2014 FSAE-Australasia

[Moke]

* If much slower times, say, slower by one or more seconds, then 0 points, because this is clearly a Team that was once good, but now gets marked down because no knowledge transfer...

So by this plan UWA with the so called "most innovative suspension design" that only got 3 points would now get 0. Pretty quickly large innovation leaps would stop as teams would become risk adverse and only make small changes as needed rather than risk getting zero.

[Z]

Brent,

That UWA Team scored 3/200 possible DE points. So -197 behind the Top-Teams.

With my suggested system Teams with "no change" performance get 50/100. This will typically be the score achieved by Top-Teams that are "coasting" on the back of their previous years' efforts.

So, take a big innovative risk and cock it up, and -50 points behind the TTs. A reasonable penalty for cocking up.

Take the innovative risk and get it right, and +50 points ahead of the TTs. A worthwhile reward.

Importantly, even if you are not quite as fast Dynamically as the TTs, you can still win Outright because this year's students made a bigger Design leap in this year.

Isn't that roughly what the Design Event is supposed to be about?

Z

[Moke]

So, take a big innovative risk and cock it up, and -50 points behind the TTs. A reasonable penalty for cocking up.

So UWA cocked up with their "most innovative suspension design" as it was not as fast on track as the previous year?

Using them as an example they would get a max of 50 - best design, someone with a slightly quicker car gets their 50 stopwatch points and lets say just 1 point in static design = 51 points, slight improvement beats innovation.

Edit: Forgot to say that the second team, lets call them Team M spent their year testing, tuning, improving reliability and training drivers, rather than a new design.

[NickFavazzo]

I go away for a few days and came back to quite a read!

Just quickly. I don't recall any late submissions in 2012. I was quite upset with the score not following what was set out in the rules. From my understanding at the time there were no penalties to be applied (as per rules) other than C5.11.2/3.

In my opinion we should have either scored 0 (as per my interpretation of the rules) or more than 3.
3 was the ultimate "fuck you" it cut right to the soul. To be told by so many that you are wrong, causing trouble, presenting ideas outside the rules, cheating, etc etc.
Looking back on it, it was an absolute disgrace that the only people interested in the concept was Claude, who we spent some time with to help understand what we were trying to do and people from other teams. Claude and other competitors made me proud to have tried something different, contrasting greatly from many officials I had to interact with.

Had I not been part of a successful team in previous years I would have left and never came back to the comp. It was absolutely heartbreaking to be, what felt like, attacked for trying something different. It is also without a doubt why my involvement with the team has dropped off since then.

Scoring 3 said we understood nothing behind what generated our concept and nothing about any design category. We were effectively told we knew nothing and that our constant attempts at innovation were attempts as cheating. We designed 75mm of BUMP travel into our aerobeam cars JUST so we could display that we truly had suspension. Find me another team that has to do something similar.

Reading the design event feedback sheet there was so little understanding of vehicle dynamic basics that from the comments we could see that either the judge didn't know we didn't have beams axles or he/she didn't understand the differences between basic suspension types.

This definitely hit a raw nerve. So apologies for my language and ranting.

I need to re-read this thread and hopefully I'll have something constructive to add.

[Big Bird]

Ladies and gents, in the interests of putting the issue to rest, I am accepting responsibility for the 2012 UWA Design scoring issue. Please see my apology elsewhere on these boards. I request that you respect my actions by directing further Forum discussion on this topic directly through me.

Thank you

[mdavis]

Would anyone mind posting the ECU CG height with/without driver? Based on looking at the engine package, it would seem to be incredibly low, and that has been repeated here, but I'm curious how low. I'd also be interested in weight bias (%F, with or without driver) if the team is willing to share it.

[Kevin Hayward]

190mm with driver. Test was a little lower, but with such a high tilt angle even half a degree out makes a big difference. Measurements were consistently between 180 and 190.

55% rear with driver.

Kev

[Z]

Kevin,

All four wheels moved 150 mm forward = world-beater!

Z

[ChristianChalliner]

190mm!!!! That's insane. I was thinking <250 was probably the limit for us if we drysumped, no idea how we'd get to 190.

Kevin I was thinking that given you run a custom bottom end why did you decide on the orientation engine>gearbox>diff? If you somehow managed to drive over the top it might be possible to get engine>diff>gearbox if you see where I'm going? So your outdrives came out just behind the crank shaft axis. Then you'd have even more rear weight and an even shorter car. Maybe even Z's driver inside the wheelbase is possible?

[Moke]

I looked back at our 2005/2006 car and the COG was 180mm with smaller wings and, this will make you somewhat happy Z, 60% rear. Didn't win anything at comp.