Two simple rules to improve results.

So I've been giving advice to my old team, and on occasion members of other teams if I strike up a rapport with them at comp.

I've also spent many a Sunday afternoon watching car after car breakdown, either at Silverstone or watching Hockenheim live on Youtube.

Everyone is unhappy about the amount of teams that breakdown in the grand event. It is, to some extent embarrassing, and to listen to the commentary at these events, it is expected.

But no-one is actually doing anything about it.

I mean seriously, no-one. Sure the IMechE will say they run the "Learn-to Win" event, and FSG have a technical debriefing for team members coming back next year, and there's Pat's corner, and the 'Learn and Compete' book (best attempt so far, but no longer available and needs updating). But these have been going for years no, things aren't getting better.

Some will argue it's up to the teams. It's always been up to the teams to build a car that works! But the current rule book makes them build cars that don't!

So I've had enough. I have two simple rules, that I believe will make a significant difference to the situation.
(Not that I think these will ever be implemented under the current regime, but hey ho).

New Rule Number 1:
-When weighed, your car must have a minimum mass of 200kg.
10 points will be deducted for every kg under this threshold.

New Rules Number 2:
-All teams have the option to submit an advanced video of their running car up to 30 days ahead of the start of the competition.
20 bonus points will be awarded for submitting on the deadline date, for each additional day before this deadline an additional point will be awarded, up to a maximum total of 50 points.
The video must show the car completed with all bodywork and include clips demonstrating the presence of all safety features (driver harness, head rest, impact attenuator, brake over travel switch).
A member of your academic staff must sign off to say that all systems demonstrated/shown in the video are indeed functional and the final versions intended for competition.

The problem with 90% of teams that DNF, or worse, DNS at comp, is that they worry too much about the wrong things. Chasing fractions in performance instead of reliability and timeliness.
Offering a minimum weight will take some of the pressure off weight saving, so corners won't be cut where they shouldn't be.
Offering Bonus points for being able to demonstrate a running car in advance of the competition (but about as late as any good team should be looking to have a completed car), will add even more emphasis on the time pressures this sort of project entails.


A few preemptive arguments.

-Why 200kg?
200kg is about right for a basic space-frame non-aero car, that doesn't break the bank and is relatively easy to manufacture.

-Most of the teams that break down don't build cars less than 200kg as it is.
This is true. But they'd like to. Most of these teams are in the 200-250kg region. Currently each year they talk about making their car as light as possible, so the next year can go even lighter, and ultimately make that 175kg car. If they know they can't go below 200kg, they won't be pushing so hard to cut mass out of every single system.
A lot of teams in the 175-200kg region, with mostly well built cars breakdown more than they should (you know who you are). They go from top 10 at one comp, to bottom half the next. They are inconsistent because each year they try to shave that little bit extra weight to make their car that little bit faster. Ultimately they probably end up weighing the same because they fixed reliability issues with weight in one area, while doing the opposite in another, continuing the cycle.

-But if there's no longer a drive to save as much weight, won't it make choosing an engine easier? Everyone will just run 4 cylinders! This competition is supposed to be about having total freedom of design choices.
Firstly, I don't think they will, I've seen plenty of singles and twins over 200kg, especially full aero cars.
Secondly, as for the total freedom of design choice argument, I think that's a bit ridiculous. It's an engineering competition; real world engineering is flooded with restriction and limitations. Yes, it's good to give lots of freedom so all the cars aren't the same, but we already have a pointless maximum displacement rule, which limits choice for no good reason. As I've said I don't think this will limit choice, perhaps some teams will sway a different way, but in the end haven't 4cylinders' proven to be more reliable anyway? Isn't that what we want?

-Bonus points mean a team could theoretically score more than 1000
Yes, so? Team with most point wins. How does that change anything?

-Demonstrate break over-travel in a video? You could just film someone hitting a non-wired in switch, with someone off camera hitting the master switch to cut the power. What about all the safety features, they could just mock them up so save time.
Yes, but that would be cheating, and for so little gain (how long does it take to wire in a single switch? Not 24 hours). Plus they've had a member of the academic staff sign it off; in most cases, if they were found to have lied this would have severe consequences for their job, they wouldn't take the risk.

-But what about dry vs. wet weight? What if some teams have empty tanks and no oil?
I'm not interested in discussing the semantics of this, that's not the point. Ultimately you have to be over 200kg at all times during the comp, be that in scrutineering, before design judging, or in parc ferme after endurance. Heck, it wouldn't be hard to have some roll on roll off corner weights set up at the entrance/exit of each event (although that might be excessive).

Build a 150kg car, put 50 kg of tungsten right below the CG. Better yet, have it adjustable so you put it rearward and high (maximise long. load transfer and attempt to lift front wheels) for acceleration, and then low and under CG for every other event.

I think the intent here is fine, though I believe it would just introduce a different fine-tuning objective.

Allow me to add, based on my experience, that choosing a smooth driver/operator can be an important factor in vehicle durability. Someone who is hard on the steering, throttle, brakes, tires and suspension springs will cost you in long runs. The reward(s) for longevity are big for ANY product design.

Dunk, it has been my experience that most of the cars that break or don't start are already over 200kg.
Any minimum weight rule is flawed because of the various car designs. A composite, 10" car with a single cylinder engine vs
a spaceframe, turbo 600/4 on 13" wheels and with a full aero package can not be bunched together.
Those choosing a lightweight, low power engine do so to save weight...don't ask them to add 50kg of ballast and become instantly uncompetitive.
Several competitions, including FSG, already have the requirement to submit a video of the running car.
The old dodge of submitting a dry car (even to the extent of empty batteries) was identified long ago.
At FSG there are penalties if your car weight changes significantly during the event...and they do additional weighing!

Remember, FS/FSAE is an engineering competition with a motorsport theme, not a motorsport event.
The intent is that you make your mistakes and cockups before you are inflicted on some poor employer.
That seems to work well as the lesson learned by all those members of the DNF teams is KISS!

Pat

Fully agree with Pat. (Could be the first time I think ;))

The 200kg rule kills the "Delft cars". Even if you can put heavy stuff very low in the car, you will see the massive power downside of a single-cylinder. I think they won't be competitive anymore.
I think that kills a lot of the possiblities.

The "present your car X days before competition" is a great rule. I like how it is used in FSG. Maybe it is possible to be a more strict on this and give out penalties.
What I don't like with your rule is that it would promote even shorter Engineering cycles, less imagination and more "carry over". Teams should push it also between the years!

Julian

I agree with the pre-competition video idea. I have heard that the competition in Japan has some kind of rule about that and it has been successful. The points bonus is an idea that I haven't heard before, but I think it would be a good thing.

Minimum weight rule, I don't think will be effective. As others have said, a big proportion of the cars that fail endurance are already over 200kg. The problem with it is, being 200+kg does not guarantee that all the weight has been budgeted appropriately into every critical part for equal & sufficient safety factors. There's just no way around the fact that ultimately, if you want to see higher endurance success rates, it depends on the teams to do better engineering. A single minimum weight regardless of engine type, chassis type, wheel size, presence of wings, etc, is very arbitrary too. A car that's 190kg could add a 10kg wing package to meet minimum weight, does that make it any more likely to complete endurance? No, likely the opposite. A 200kg minimum weight would also kill some design freedom and make certain concepts uncompetitive, which I think is a bad thing.

I'm not denying that a 200kg weight limit make certain designs uncompetitive. It absolutely does. My argument is: so what?

The aero limitations opened up a number of years ago, all of a sudden you had to have aero to be competitive.
They've been constrained back a little since then, but other than by default, I don't think it's possible to win a competition without a proper aero package.
That's a a change that basically ruled out any teams that didn't have the resources (money, skills or manpower) to build a design concept with an aero package.

So "killing" certain design concepts is no justification not to change things.
If anything, in this case, it would probably level the field a little. Decent smaller engines are harder to come by, especially for teams in certain parts of the world.


Additionally, based on 200kg it only really kills the the design concepts of teams that currently reiterate the same successful design every year. If the teams really are as good as their car, and not just resting on the laurels of those that came before, then changing their concept shouldn't be an issue.

Pat, as I stated in my opening post, the cars that fail the most are indeed already over 200kg. But these teams have all been lead to believe, by the culture of the competition, that mass is really important. I don;t know of many officials doing much to dissuade that idea. Weighing in immediately before Design judging at FSG for example is extremely misleading. All else being equal, and within a reasonable mass range (180-250kg) a kilo is worth maybe 1-2 points at comp, based on dynamic events. But in design judging it can really depend on the judges; I don't think any DJ would award points for intentionally having a heavy car, but many would penalise you for not trying to be as light as possible.
At least with some sort of limit, the discussion does from: "Why didn't you try to have the lightest car possible?" to "Why didn't you aim for the 200kg limit?" Which I think is a much more interesting conversation.

Also from the whole ballast point of view. The question becomes: "I see you can built a very lightweight car. But is ballast really the best use of the remaining mass available?"
(I can think of a few ways that would increase performance much more than ballast that are currently legal).



If we really are saying that allowing design freedom is an untouchable objective, second only to safety requirements, then there are pages and pages of rules that need to be stripped away. Rules that are far more restrictive than a minimum weight limit, that don't offer new, different challenges but simply close doors on different opportunities and bias the competition towards teams with more resource who build the same car year after year.

The 200kg mass limit wouldn't need to be fixed either, it along with a few other specific variables (e.g. aero packaging) could be adjusted every couple of years as a matter of course. So no team would be able to sit back and relax with their carry over concept, simply tweaking it for each minor rules change.
In some cases this does play into the hands of teams with the resource to invest in new development every year. But on the flip side, on occaision, a cheaper, heavier, simpler car, with no aero, would be given a fighting chance.

Narrowing down the number of ways to make a bad car sure seem enticing, but when teams still put rod ends in bending, a weight rule or first drive video won't prevent failure. Time will find them and won't be kind.

I am a fan of requiring a video some time before the competition. However, the idea of 'bonus' points really doesn't end up working. All you've done is move the deadline to the time of maximum bonus points. So instead of 30 days before the competition, teams will have their cars done 60 days before the competition. That may increase reliability, but it doesn't create bonus points. It just makes the competition out of 1030 points rather than 1000.

I don't have the time right now (a couple weeks and I'll come back to this) to examine previous year's results, but it would be interesting to see endurance completion rates at competitions that require video of the car driving beforehand to competitions that don't. That metric would be the one to use to justify such a requirement, right?

Dunk,

You do not get it!

F= Ma. For a given lateral acceleration the more mass the more force, therefore the more compliance (and less driver control and confidence) and the more effort of each suspension members, chassis etc..

To avoid deformation and possible rupture you have 2 solutions.

1. Make the chassis and suspension stiffer which add more mass which add more force which add more causes for compliance and possible rupture. That is the ugly crescendos towards disaster
2. Design smart. A good distribution of the tire forces and moments on the suspension elements and the chassis (just as an example think about the tire lateral force acting on a wishbone that has one arm perpendicular to the chassis and the other at 45 degrees or on 2 arms that are both at 45 degrees) will prevent concentration of forces and there fore decrease the need for heavy components. There is a reason why design judges ask students to exhibit the load path studies (forces on each suspension elements for different load cases: skip pad, braking, acceleration, combined longitudinal and lateral acceleration etc...)

At 2011 FSG I judged 2 cars that had exactly the same concept; electrical 4WD one was 80 KW the other 82 KW, no big difference), no wings, tubular chassis. One was 145 Kg the other 230 Kg. More than 50 % of difference for the same concept.
When I asked the 230 Kg car team why their car was over 50 % heavier for the same concept, their first answer was "but we lost 30 Kg compared to last year" ...which did not answer my question.
I pushed them to come with a better answer. They told me that the car was heavier "because it had more batteries" I asked them why they needed more batteries and the answer was that with the same amount of batteries than the 145 Kg car they could not finish the endurance.
The question then became why do you have more energy consumption and the answer was ".....because the car is heaver!!!!...."

The heavier a car is the heavier it will have to be. The lighter a car is the lighter it can be.

If a rule about weight should be created it would be that car over 200 Kg should be penalized.

It is possible to make car that is light, stiff, aesthetic, easy to manufacture and maintain. To do that you need to
a. inspire your self from nature. God is the best designer; n egg with a shell of 0.3 mm thickness can sustain a force of 450 N in its vertical axis? Have look at the FEA of a tree branches and roots fibers....
b. Form follows function. 1 Functions and then 2 Form, not the other way around. And that is one of the traps in which many, many students fall: they start designing the car before having a complete list of the functions that the part is supposed to fulfill.
The typical example is the team that starts designing the chassis without having determining where there suspension pick up points will have to be. You will often see on that type of car the suspension points or the rocker or damper attachment right in a middle of a tube... which create compliance.....that you can wrongly fight with stiffer and heavier tubes.

Designing an heavy car is going against all the efforts that the automotive and aircraft industry is trying to reach. More energy consumption. more recyclability issues. Not what a Design competition is supposed to achieve.


As far as the video way before the competition it is a rule that is already applied in Germany, Japan and India.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pat Clarke

Remember, FS/FSAE is an engineering competition with a motorsport theme, not a motorsport event.
The intent is that you make your mistakes and cockups before you are inflicted on some poor employer.

Pat

---

Yep! This statement is so simple that people often forget what it actually means.

I think we often get lost in the thought of purely focusing on the competition itself, rather than the larger purpose the competition is serving - Aero/Auto Industry.
I'd rather have the students screw up in FSAE, than screw up on a large vehicle that's getting into mass production.
FSAE is probably one of the best opportunities students get to try and fail (several times over). The 'failure' part is critical for learning. I don't think we should mitigate failure by curbing the challenge of learning.

Just my $0.02

/Sid

I am wholeheartedly opposed to the nerfing of the mechanical design aspect of FSAE. Even if you eliminated the things-breaking-and-falling-off problems, you'd still have oiling, cooling, fueling, electrical, and no-start problems.

200 kg for an FSAE car is like 1000 kg for an F1 car. It eliminates any need for aggressive engineering or prioritization. You could have a nice Suzuki 645cc vee-twin engine in a steel tube frame with no tube smaller than 1"x0.065", driving through an all COTS driveline, with 7/8"x.065" suspension arms hanging your hub/brake/upright hardware off the sides, and wings that you can use to throw the car onto the trailer at the end of the day.

Beyond anything else, there are races for two kinds of 80kg-100kg vehicles about this fast that have no vehicle DNFs in a field of thirty or forty. The motocrossers have the advantage of racing carefully-engineered consumer products, but the karters don't...

A speculation: I think a 150kg maximum weight would result in a higher finishing rate than a 200kg minimum would.

Dunk,

Thank you for breaking the recent boredom. Felt like sitting in a morgue.

Unfortunately, I disagree with both your suggested Rule changes. You have the right intent, but have overlooked the core problems (given below).
~~~o0o~~~

First, to briefly address the posts so far.

Yes, the level of failure is a disgrace. It is now, and has been from the beginning. Such an easy challenge to meet ("...build a small car ... drive 30 kms..."), yet so many FAILURES. Something seriously wrong.
~o0o~

Why is nothing being done?

Well, plenty is being done, but in the WRONG DIRECTION. Take last year's Oz-comp where the organisers handed out a half-dozen Speciality Awards to the no-hoper losers!

"Yes, Fat-Johnny, you did only manage a half-metre in the long jump in our under-9 Athletics carnival, ... SO HERE IS A GOLD MEDAL!"

Rewarding incompetence does not fix incompetence. Quite the opposite.
~o0o~

Dunk's "New Rule Number 1: When weighed, your car must have a minimum mass of 200kg."

Will such a mandated minimum mass make the cars more reliable?

NO WAY! The cars will become even worse. The teams will simply pile on top of their current unreliable junk another 10, 20, 50 kg of even more unreliable crap.

Again, see last year's Oz-comp. After a disastrously unreliable Euro-tour with their 2015 car, Monash decided to fit their 2016 "get-back-to-basics" car with an ... electro-pneumatic-CLUTCH-control! This "let's shoot ourselves in the foot, AGAIN..." mentality delivered them their first NON-1st-place at FSAE-Oz in eight years.

And there are countless other examples of overcomplicating this simple problem that will just get worse if students have to find some way of ADDING extra mass to the car.
~o0o~

Looking at this the other way round, is a lightweight car inherently UNreliable?

Of course not. I have been pushing the ~150 kg Brown-Go-Kart concept for a dozen years now, primarily because it offers a very cheap, and extremely RELIABLE, way of getting top-of-ladder. If it ain't there, it can't break! But very few takers. Remarkably, this avoidance of the BGK-concept is despite the fact that the few teams who have moved in that direction have also been very successful (eg. RMIT back around 2006+, and GFR more recently).

(BTW, my latest thinking, worked out in considerable detail, is an "all-steel" car at 120-140 kg. This either as "cheapest-ever" car (ie. with brand new engine costing <Aus$300) that would be capable of top-five at most comps, or as a "very cheap" car (ie. with a better, but still inexpensive, engine) capable of top-of-the-world. But try to find a student who will believe that a cheap, steel-fabricated-whatever can be as light as, or lighter than (!), a 3-D-printed-titanium-whatsit.)
~o0o~

Dunk's "New Rule Number 2: All teams ... to submit an advanced video of their running car... bonus points ... up to a maximum total of 50 points."

Will this incentive of gaining a few extra points from an early-finished car help?

Again, NO WAY. The current point structure offers teams a total of 425 points from Enduro/FuelEff (ie. nearly half of total!). A moderately competent team should easily pick up 300+ of those points, or around 1/3 of total points on offer. Has this MASSIVE points inducement helped raise the finishing rate in Enduro? Clearly not.
~~~o0o~~~

So,
Q1. What is the true, root cause, of this atrocious unreliability problem?

A-1a. LACK OF NECESSITY! (Too much food!)

As with Fat-Johnny above, the vast majority of students these days have grown up in an "...every kiddy gets a gold-star..." environment. The vast majority of FSAEers have NOT THE LEAST INTEREST in winning the comp. Or even in scoring well. Yep, just ask them.

To be blunt, most students are in FSAE to have a "cool" time. They want to play with expensive, hi-tech, toys, all of which are payed for by someone else (ie. me, the taxpayer!). And, most importantly, they all know that regardless of how bad their FSAE car is, they can go-a-job-hunting next year with a CV that reads "... I wuz in FSEA last yir, so I ar a rilly gud unjeneer, so i deserv a rilly gud job, so gimme lotsa munny!...".

Sadly, just this attitude is promoted by the FSAE organizers themselves, which compounds the problem. (I advise employers to be VERY SCEPTICAL of applicants with "FSAE" on their CVs. Most of them are freeloaders!)

A-1b. PATHOS!

Without a shadow of doubt, the vast majority of the students' "design" decisions are PATHETIC!

[Trivia Note: (Yes, a thousand++ years ago all small boys learnt this as part of the Trivium.)

* "Logos" decisions are made by the brain. These decisions are difficult, long-winded, and involve many boring numbers, and "logical" stuff. Worse yet, most often this line of thinking results in "aporia" (= "dead-end"), and the whole, BORING, process has to be re-started from some different angle.

* "Ethos" decisions are made by the heart. They involve a bit of above and below. (This thinking pumps adrenaline into your system, so technically comes from the kidneys (= "renal"), but its effect is to get your heart racing.)

* "Pathos" decisions are made by the stomach ... and regions further south! Such "...gut-feeling..." decisions are very quick and easy to make. Oh, sooo easy! In fact, most people are NOT even aware they make them. "Now, what happened to that huge chocolate-mud-cake that was here? Hmmm, someone must've eaten it?"
End Trivia]

This most significant root problem boils down to the fact that the majority of the students have their testicles in the driving seat, while their brain is fast asleep in the back-seat. (Face it, this comp is male-dominated.) The resultant overwhelming number of testosterone-driven (ie. pathetic) decisions swamp any logos thinking. Well, with the very rare exceptions of some small teams with a few "older heads" on board, or else very tight control by a "logos"-tical supervisor.

Without such damping-down of the hormonal urges, the young boys just want to run around crashing into stuff, looking cool, doing all sorts of hi-tech-ery, and thus impressing the girls, or their peers, or even more so the DJs, or in the long term, any future employers. Nothing new or unusual here. Watch any nature documentary and see the young males stupidly strutting-their-stuff during rutting season. Same-old, same-old.

But it ain't engineering! Just look at the pathetic results.
~~~o0o~~~

So, finally,
Q2. How to fix the problem?

A2. Well, hormone suppression treatment would probably be socially unacceptable. And not necessary anyway, given that this problem has been around for millenia, and can be reasonably controlled by social pressures. In short, tell them to stop goofing-off!

The lack of necessity is possibly harder to counter, but at the very least the "...every kiddy gets a gold star" approach should NOT be supported, as was done with the deplorable "Speciality Awards" mentioned above. The opposite approach should be taken. Any team not finishing a dynamic event should have their report card stamped, in big red letters, "FAILED!". These reports should then be made readily available to prospective employers.

Furthermore, DESIGN EVENT SHOULD BE SCRAPPED!

The "prestigious" DE is by far the biggest distraction to the testosterone-overdosed boys. This is the stage upon which, right from the beginning of the year, most students see themselves "strutting-their-stuff". This pathetic urge to impress the DJs ovewhelms any logos thinking. This is crystal clear. Blind Freddy can see it.

So, redistribute DE points with +100 points going to Cost (with those points based on a realistic cost of building the car, not on "neatest correct entry"), and +50 points to Fuel Economy (based on actual fuel usage over the Enduro, not using the silly speed-biased formula).

With no DE, the students' only opportunity to strut-their-stuff, in order to satisfy their hormonal need to impress the girls, their peers, or anyone else, is to build something that actually works. If the students want to look good, if they want to be seen as "players", then they have to build a car that actually turns its wheels.
~o0o~

But will DE ever be dropped?

I doubt it. The fact is that DE is there for the (pathetic) benefit of the DJs, NOT for the betterment of the students' education. This is obvious when it is looked at closely...

But I have said much above that should be allowed to sink in. I will leave the DE/DJs' failures for another post.

Z

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dunk Mckay

So "killing" certain design concepts is no justification not to change things.
If anything, in this case, it would probably level the field a little. Decent smaller engines are harder to come by, especially for teams in certain parts of the world.

---

Of course it would level up the field. Kill off all the design concepts until there is only 1 left (make FSAE a spec series) and the field would be more level than it's ever been. The question is, why would you want this for an educational design competition? This isn't racing. There are no fans that want to see an even race. There are no competing OEM's funding the series that all want to see their brands win. The goal of this competition was never to have all the teams finish as close together as possible, nor should it be. The goal was to give students and engineering challenge, and then see how well their design compares to other teams in a competitive environment. If there is a huge gap in how good of a job teams do, the points/results should reflect that.

Quote:

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Additionally, based on 200kg it only really kills the the design concepts of teams that currently reiterate the same successful design every year. If the teams really are as good as their car, and not just resting on the laurels of those that came before, then changing their concept shouldn't be an issue.

---

Teams reiterating the same design over and over is an entirely separate issue than the original topic of "how to get more teams to finish endurance". I agree with you in spirit, that teams have been able to successfully use the same formula for too many years, and trying to shake it up would be a good thing. And if they really are as good as their past results indicate, they will adapt and be just as successful again. But prescribing the design of the car in the rules is not the way to do it. Leave the design of the car as unregulated as possible, and change the event format or point allocations. Then see how the designs change in response. Make the acceleration distance twice as long. Make skidpad only 1 direction, and teams aren't told which direction until they enter they dynamic area, then they have 5 minutes to adjust and get in line. Revamp the cost event to make it more representative of the actual cost of the car. These kind of changes will make teams change their designs & adapt if they want to be successfull, but they have to use their own intelligence to figure out how, instead of just "the rulebook says we have to design our car to this concept now, so that's what we'll do".

Also I get the sense that you're targeting specific teams / a specific concept with this rule idea. Maybe you're a little bitter that they've won so much with "the same car". But take a look at how many teams reiterate the same concept every year and DON'T win. They keep making 4 cylinder, 13" tire, 200kg cars every year despite getting their butt kicked on a yearly basis by a better concept. They're re-iterating just as much as the winning teams, they're just reiterating an inferior concept and doing a worse job of it. It doesn't make any logical sense to try and target the teams that are reiterating a good concept and winning, and force them into an inferior concept (allowing the teams that already use an inferior concept to just keep doing what they're doing) in an attempt to make everything more level. Let's say hypothetically we have 45% of the teams that keep carrying over concept A every year, 45% of teams keep carrying over concept B every year, and 10% actually trying significantly different concept changes. why do you think it's better or more fair to arbitrarily decide that concept A needs to be shaken up and forced into designing concept B to just to prove that they can do something other than copy the same car every year? But the teams that have always built concept B just get to keep carrying over their design. What is that proving? Why not shake up the competition in a way that makes EVERYONE re-evaluate their concept?

The focus of this thread slightly evolved from the weight - reliability relation to the reasons why so little number of cars finished the endurance.

For me the main reason of lack of reliability is not low weight (if anything it is the other way around; heavy cars are less reliable). It is simpler than that: most of the teams spend too much time and allocate too much relative resources in concept, simulation, drawing, manufacturing and assembling their car and not enough in testing. Period.

Formula one teams with as much a 1/2 billion $ budget and as much as 800 (mostly experienced and skilled) people still manage to break things in the recent 8 days of Barcelona tests. But there are still Formula Student guys who think that their car have a great chance to be reliable at the competition with practically no testing.

Porsche, Toyota and (until last year) Audi LMP1 teams do perform as many as 7 rehearsals of 24 hours (in fact they run as much as 30 hours for each rehearsal) ahead of Le Mans 24 hours race. Applying the same ratio, it means that a FS team should do 7 times the endurance, that is about 200 km, without problem, before coming the competition.
However that is comparing professionals with students... 500 Km of testing seems to be a bare minimum. But that wont' happen if the car is finished 2 weeks before the competition (if any - some cars are still being assembled in the paddock the day before of the competition)

When I asked students how much test they performed before the competition 80 % of the time I have very vague answer such as “x days” and when I ask them how many hours, how many laps, how many km they really spent on the test track running, I don't get an answer.

Even worse most of them do not have any written record of what did happen during these tests; some don’t even log the number laps ran.

Here is a bit of advice for testing planning and report As design judge, I would like to see test report that includes at the minimum
Date
Weather condition and noticeable change during the day. A 300 $ weather station could be useful
Track and air temperature before and after each run.
Starting setup
What is the test plan: what are we doing today? You rarely won’t achieve all the test goals but you cannot start a test day without a plan. And that is the problem; I know too many FS teams that go to the test track with the goal of “running the car” with no other details…
Cold and hot tire pressure, cold and hot tire temperature (these measurements should be systematic every time the car leaves and come back to the pits)
Time at which the car left and came back to the pits
Number of laps per run
Each lap time
Driver subjective feedback
Setup change
After the test an engineering report that combines driver subjective data and car objective logged data analysis
Conclusion: what went well / what did not go well / why / how can we improve / next action plan. This part of the report should include the car failure analysis and the way the team work together

Last advice: have a plan B (and ideally a plan C) for each plan A for each part of the car. Example: your front wheel hub break. OK, bad drawing, bad manufacturing, shit happen that what this competition is about. 2 solutions A) you go home you redesign the hubs, reorder the material (you would be luck to have it next week), machine again, possible heat or surface treatment . you easily loose 3 to 6 weeks. B) you fit last year upright / hub / caliper and you loose just a few hours. Was that in the plans?

CASE STUDY 1.
============
(One of far too many.)

About 5 years ago I would ocassionally drop-in to one of the local FSAE teams. During one visit late in the year, the car was finished and had already covered a few miles. The car was up on a table so I shook the wheels and noticed significant play. I traced most of the play to the wheel-bearings, which, on closer inspection, were of the 68xx (ie. "thin-ring", or "extra-lite") DGBB type.

I suggested to the team members that there are much better ways of doing wheel-bearings, namely with same overall mass but with much higher load capacity and 1000x the lifetime. I added that their current setup was due for a catastrophic failure very soon, which might cost them many points at comp.

Their response, almost sung in chorus, was,
"Well, it's a racecar. That's what it's supposed to do!"
Then something about Colin Chapman and,
"...real racecars fall apart as they cross the finish line...".

Indeed, at a later test-day one of the bearings did "let go". It ripped a corner off the car. So, by the time the new wishbones were made and fitted, and other damage repaired, there was no more time for testing.

The important point is that this team is extremely well resourced. Fantastic workshop, great tech-staff, and a big bundle of cash put on the table each year (from me, the taxpayer!). But ever since their first comp in 2001 they have been perennial mid-fielders, with many, many DNFs.

For example, at 2016 Oz-comp they had a very similar car to the one from 5 years ago. Same wheel-bearings. Same potential performance (= piss poor). And they FAILED TO COMPLETE A SINGLE DYNAMIC EVENT.

Nevertheless, they all seemed quite happy. Smiles all round, joking, having a good time. And then at the Awards Ceremony ..... they received their very own "Speciality Award"!
"Yee-hah! This is toooo easy! Didn't even have to do all the hard work of driving the car around and around..."

And no doubt many of them are now in well-paid jobs, and "boldly advancing society's progress into the future"... (<- or make up your own meaningless modern-day waffle).
~o0o~

These piss-poor design efforts, and the atrocious unreliability that follows, will not change until this matter is addressed head-on.

Teams that bring cars that regularly fail to complete dynamic events should be condemned for what they are, namely PATHETIC. They should be PUBLICLY SHAMED, not rewarded. And their team-members should be discouraged from working in the engineering field, and advised to try something else.

(To clarify, I am not talking about teams that get a puncture on last lap of Enduro because they drove over someone else's broken bits. I am talking about the real no-hoper teams, who are easy to identify.)

Z

After quite some time finally an interesting discussion again :)

Like most here I don't see any need to Change rules to achieve a higher finisher rate. In my opinion the reason for most failures are that teams set their focus wrong. During the last years I had conversations that are frightening. As others already mentioned, you get almost half the total Points in Endurance and Fuel. So not finishing those Events make any decent position impossible. But teams still focus on everything except reliability. How many points do you earn by the weight saving of a smaller battery and a thinner starter cable and how many do you lose if the car doesn't restart in driver change? There you go.

I also have to agree to most of Z's post. I often get the feedback that I'm too harsh with the teams when giving feedback. But in my opinion if someone messed up, it isn't a big problem. That's what FSAE is about. But they need to realize they messed up to learn anything from it.
Two or three years ago I had a discussion with a team at FSG who's car was a disgrace. The whole thing was just poor. After the suspension failed during brake test, the event was finished for them (it was no surprise that this would happen). Afterwards the team continued to moan about their bad luck and that now they wouldn't have to possibility to show the big potention the car had. I guess they didn't learn anything. Because to do so they would have had to accept that they didn't have bad luck and their car didn't have any "potential". Without realizing that, there can't be any improvement as they will just do the same all over again next year and they will have "bad luck" again...

A couple of days ago I saw a documentary about the SpaceX challenge for student teams who had to build pods for the hyperloop. The whole thing was a disgrace. They had to build pods which where supposed to be accelerated to 350km/h by a sledge and the finish the distance as fast as possible. There was only 1 out of 50 teams which actually finished the distance. Most teams already failed because their pods wouldn't fit on the rails and similar bullshit. Still they would tell the participants the usual "everyone's a winner stuff". At least to half the teams they should have said "You wasted a shitload of many because you were uncapable of fulfilling the least requirements which were given. You fucked it up."

The task is supposed to be challenging and if a team performs poorly there must be an adequate margin to those who perform well. That's it.

I took part in 10 FSAE competitions and we failed twice to finish endurance in the last lap. In the first moment I was devastated by our "bad luck". But with some distance and after properly analysing what went wrong, the only correct conclusion was, we messed up both times. Stupid mistakes led to failures, end of story. I definitely learned more from that than I would have by finishing all 10 Endurances.

Because of the incremental nature of changes in FSAE I must assume that the organizers are meeting their goals. If the goal is to students to learn from their mistakes before going to an employer then less than half the cars completing endurance and all those ‘wasted’ tax dollars could be a good thing. I always learn more from my mistakes than successes and I would say FSAE is about 70% project and team management, 29% engineering, and about 1% racing.

But if was desired to increase the completion rate then I would proposes the two ideas below. They could be implemented together or one without the other.

Idea 1: Junior FSAE
In the past I have recommended that students and new teams pursue Baja SAE instead of FSAE. Baja teaches the same project and team management lessons but at a lower cost, lower physical risk, and lower risk of not completing the car.

So I would propose a junior FSAE class. There would be a spec engine, only the regular frame rules (no AFR), and a prohibition on certain materials (carbon fiber, titanium, ectera). This series would still teach the important lessons of FSAE but at a cost and risk level like Baja. In many ways Baja already is this series but not all of us like that much mud . These cars would compete at the same events as the regular FSAE cars but in a different class, much like other professional racing series. I would also propose some mechanism where teams could move from one class to the other, Maybe limit regular FSAE to 50 teams (in the USA) no limit for the number of junior teams. Then at fixed intervals (every 3 years?) the bottom 10 regular FSAE and top 10 junior FSAE teams would swap classes.

Idea 2: Many small events
Most FSAE events have a huge number of teams, so you need lots of space and lots of volunteers. So organizing an event is difficult and costly. I think that a greater number of smaller events could be easily organized. Almost every weekend all across the USA there are autocross events held in parking lots and run by a few volunteers. Why could FSAE not do this? There are FSAE alumni all across the country and with the help of organizations like the SCCA there could be “tryouts”. These events would be small (10 to 20 teams), short (probably just a Saturday), and would only have three events; a technical inspection, an informal design review, and then several hours of autocross. Teams would need to complete the autocross in 200% of the fastest time in order to compete at a larger event. We would not need the top level people from FSAE to attend but it would be good for some representative of SAE (not necessarily FSAE) to be there to officiate. I am not sure how the insurance would work but if the SCCA seems to have figured it out. This would also allow more people to volunteer since the events would be much closer to home and only one day long.

Thoughts?

-William

William

FSAE / FS rules are already too complicated. Class 2 and now Junior FSAE...? You are a student for only a few years: you do not need many intermediate steps. What are you afraid of?

The best way to learn how to swim is to jump in the pool; give yourself some challenges and figure out how to solve them.

Limiting yourself to a tubular chassis and simple material should be your choice and should depend on your team ability to reasonably put together means and goals; it shouldn't be imposed by any rules.

Claude,

My time in FSAE is short but the team's body of knowledge is large.
That is why the same teams, in pretty much every collegiate sport or competition, stay near the top or bottom.

From the scorn that is heaped on the cars on even mid field teams it is clear that pretty much everyone is dissatisfied with the current state of things.
Teams that show up with a non-competitive unreliable car one year tend to do so year after year.
Teams rarely continuously improve and I would bet that some of the ‘top’ teams are heavily dependent on momentum.

A well run organization team tends to remain well run.
A poorly run organization tends to remain poorly run unless acted on by an outside force.

If the goal is for them to learn then we should not be so upset when they fail; that is how they will learn.
And the students will learn the same key lessons if their car is a carbon fiber dream or a 500kg mess.
FSAE is mostly about engineering project management.
Students dump time into suspension and chassis design and then never use it; while the lessons about how to organize a team will last their entire career.

So you are correct that the best way is to jump in cold water.
But that also means most teams will never improve beyond their current level of performance.
If you want more teams to compete at a high level or even just finish endurance then a solution with intermediate steps is needed.

It is not the individual students that need to improve; they are already learning the correct lessons.
It is the teams as organizations that need to be pushed to do better.

***
What did you think about the other idea of having a mini event a few weeks before the large competitions?

-William

I did an informal game theory study of my own a few years back having a look at the trade-off between reliability and performance (if they were mutually exclusive). The results were pretty clear.

If you are looking for wins larger competitions favour chasing performance over reliability. In fact good engineering judgement would lead you to choose performance over reliability.

Simply imagine that you have a 2 team competition:

Team 1: 49% reliability, 51% performance
Team 2: 51% reliability, 49% performance

The possible results are:

Both teams finish (~25%) team 1 wins
Both teams fail (~25%) no team wins
Team 2 finishes, team 1 does not (~25%), team 2 wins
Team 1 finishes, team 2 does not (~25%), team 1 wins

The team with the slight performance advantage wins about twice as often as the other.

I won't go through the full study, but you can find an ideal trade-off to maximise chances of winning. It gets a lot worse for larger competitions. In a small competition a decent strategy is to focus on reliability and wait for the others to fail. In a large competition the odds are against everyone else failing.

This plays out in real life. In a small competition a reliable, but lower performance car can take podiums reasonably regularly. In these comps it is smart engineering practice to bank these results. In larger comps there are no podiums for the reliable but slower cars. What Claude would say is poor engineering in a comp like Australia is way off base as these teams are being rewarded for reliability. Similarly suggesting it is bad engineering practice to focus on performance rather than reliability in larger comps is also flawed.

I appreciate that this simple study is heavily flawed and that reliability and performance are not mutually exclusive.

...

If you want to encourage reliability you need to reward it (or punish unreliability). This should be as direct as possible. Weight limits, videos, and increased cost scores are indirect ways to encourage reliability. A more direct way would be a reliability score component.

My idea would be a reliability multiplier for the final score. Any missed heats would decrease it from 1 downwards. That way all of your events (including design) are directly reduced by low reliability. Intuitively this makes sense, even if a car is well designed, well marketed, and low cost if it doesn't work it is a bad product. As soon as your car is able to do all of the heats then all of the points are on offer, This means no change to the winners, the best teams will still be the highest performing reliable teams.

There are some things you can do to reduce the focus on performance, such as changing the Tmin multipliers for Autocross and Endurance, but I don't think that really helps the competition.

Kev

AWARDS CEREMONY SPEECH.
=========================
Spoken by President of Organising Committee.
=================================

(As I would like to hear it.)

"Well, another year, ... and another COMPLETE DEBACLE! What is the matter with you young people!!!? This is not a difficult problem! Build a small car. Drive it 30 kms. That is all we are asking of you. So, how is it possible that so many of you TOTALLY STUFF-UP SUCH A SIMPLE TASK!!!?

[...More general observations follow, then...]

Now I better get onto some specifics.

Let's start with you lot over there, Team-Useless. You no-hopers have been bringing near exactly the same car to this competition for as long as I can remember, at least five years now. Five years ago you managed to get through Acceleration and Skid-pad, and only then did your wheels fall off. But this year you FAILED TO FINISH EVERY SINGLE DYNAMIC EVENT! DISGRACEFUL!! PATHETIC!!!

And don't you clowns in Team-Cock-Up start sniggering, because you're even worse. Couldn't get through Scrutineering because the foot-box template didn't fit? Which IMBECILE was responsible for that? Come on, stand up so everyone can see you...

[...More detailed analysis...]

On the up-side, we are fortunate that the Committee has at last adopted the "Will M Relegation Rule". So all you tail-ender buffoons can go off and play your silly games in F-Baja, or Formula-Sewing-Machine, or whatever. You're not coming back here until we've seen that you've pulled your fingers out!

And so we get to the mid-field teams. Yep, you lot, Team-Plod, Team-Dawdle, and the rest of you pretenders.

Yes, sure, you all finished all the events, and you all managed to crack that piddling average speed of 50 kph in Enduro. SO WHAT? BIG DEAL! You're NOT here to simply repeat what every half-competent team has done before you. Just copying last year's successful cars is NOT ENGINEERING! You are here to PUSH THE ENVELOPE!

[...More such encouraging words to the mediocre teams...]

So, finally, we get to those teams that came first in the various events. And I should remind all of you that NO ONE REMEMBERS WHO CAME SECOND! Second is just the first LOSER!

Anyway, the names of the first placed teams are pinned to the noticeboard, and they can pick up their trophies on the way out. [Mumbles->] Whose stupid idea is this "trophy" thing, anyway?

So, that closes proceedings for this year, and...

[Prez gets nudged by his assistant and handed a message.]

Oh, yeah, well, one more thing. Seems that there has been some lobbying from the so-called "progressives" on the Committee. They say we should give more, ...ughhh..., "praise" to the first-place getters. So, here goes. In the words of the great Rugby League coach, Jack Gibson, I say to those teams that came first in the various events,
"Yuz done what yuz was asked to do".

Right, that's it for this year. And for those of you coming back next year, there'll be HELL TO PAY if you don't lift your game!"
~~~o0o~~~

:)

Z

(PS: You only "learn from your mistakes", when the mistakes HURT.)

Z, I have a lot of respect for your design philosophies and engineering / physics knowledge.

But if your management / motivational ideas were any good, you'd be getting paid a lot of money to lead engineering projects. There's a reason you're just yelling at college students on an internet forum instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claude Rouelle

Last advice: have a plan B (and ideally a plan C) for each plan A for each part of the car. Example: your front wheel hub break. OK, bad drawing, bad manufacturing, shit happen that what this competition is about. 2 solutions A) you go home you redesign the hubs, reorder the material (you would be luck to have it next week), machine again, possible heat or surface treatment . you easily loose 3 to 6 weeks. B) you fit last year upright / hub / caliper and you loose just a few hours. Was that in the plans?

---

Claude,
Just curious, are you suggesting teams should maintain the same basic kinematics/ upright design each year, or are you suggesting that even if you have to jury rig it to work, and the handling is now shot, just running/testing the car like that is better than not running at all during the redesign process?

- Noah

Will,

You are looking for outside-in solutions for a minor problem that can be solved easily with some honesty, objectivity and an inside-out attitude.

You might find some advice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1n-rgqSTyY

As far as mini event(s) a few weeks before the competition I suggest you to start thinking about it once you will be able to run 10 endurances without any problem; that would be a good intermediate step to gain confidence and avoid waste time and money, and embarrassment.

Claude

Noah,

No I did not say that.

OK you destroy your from hubs and now it's gonna take at least 6 weeks to order new material, re-machine etc... During this time your engine guys stupidly wait to tune the ECU on real conditions (not on the test bench anymore). Could be that you have an issue with your drive shaft CV joint that you won't know about only at he competition... too late. And your drivers are terribly missing training time.

When you face that kind damage control and you need track time, do you think that 500 mm difference in VSAL or 50 mm of roll center height or 20% or Ackermann difference is still a #1 priority?

Look at the large picture!

Claude

Claude,

I completely agree with you. I just wanted to make sure I was on the same page. Problems similar to this are very familiar and is something my team is dealing with right now. I just wasn't sure if you were advocating for utilizing last years parts for competition or just as a stopgap measure. (Also, test bench ECU Tuning. Ha...!)

Noah

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claude Rouelle

Will,

You are looking for outside-in solutions for a minor problem that can be solved easily with some honesty, objectivity and an inside-out attitude.

Claude

---

Alright, we aren't on the same page and clearly aren't going to get there.
To me this is an issue of structure and incentives.
The teams and students are acting rationally and are unlikely to change without outside pressure.


I graduated too long ago to pick a fight, but clearly nothing has changed and the FSAE leadership is OK with the status quo.

-Wiiliam

Will,

Need OUTSIDE pressure to succeed? I have employees who build pressure for themselves, on their own. THAT is Inside-Out solution. These are people who know that if they are not part of the solution they are part of the problem. If I build pressure on them that is because something is going wrong and thankfully that should and is not happening very often.

You got side track in your management analysis. If you think you need pre-mini events to build pressure so that you car becomes reliable in real competitions, then I feel there is a great chance you and your team need to first create some abilities to believe and yourself/themselves and from there create a action plan.

Again 10 endurance runs without any failure on your own test track. Then you can get out and face the world with much, much more confidence. Any pre-event with other teams (mandatory or informal) before that would be a waste of time, energy and focus.

You are right FSAE/FS design judges do not change: we need to continuously tell some students (or ex-students) like you to kick your own butt!.

Create your own structure and your own incentives. Do not wait for somebody else to do it for you.

Naoh,

Not necessarily last year part but in any case a Plan B and ideally a Plan C. For each car part.

Claude

Kevin,

Quote:

---

In a small competition a decent strategy is to focus on reliability and wait for the others to fail.

---

That is, in fact, the strategy that Steven Bradbury's (very cunning Chinese!) coach used.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...9ee2c1c8eb.jpg

I reckon Wollongong's Oz-2016 win was pretty much the same thing.

Which raises another point, "If you ain't in it, you can't win it."

Methinks you guys at ECU missed a great opportunity there at Oz-2016!
~~~o0o~~~

JT A.

Quote:

---

Z,
...if your management / motivational ideas were any good,...

---

The motivational approach I posted above is the guaranteed-good way of getting the best results. That is why it is always used whenever there is an overwhelming NECESSITY for those results.

But today there is an over-abundance of food, so no real necessity for anything. So hordes of useless teams in FS/FSAE that bring cars that fall apart on the start line. Or before.

Obvious, really.

Z



(PS. Kev, also found this one, which I thought you might like. :))
http://pedestriantv-prod.s3.amazonaw...d_bradbury.jpg

If you want to walk, firstly you need to run a bit

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claude Rouelle

Will,

Need OUTSIDE pressure to succeed? I have employees who build pressure for themselves, on their own. THAT is Inside-Out solution. These are people who know that if they are not part of the solution they are part of the problem. If I build pressure on them that is because something is going wrong and thankfully that should and is not happening very often.

You got side track in your management analysis. If you think you need pre-mini events to build pressure so that you car becomes reliable in real competitions, then I feel there is a great chance you and your team need to first create some abilities to believe and yourself/themselves and from there create a action plan.

Again 10 endurance runs without any failure on your own test track. Then you can get out and face the world with much, much more confidence. Any pre-event with other teams (mandatory or informal) before that would be a waste of time, energy and focus.

You are right FSAE/FS design judges do not change: we need to continuously tell some students (or ex-students) like you to kick your own butt!.

Create your own structure and your own incentives. Do not wait for somebody else to do it for you.

---

I think "pre-mini-events" are important for having a successful season. What's it worth to run 10 or even 50 endurance runs on the test track, if your car is not rules compliant and you then start to make significant changes on the "real events"?
This is exactly what happens to many teams at FSG each year. Several teams missed one or more dynamic disciplines and only 6 (!!) electric teams were able to finish the endurance. At least 4 of those teams that finished attended at least one "pre-mini-event".

Despite the advantage, that you already had a scrutineering and can make the changes to get the car fully rules compliant before the "real events", the whole team learns the structure and the procedures of an event.
The next big advantage is, that you can estimate the performance of your car much better and then adjust the focus of what has to be done. If you run against some of the best teams mid of june and have 5s off-pace, you should focus in the performance. If the speed is good, you can focus on reliability.

My team attends at least the ZF Racecamp almost every year. In the 4 years I am with the team now, we missed it only once and this year was the worst of our team's history. The guys from Delft travel more than 600km every year, just for this "pre-mini-event".
And you can regularly see, that teams that perform good at these pre-events also perform well on the real events. We also use this event as a team building. There are always some team members who continue working twice as hard after returning from the race camp.

In comparison to the industry, you have no possibility to make pressure on the manufacturers that you are highly dependent on. In every season, there are some parts that are delayed 4-6 weeks and these are often parts (e.g. planetary gearbox) where you cannot have a Plan B or C or D.
It's often difficult enough to find anybody who is able to manufacture the part. My experience is, that a pressure from outside can help a lot. We just tell the new team members that the first event is at date X and the car has to be running until then, so they have to plan their season that everything is finished one month earlier.
This is way easier than telling that there is an imaginary date X where the car needs to be running in order to have a successful season. Those are still students in their first or second year and not experienced engineers.

Whoever you are Mr. lctromnml (not worth to introduce yourself?....)

I somewhat agree with you on the pre-inspection training...but...

I am not qualified to give you a clear opinion on inspection, other people know this exercise better than me, but what I know is that often the issues met in inspection are due to either a lack of knowledge of the rules by students and/or some procrastination of the students to ask the rule committee (the rule committee, not the FSAE forum!) questions that would eliminate their doubts on some specific matters.
Also I am not sure that all car issues that will be spot by official scrutineers at FS / FSAE events will necessarily spotted by "amateur" scrutineers.

What I can also tell you is that in Formula Bharat (Bharat is the former name of India) students have to send dozens of pictures ahead of time of all car details including pictures of templates inserted in the chassis. They also have to send a video of the car starting on its own, accelerating, braking, locking all 4 wheels in braking and the driver exiting the car in less than 5 seconds. I am proud to say that I initiated this process. Pictures and videos are analyzed by experienced judges and scrutineers and the team are aware of issue to be fixed ahead of the competition.
It makes the job of scrutineers and students easier. Indian FS car are still way behind in terms of performance and reliability but their slope of progress is the best I know. I am sure these pictures / video submission as well as coaching from several design and cost judges as help the Indian students.

Student Formula Japan has the same procedure although less intense. Their percentage of endurance finish is the best. They sacrifice innovation for reliability. I bet the documents submission is part of their car reliability reasons.

Now you will ask why aren't other organizers doing this? I do not know; you have to ask them. I did it for Formula Bharat because we (students, organizers, judges) got in several informal conversations on how Indian FS cars design and performance and reliability could be improved and I gave my suggestions. They were definitely the the kind of team that need the most guidance. Maybe it will come a time that such guidance won't be necessary at least for experienced teams.

But there is also a limit of the pre-event assistance that the organizers have to give to students. Students are supposed to be responsible adults and should be able to take themselves by the hand. It is their initiative that will make a good and reliable car.

What about getting around your car (this year car, last year car, next year car drawings) with all team members and objectively and unemotionally ask yourself what could go wrong in tech or in reliability. And come with an action plan.

There will be more results coming from that inside-out approach than an outside-in pre-event "solutions". But that requires communication, leadership, ownership. objectivity and honesty. That is the less visible cause where the great team are getting their performance from. They have learnt how to stop whining and start winning.

*****

Coming back to the initial topic of this thread: shame on you, on your children and on the children of your children for the next 20 generations if you show up at any FS / FSAE event with a car that weights more that 200 Kg.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claude Rouelle

Coming back to the initial topic of this thread: shame on you, on your children and on the children of your children for the next 20 generations if you show up at any FS / FSAE event with a car that weights more that 200 Kg.

---

Back in 2013 we had a car weigh 460 pounds / 208 kg, shame on us.

That same car is one of only two times in the last decade that school has finished every single event at Michigan, and we placed low-50s overall. Shame on us?

The problem isn't as simple as saying "too much weight!" or "test more!", there's lots of internal things (knowledge transfer, school limitations, student involvement) that cause cars to fail that is never apparent. Some school will never change and are content with building cars that would look right at home in 1993 competitions, it's just the way it is.

I do not see any reason why a team that made a car at 208 Kg in 2013 could not make car at 200 Kg (440 pounds) or less in 2017. Can't lose 8 kg in 4 years? Take a subscription to weight watcher!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claude Rouelle

Will,

Need OUTSIDE pressure to succeed? I have employees who build pressure for themselves, on their own. THAT is Inside-Out solution. These are people who know that if they are not part of the solution they are part of the problem. If I build pressure on them that is because something is going wrong and thankfully that should and is not happening very often.

You got side track in your management analysis. If you think you need pre-mini events to build pressure so that you car becomes reliable in real competitions, then I feel there is a great chance you and your team need to first create some abilities to believe and yourself/themselves and from there create a action plan.

Again 10 endurance runs without any failure on your own test track. Then you can get out and face the world with much, much more confidence. Any pre-event with other teams (mandatory or informal) before that would be a waste of time, energy and focus.

You are right FSAE/FS design judges do not change: we need to continuously tell some students (or ex-students) like you to kick your own butt!.

Create your own structure and your own incentives. Do not wait for somebody else to do it for you.

---

No need for the belligerent tone; it is counter productive and has shut down this discussion.

We cannot even agree what success is in FSAE.
Simply honestly consider: Why do students participate in FSAE?
I think you will find that the internal goals of FSAE teams and students are not aligned with the goals of the FSAE leadership.
So yes, in this case external pressure is required to readjust their priorities.

Bye,
William

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lctromnml

I think "pre-mini-events" are important for having a successful season. What's it worth to run 10 or even 50 endurance runs on the test track, if your car is not rules compliant and you then start to make significant changes on the "real events"?
This is exactly what happens to many teams at FSG each year. Several teams missed one or more dynamic disciplines and only 6 (!!) electric teams were able to finish the endurance. At least 4 of those teams that finished attended at least one "pre-mini-event".

Despite the advantage, that you already had a scrutineering and can make the changes to get the car fully rules compliant before the "real events", the whole team learns the structure and the procedures of an event.
The next big advantage is, that you can estimate the performance of your car much better and then adjust the focus of what has to be done. If you run against some of the best teams mid of june and have 5s off-pace, you should focus in the performance. If the speed is good, you can focus on reliability.

My team attends at least the ZF Racecamp almost every year. In the 4 years I am with the team now, we missed it only once and this year was the worst of our team's history. The guys from Delft travel more than 600km every year, just for this "pre-mini-event".
And you can regularly see, that teams that perform good at these pre-events also perform well on the real events. We also use this event as a team building. There are always some team members who continue working twice as hard after returning from the race camp.

In comparison to the industry, you have no possibility to make pressure on the manufacturers that you are highly dependent on. In every season, there are some parts that are delayed 4-6 weeks and these are often parts (e.g. planetary gearbox) where you cannot have a Plan B or C or D.
It's often difficult enough to find anybody who is able to manufacture the part. My experience is, that a pressure from outside can help a lot. We just tell the new team members that the first event is at date X and the car has to be running until then, so they have to plan their season that everything is finished one month earlier.
This is way easier than telling that there is an imaginary date X where the car needs to be running in order to have a successful season. Those are still students in their first or second year and not experienced engineers.

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Ictromnml,

How many parts are you guys having someone else manufacture? I understand maybe if you are buying something with a long lead time like wheels or differential components, but normally that lead time is accounted for when ordering. On another note, I think the ability for teams to be able to attend a mini-event says a lot more about their funding than anything else. I agree with Claude on his points regarding inspections. Going to a pre event isn't really feasible for my team. Even if it was, I would argue that it would be much better to spend the days/money related to traveling on hard testing back at home base (for my team at least).

Noah

Love the conversation!

A couple of points:
Noah,
why is a Pre-Event not possible for you? Just make your "own" Pre-Event. We did that at least twice before the first competition every year.
Just spend some time with Alumni scrutineering the car, run through a Design Event and Presentation and then take the Car through every discipline. It helps.

Claude,
we cannot optimize for all things. And it seems you are suggesting this.
Yes, running a car in 10 enduros before every competition is a nice thing. But nearly all members from eg. Zurich are new every year. So a) we cannot push all deadlines much earlier, otherwise we would build the same car every year and b) they need to "feel" the pressure of an event otherwise mistakes happen.
We usually see a massive improvement in "team performance" and "game time genes" at the second event compared to the first one.(That's why we always went for FSUK before FSG and FSA...).
You cannot "practice" these things properly. And here we are not the Audi's and Porsche's of this world that have experience in these situations.

A pre-event helps best possible to simulate this scenario and that's why we always pushed to make the ZF Race Camp. Travelling a day to Friedrichshafen was always worth it! Don't know why anyone would have a problem with this. Gas for the team for this trip should not make or break your budget...

I like the picture stuff from India. Don't know if we have enough manpower in scrutineers to handle e.g. FSG with those pictures.