very hard time with it because it is everything against good common principles.

I'd love to be an automotive engineer, but ultimately I wanted to be a mechanical design engineer and it gave me a great shot at it.

Anyways, good luck and hopefully if the team "gang up" they can call for their rights.

[BMH]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by RollingCamel:
At least he didn't tell you to place the air box before the throttle body and then all the runners take up air from a point just after the throttle body....or just use aluminum for the chassis just because a Mini-Baja team did it long time ago although all the disadvantages such as their is a minimum order of 1/2 tons, of course with all the design and manufacturing disadvantages.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Haha, yeah our professor recently came up to us saying we should try and run natural gas. We keep telling him that it is not permitted in the rules but he seems to not pay attention when we explain it to him, because he has suggested it multiple times since then.

We also had an issue with him last year when he pretty much told us that we were going to switch to formula hybrid...no one on the team had any interest. One of the reasons he was trying to push it that event registration was $500 cheaper...apparently he didn't think about the cost of all the electronics... :/

[Chris B]

at UQ we're up to a our second FA since I joined the team. Both did/do basically nothing at all except sign off on forms when we need to get stuff and then make small talk about where we're at. While this has its own inherent disadvantages, i feel we benefit from it overall and even though last year we had a pretty poor showing at FSAE-A, the fact that we were able to overcome all of the issues that the car had and got it on track, competing was a phenomenal feeling.

at my uni, there are people above the FA that we sometimes have to deal with. if your FA is being such a knob, is it possible to go see HIS superior/s?

[RollingCamel]

At last we had the 1st independent student union elections and the teaching staff has voted for a direct elections for university's presidency. Setting up freely elected bodies will give a chance for everyone to be heard.

[SASOS]

My new advisor said we need 1.4hp/lb of the car.

It could also be that he meant 0.4hp/lb. He said that last years vehicle was underpowered at a measly 44hp and that is the reason why they did bad.

He also mentioned that without a turbo, a single cylinder engine cannot compete in FSAE.

How many of you guys are driving 350lb, 500hp cars???

[Mike Cook]

This guy is a toolbag. It's up to you to come up with better solutions. If you support your design decisions and he still won't listen then its time to move on.

This post is so absurd its border line trolling.

[SASOS]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mike Cook:
This guy is a toolbag. It's up to you to come up with better solutions. If you support your design decisions and he still won't listen then its time to move on.

This post is so absurd its border line trolling. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Thats exactly what I think...But when he says stuff like 1.4hp/lb people take him seriously because they don't sit back and do any kind of math.

[MalcolmG]

What university is this? Honestly I wouldn't even bother doing FSAE if you can't get rid of that advisor or can't just ignore him and do your own thing. Scratch that, I would find another university and transfer so I could still do FSAE.

[RenM]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SASOS:
My new advisor said we need 1.4hp/lb of the car.

It could also be that he meant 0.4hp/lb. He said that last years vehicle was underpowered at a measly 44hp and that is the reason why they did bad.

He also mentioned that without a turbo, a single cylinder engine cannot compete in FSAE.

How many of you guys are driving 350lb, 500hp cars??? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

you can easily disproof him by showing him how many competitions have been won by 1 cylinder cars.

[BrendonD]

You sound like a reasonable fellow. Form your own team because this guy makes my head hurt.

[Jan_Dressler]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Bemo:
I guess it is quite different how involved the FAs are in the project. In our case the team is completely run by the students and all design decisions are made by the students.
Our FA helps us with contacts to the industry and university administration etc. but nothing technical. In my opinion that's how it should be. And as far as I know, this is how it is amongst most top teams (at least here in Europe). </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I am with Bemo here. That's exactly how it is handled at our school: The FA does some of the financial stuff, he is in our school's "politics", he knows how to get us some ressources here and there, heck, he even drives the truck with our car to the competitions (actually, at the moment he should be somewhere in Austria driving to the competition in Italy).
But, although he has his thoughts about what we should do, he will never tell us to do this and that. All technical stuff is team decision, period.

Jan

[Dash]

I remember in another thread someone posed in with the ask Karnak game. " Ans: Google Question: Who is the Faculty Advisor? " This has been true at my university as well. Over the past 3 years, I've met with our faculty advisor maybe all of 5 times. He actually resigned and left the university over the summer. We are now in limbo with a new faculty member who doesn't even really know what the project is about, but the Dean of Mechanical Engineering is behind us, and thats all I really care about. I'm sure it would be awesome to have a faculty member help out with Industry contacts to get sponsorship and free stuff, but the school here helps us out a good deal so we manage to scrape by every year with the little money we get. Hopefully that will change for the better over the course of the next year or so.

Basically, we are in the same boat as several other teams. Don't let the FA tell you what to do. Our old advisor wanted us to run a single, but we kept telling him that if he wanted to run a single then he can build the car himself. Sometimes you just have to take a stand and hope that it works out for you.

[SASOS]

Ok I think I left out some vital information in all of this.

The team is set-up as a class, in that students get graded on the project and the advisor is also the person doing the grading. The class is mostly students who are enrolled and there are very few volunteers. The professor/advisor doesn't like volunteers because he doesnt have a grade over them.

The advisor made an effort to subtly show us that we can't do something contrary to the advisor because we are in his class and the department chair is on the side of the professor.

The class and team ARE REGISTERED as a club within the school and club DUES are collected. The team gets alot of funding from the school for BEING a club.

I hope that helps.

[flavorPacket]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SASOS:
The team is set-up as a class, in that students get graded on the project and the advisor is also the person doing the grading. The class is mostly students who are enrolled and there are very few volunteers. The professor/advisor doesn't like volunteers because he doesnt have a grade over them. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Class credit is often the kiss of death for a FSAE team. I suggest you drop out of the class if you want to do this stuff properly.

[BrendonD]

This about describes my advice for you.

http://i.imgur.com/Hk5Sc.png

[whiltebeitel]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:
Class credit is often the kiss of death for a FSAE team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think this generalization is wrong. Texas A&M is set up as a class for senior design credit, and I'd venture to say we haven't exactly "died" because of it. What is important is the faculty advisor is open-minded and teaches the student HOW to design, not WHAT to design. Dr. McDermott will allow us to find old design reports, ask him about how certain ideas worked in the past, but he makes us go through the math and analysis on our own. We want a 4-cyl? we want to run an Ape? Supercharged single? No problem, as long as we can show we know what we are dealing with, he does his best to help us find sponsorships and get the University to work with us.

I'd search for a more open-minded faculty advisor, preferably a design process guy *cough*Bob Paasch*cough*

[SASOS]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BrendonD:
This about describes my advice for you.

http://i.imgur.com/Hk5Sc.png </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is depressing.

The worst part is he throws his experience around as his basis for people to trust him. Constantly saying how he's been doing this program for decades. Apparently not according to the rules and apparently not knowing exactly what hes talking about.

[flavorPacket]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by whiltebeitel:
I think this generalization is wrong. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Texas A&M is an exception to the rule. Look at the top 30 teams in the world and see how many are taking FSAE as a class...or for that matter, look at the average ranking of a class credit team vs. a totally extracurricular team.

[whiltebeitel]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by whiltebeitel:
I think this generalization is wrong. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Texas A&M is an exception to the rule. Look at the top 30 teams in the world and see how many are taking FSAE as a class...or for that matter, look at the average ranking of a class credit team vs. a totally extracurricular team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't really know which teams are class-based overall, are most of the european teams club-based? It would be interesting to compare them.

[Rex Chan]

I'm from Melbourne Uni in Australia. This is how FSAE works at our uni:

The official team is made up of people doing their final year in mechanical engineering. There is a year long Major Project, and FSAE is one of the options. Each major project is made up of 3-4 people, and that is how we split up the FSAE team (COordination, INtegration, CHassis, ENgine, Brakes & Drive, Steering & Suspension, Driver Interface).

Since the team is made up of final years, we lose pretty much everyone at the end of the year. No-one is stopping anyone else from the uni from helping out, but we don;t usually get many other people helping out (no credit for work, and our own lack of initiative in asking for help). Knowledge Transfer is a huge problem for us.

Anyway, we got our car built 1 month before our comp (FSAE-A 2010), around the same time as Monash and Swinburne. Monash came first; Swinburne came second; we came fourth.

I think the sign of a good team is how early the car gets done, and that depends on how well your management guys organise your time.

Our supervisor (Hello Denny Oetomo!) was new for 2010 (came in halfway to replace Daniel Riley). He comes to meetings, signs off paperwork, deals with higher up department stuff, etc. Since he's a robotics guy, he just wants to make sure we're going ok as a team and not having any big issues. I think its a good way to do things, although it means its completely up to the guys on your team to make sure sensible design choices are made, or else it gets less happy for all involved.

[Chris B]

ours works on a voluntary extra curricular basis. traditionally there is no course credit for work done on the car.

however if you're friendly with some of the lecturers you can make up your own fsae related thesis topic or 4th year design project and do that. the thesis and projects however are not assured of ever making it onto the car. they're undertaken as an RnD exercise. whether or not the findings from them ever get used is a decision that the team itself reserves the right to make depending on relevance/quality of the work.

[theTTshark]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by whiltebeitel:
I think this generalization is wrong. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Texas A&M is an exception to the rule. Look at the top 30 teams in the world and see how many are taking FSAE as a class...or for that matter, look at the average ranking of a class credit team vs. a totally extracurricular team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The University of Kansas works as a senior design project along with volunteers. Pretty sure making assumptions about how teams work is a little silly don't you think? Anything can work as long as it is done right. Is the OP's school doing it right? Of course not. Could it work? Of course it can.

[RollingCamel]

I really can't see it going anywhere unless the whole team acts as a team press on with they want. Standing up nearly alone will only make you suffer. I've been there and won't talk about it anymore, ranted more than enough already.

How about forming a Mini-Baja team where you can choose another adviser or even have a word if you have teammates with common goals?

[SASOS]

Facepalm,

so last week he convinced the powertrain guys that they need a Single Cylinder but in 600cc or bore/stroke a 450cc as close to 600cc as possible. Not only that but he wants to buy a supercharger and make the housing for it.

Unfortunately the new people on the powertrain team don't know any better and they are all excited about a 100+ hp car now. He gave them the mission of finding the engine for next week.

A few of us are talking about starting another team to compete with the class, stay tuned.

[Rex Chan]

At our uni, there would be no way to get another team started. It would just cut into the limited resources the uni wants to give FSAE. Plus, its usually not a good idea to annoy those in charge; you need all the help you can get, and getting academics offside won't help your cause. As depressing as it sounds, I would to try to deal with it the best you can. However, I'm not in your situation, so I could be totally wrong.

Even though your supervisor sounds really controlling/making all the decisions, is he supporting the team/getting it resources/putting in the effort? Is there a good chance you'll be able to build a working/good car? If so, I'm inclined to stick with the team, as there are still things to be learnt, even if you can't do certain things (like make design decisions).

For example, this new engine thing: has he got the money to pay for them? We run the same engines year after year, because we have several of them, and have experience them. It's a design restriction that is kind of already decided for us, and we work with it.

It certainly sounds like your situation sucks, but think of your FA as a legacy part that must be accommodated in order to run a successful team. Every team has restrictions on what can do vs. what it wants. Yours just happens to be a person.

[flavorPacket]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by theTTshark:
The University of Kansas works as a senior design project along with volunteers. Pretty sure making assumptions about how teams work is a little silly don't you think? Anything can work as long as it is done right. Is the OP's school doing it right? Of course not. Could it work? Of course it can. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Never made an assumption. I took data from the rankings. Most teams do not get credit, and those who do are less successful on average than those who don't.

Could a for-credit team win comp? Of course. But if you're starting a brand new team, why not take a look at the relative performance of teams with/without credit and draw a reasonable conclusion?

Again you've referenced a team with an awesome faculty advisor. If more people like Dr. Sorem were involved in this competition, we'd all be a lot better off.

[cvargas]

Could you report him/team to some judge in FSAE and then start your own team?

[Mbirt]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SASOS:
so last week he convinced the powertrain guys that they need a Single Cylinder but in 600cc or bore/stroke a 450cc as close to 600cc as possible. Not only that but he wants to buy a supercharger and make the housing for it.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>The advisor can't do all the work himself. If he's serious enough to throw money at these pie-in-the-sky ideas, can't the team convince him to finance a nice ECU(s) and top-notch dyno equipment first? His enthusiasm and money can be channeled into more helpful avenues by the team that has to do the work in the end. The guys can always "drop the ball" on not-so-necessary things like designing an external supercharger drive, yet still reap the benefits of a trigger-happy advisor.

Ok, so I'm a hopeless optimist.