2014 FSAE-Australasia

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Originally Posted by Jonny Rochester

... I was not aware of any public address from the judges about the design of the cars...

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I was also hoping to see a "Design Review" by all the Judges at the end of this comp, but nothing... Last year there was a very general one, but not relating to any specific cars.

Given the supposed educational nature of the comp, such Design reviews should be the most central part of the whole show. Not much point doing an exam and then NOT being told what parts you got right or wrong. No learning there.

So maybe the DJs can provide a short written review of all the cars here? Please? :)

Or maybe just a list of outstandingly good features on some given cars, and another list of shocking design errors from "...you know who you are!".

Anyway, the Driver Swap reports provide really useful feedback. Perhaps even better than DJ reviews, because they are based on the actual performance of the car on track.
~o0o~

Regarding Claude and DASDs, I interpreted a rapid sideways oscillation of his head, together with words to the effect of "I would no advise...", as a general disapproval of the idea.

But only one person can conclusively clear this up. Claude???

Z

Jonny, I don't know if the Australasia competition actually does it. I would hope so. If not, that's my first suggestion to do is for that to be held next year.

In other competitions, after the top 3 designs are selected, the feedback that is normally provided individually to teams is given publicly to the top 3 as shown in my linked video.

A bit of this is going to be venue-specific for FSAE-A, unfortunately. The organisation this year didn't delve into where people stayed and Calder Park didn't leave the option to gather all around >5PM to review the cars. A place to do the review on a Friday night fell through, and only three of us DJ's were available to do it at the campsite on Saturday night. It should be standardised next year though this would have been a general feedback session akin to 2013 (though with better acoustics). Thus some of this will depend on where the event is held. There are a few other ideas being floated (e.g. staffed translators etc, running the cars through 4 DE meets in sequence, etc).

A 'top x' review might be ideal.

I'm happy to review the cars as I remember them though frankly there were 16 judges/8 areas and they're not all represented here - I would suggest most would want feedback from other areas - however, most can be reached through the SAE throughout the year, indeed a number of teams got in touch with me throughout the year, and at this event a number asked for contact details. Maybe this should be formalised.

For those that saw the DE judging forms (or that have reviewed their feedback), is it sufficient? (Bearing in mind we have ~10 minutes to write and transcribe it).

I'd add that his much is out of step with limiting Design Event to 150 points (from 200).

I wouldn't suggest the driver swap isn't valuable, though I'd similarly not suggest that it's more valuable than the Design Event in the same context.

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Originally Posted by MCoach

Jonny, I don't know if the Australasia competition actually does it. I would hope so. If not, that's my first suggestion to do is for that to be held next year.

In other competitions, after the top 3 designs are selected, the feedback that is normally provided individually to teams is given publicly to the top 3 as shown in my linked video.

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This used to be the case, however because Australia has such a small field in 2013 it was introduced to have one set of judges that go around and judge all the cars. This meant there were no discrepancies between area judges and negated the need for design finals. It also meant that more areas/systems are analysed (ie project management, more area specific details, testing/validation) and presented before the judges, and included more team members to show that the collective team knew their stuff rather than 6 individuals. It is something that Geoff Pearson (aka Big Bird) introduced and I believe is working quite well in terms of being able to 'strut your stuff' (for lack of thought for a better description) and show what your team has learnt.

A description on how the design event is now run in Oz is here: http://www.saea.com.au/rules-and-downloads - the Australian addendum links to the event handbook (Part B is the design event details)

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Originally Posted by MCoach

Jonny, I don't know if the Australasia competition actually does it. I would hope so. If not, that's my first suggestion to do is for that to be held next year.

In other competitions, after the top 3 designs are selected, the feedback that is normally provided individually to teams is given publicly to the top 3 as shown in my linked video.

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One of the reasons for the new Design Event format was so that the Saturday night could be used as an open Design Review and Event Review session. Maybe 2-3 hours long, vox popping various judges and team members to discuss designs, event preparations, officials feedback, etc. The idea was that this would be of mre benefit to the students than locking four design finalists and the senior design judges away behind closed doors.

The opportunity hasn't been utilized yet.

A major problem has been getting design judges to commit to two days in a row. Might be an idea for next year to sign up judges who can only work both days.

Thank for filling me in, Madeleine.

The gist of structure seems sound, so hats off to our friend Geoff. I'm not necessary looking for a re-presentation of the selected top cars to the judges. I think with as few of entries that exist in Oz, it's a fair system but I could sway either way on it. However, the feedback part is really what I'd like to see. I think by pointing out the highs and lows as GTS has done helps promote consciousness among the competitors of the topics and methods that may otherwise go unnoticed, both good and bad, of those on top.

I think if we didn't have Pat Clarke around constantly reminding everyone of bad engineering practices we would certainly see many more poorly inspired cars with features such as rod ends in bending and poorer ergonomics. The same goes for the opposite end of the spectrum. We know what a bad example looks like (Thank you, Pat!), what about the good examples? That's what I'm getting at.

Fully agreed MCoach. Examples of good design need to be demonstrated to the teams, along with the rationale for them being good design. This is not so the designs can be copied, but rather so that the students might gain an understanding of the underlying mental engagement of a good engineering designer.
Typically, when we criticize, we point out the faults. This is a fair thing. But fault-finding alone only leaves the student with a growing list of things not to do. Creativity is a positive process, so we need to engage the students with what is good design too. As such, I fully agree with the idea of a design critique of the best cars

How do we do this and best promote originality? There's a lot of me-too up and down the grid... which is not what FSAE is about!

There's plenty of career outside of university to take safer bets in :D

I'd like to see an innovation bonus, outside of the Design Event. Up to 50 points bonus available for a genuinely innovative design, to be awarded at judges discretion at end of weekend. Maybe up to 25 available for second most innovative. If they are to be awarded, they are announced at final presentation, but locked in before start of Sunday's track activities (so judges can't fudge results at end of weekend - not saying that they would)

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Originally Posted by GTS

For those that saw the DE judging forms (or that have reviewed their feedback), is it sufficient? (Bearing in mind we have ~10 minutes to write and transcribe it).

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I highly recommend giving judging forms to the Teams! We were lucky enough to get extensive Feedback from our DJ Team at FSG14, but the judging form was already a good thing. It was also good for the judges when they where discussing our design after the design Event. Many design decisions of our new car were driven by the short Feedback on the judging form. Bonus: There were bad AND good things listed!

Edit: The forms were filled in during the judging process.