2015 FSAE Rules

[Westly]

Some nice posts here (good one Wes). I’m typing one-fingered today, so my inputs will be short.
- It is not up to the organizers to address reliability
- The teams choose their own destiny
- Think ambitions vs capability….
- Why do rule changes need reasons??
- Agreed more lead time would be nice, for the sake of international entries
- On the other hand, a robust design concept and delivery strategy should be competitive irrespective of a few specification changes
- I’d personally like to see more discussion here quantifying the execution side of things. Most teams are uncompetitive by a margin far greater than their concept’s potential
- I’d still love to see a well-managed team enter a “brown fruit box”. A concept car driven by underspecification and average materials. Underpowered aircooled single with a carb. Wooden chassis? Golf car F&R suspension. Average specs but built to sound engineering principles and delivered well. For comparative purposes of courses. At the end of the weekend, any team that finishes behind the fruit box runs a lap of the endurance track with their pants around their ankles…

Hi Geoff,

I dont believe that it is the organisers responsibility to address reliability, nor should rules be changed to address this, but they can encourage it through design feedback. The australian comp was quite harshly critised by overseas judges in 2012 with all the cars too heavy and out of touch with the leaders in europe amongst\other issues. And this seems to be a common theme from what I have seen, that officials much more greatly encourage optimisation, vehicle lightness and other additional features, rather than simplicity and reliability. If questions were raised by judges/officials, not nessecarily in scored events, not on how much weight they managed to reduce their components by, but what features/systems they have implimented to improve reliabiltiy this would encourage this trend.

Interesting to note: The top 5 in Design at 2014 FSG didnt finish endurance, 1 of the Top 5 in Design at Michigan finished enduro (GFR, 4th) and ETS has won design twice this year (Michigan and North), but failed to compete either competitions endurance.

I know this only addresses a portion of what you are trying to convey, but I need to get back to work!

[Z]

MAJOR, ON-TOPIC, RANT!
======================

This is probably a complete waste of time, because all of the very REASONABLE issues below have been extensively covered before, but are clearly being IGNORED by the Rules Committee.

1. Why are FSAE Officials so keen to tell the students that "FSAE is NOT Mini-F1!", while simultaneously being so determined to TURN FSAE INTO MINI-F1!?
Blind-Freddy can see that these aero-changes take their inspiration directly from F1. (This has been noted by quite a few other posters here).
Very HYPOCRITICAL, and very UN-IMAGINATIVE!

2. Why do the changes have far more blue ink than red (ie. more added words, than subtracted)? Again, clearly part of the on-going trend to turn FSAE into a spec-series, JUST LIKE F1.
So, for example, how long before the students' choice to select their preferred weight-distribution is subverted by some dim-witted Official's brainless opinion as to what "looks" good. Just like in F1, where F:R tyres sizes are very tightly controlled, purely because of one dim-wit's "aesthetic" tastes!

3. Why, despite suggestions going back at least to 2005, are there STILL NO DEFINITIONS of what exactly constitute these tightly controlled "Aerodynamic Devices"???
What is poor young Hu Mi, the Aero-Lead from Team Outer Mongolia, to make of these new Rules?
"Ooooo..., what is 'wicker bill'?
I think ... must be like 'duck bill'... Yes, yes..., because all Westerner have very big nose, like duck... So Rule say we must make VERY BIG nose on car, like duck.
Oooo..., or maybe NOT nose... Who knows...????? Oooo, now my head hurt..."
Clearly, the Rules Committee must be dominated by Arts Majors, because Engineers should know how to put together UNAMBIGUOUS documentation packages. Or, at least, they used to...

4. Further to above.
Can a "bodywork nose" extend further forward than 700 mm in front of front-tyres?
How will Hu Mi ever know?
Can "bodywork" extend further rearward than 250 mm behind rear-tyres, or aft and outside-of-the-inside of rear-tyres?
Specifically, could the rear-tyres have drag-reducing streamlined wheelpods behind them? If not, then WHY NOT!? (Oh yes, they're not in F1...)

5. "T9.5.1 Minimum Radii ... of forward facing edges ... 5 mm for horizontal edges ... 3 mm for vertical edges ..."
What about forward-facing edges that are NOT purely horizontal or vertical?
Are sloping edges NOT allowed (maybe because they are too 3-D-ish!)?
And its seems that REARWARD-facing edges can be, and are encouraged to be, RAZOR-SHARP!!!!
Does anyone on the RC think these things through?

6. "T9.7.1 Aero Device Stability ... ADEQUATE rigidity ... move EXCESSIVELY..."
Has anyone ever seen an Engineering Specification that is more wishy-washy than above?
How about "... Aero Devices that you just want to give a big hug ..."?
Would a cleverly designed auto-feathering wing be allowed or banned (ie. a wing that automatically reduces its AoA and DF at higher speeds, by TE or flaps flexing downward)?
Is all this ambiguity specifically left in there so that certain unimaginative Officials can arbitrarily ban the more creative Teams, simply because they don't like them?

7. Finally (for now), WHY SO LITTLE "OPENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY" in this whole business?
Oh yes, that would expose all the Official hypocrisy, and fear of C&I...

It is quite obvious that the Officials proposing the above Rules changes have very limited C&I. They clearly have a preconceived (and extremely DULL) notion of what they want all the Teams to build, and that is a Mini-F1 car!

Z

[JulianH]

Maybe I am just getting older, but I have to agree with everything Z says...
Small front wings and narrow rear wings just scream F1... Especially there is simply no reason for a "max 25cm height" front wing just looks!

The Minimum radii rule is still a pain. In the UK 2012 we had to put some stupid tape on the trailing edges because the scrutineer didn't care that the edge was clearly rearward facing, he said everything had to be above the minimum radii. If this will be still enforced 2015, we have incredible inefficient airfoils..

I think the point Kevin made is correct (I said it in my last post): Restrict the height and maybe reduce the front and rear allowed position. That's how to restrict aero, not with stupid keep out zones and "xy percent of the tire must be unobstructed". I simply don't get why the height of the front wing is even considered to be restricted.

I think the teams should send in something like an SES for the Aero mounting with clear rules what the mounting has to withstand, nothing which depends on the mercy of the scrutineers.
As long as we are still going to see flying tires from two design finialists in one endurance, I think there are bigger problems than that.

Last thing about the openness:
As Europe is still the center of electric FSAE, we have the same discussion here: They want to limit the power of 4WD to 55kW and give the 2WDs 80kW. Nobody knows why and what's the point for that. And of course nobody of the Rule-Makers wants to talk. The only really open guys are the Germans (this has to be said!). They are willing to sit down and make their case. Interestingly, they see the whole thing different...

[Dunk Mckay]

I can see the max 25cm height rule as being an attempt to improve reliability through better cooling airflow enforced on the teams, but that's a bit of a weak argument. Especial considering the loopholes in the rules (anyone thinking about combining GFR's front wing with Greenteam's rear flap? I'll say no more for fear of giving it away completely).

Edit: Dunk, I agree you don't need Aero to place well. FSUK showed that reliability and preparation are king. (14th place was the 500pt cross over and 350 points separated those teams. eek!). With roughly 30 points separating each team, alot of technical improvement is required to make that gap up, ~35kgs of weight reduction, or significant Aero improvements based on our lap simulations. Aero was a good place for teams to actually gain significant performance benefits from technical design when your in the top couple of placings at competition. But the deciding factor to doing well was preparation and reliability in the end, so sounds as though Brunel was lucky more than anything if they finished 2 weeks before comp, and with little testing finished endurance.

Good teams are good, not because of their aero but because of their management, which is why I didn't believe the Aero rules needed to change. Aero was just another feather in their cap, but isn't worth 100s of points like some people believe.
Driver Training, Reliability, Preparation and statics are now even more important with these rules, with Technical Performance Potential between different concepts becoming even closer.

I'm going to echo Kevin by saying this, and like him I don't mean to sound degrading.
However, as close to the top as an 11th overall spot might sound, Brunel were over 260 points behind fifth place.
It seems to me to be a bit of a stretch to suggest that that difference (almost a 50% points increase for Brunel) can be overcome by driving a bit earlier and better statics preparation.
Unfortunately the scores of the teams just outside the 'top' drop off very quickly.

Don't worry, I'm under no illusion that my old team are going to magically jump up to the top. There was certainly a lot of luck involved, as in fact they did not have 2 weeks of testing, but 2 days. 2 weeks is what we usually get. 2 years ago we made the move to designing for reliability above all else (to finish first first you have to finish), which is probably why they finished endurance. They also got "meatballed" because of too much steam coming out the breather (driver hadn't turned the water pump on after the engine had heated up), which cost even more points.

And it's not a case of better statics prep, but actually doing statics prep in the first place.

The point I was trying to make, which you both touched on, is that for a good non-aero car concept and a team with limited resources the potential is there to do very well, !!!IF!!! the team and project is manage properly. Every single shortcoming Brunel has can be probably be traced back to poor management, and perhaps a but of inexperience. So to start accusing any rules of favoring teams with better resources is damn lazy.
The only advantage teams with better resources have is that the team managers can't sit around all day complaining about how bad they have it compared to the rich teams, and have to get off their asses and go do some proper engineering.

I dont believe that it is the organisers responsibility to address reliability, nor should rules be changed to address this, but they can encourage it through design feedback.

I both agree and agree.

I don't think the rules should be changed to improve reliability, not the technical ones anyway. But I do think the organizers are the only body with the ability to impress upon teams the importance of reliability. They are certainly not doing it themselves, and we can scream and shout about it on here all the time but it's not helping.

There's a number of forums that could be used to greater to effect to push this idea, 'Learn to Win' for example, in the UK. They should make it their motto: "To finish first, first you have to finish" and scream it at everyone there all day long. It shoud also be integrated into all of the speeches, seminars and ceremonies at the competition events as well.


It does seem like chasing lower mass and big aero has been a contributing factor, but as I said, I agree that the rules shouldn't take the responsibility of reliability out of the teams hands.

I feel like most teams take it as being all or nothing. Push to be close to the top, or don't even bother. This drives them to push their designs to the limit, the time they spend designing to the limit, and to neglect all else (including good management). Would a shake up of the points system that makes any difference.
If there was only 100 points between the top 10 teams instead of 300, would the be a bigger push to find that extra time to maximize a small points difference? Or would the fact that good points are almost guaranteed even if you're not quite quickest be enough to divert more focus onto finishing in the first place.
What if over half the points came purely from finishing within 150% of the fastest car? Surely just finishing faster than a crawl would become more important and people would take less risk?
What about (as I've suggested before) slashing design points (in half?) if you don't finish endurance?

There are probably plenty of ways to improve reliability across the entire field, without changing the technical rules. But the only body of people with the ability to influence the entire field is the event organizers and rules makers.

[mdavis]

Maybe I am just getting older, but I have to agree with everything Z says...
Small front wings and narrow rear wings just scream F1... Especially there is simply no reason for a "max 25cm height" front wing just looks!

The Minimum radii rule is still a pain. In the UK 2012 we had to put some stupid tape on the trailing edges because the scrutineer didn't care that the edge was clearly rearward facing, he said everything had to be above the minimum radii. If this will be still enforced 2015, we have incredible inefficient airfoils..

I think the point Kevin made is correct (I said it in my last post): Restrict the height and maybe reduce the front and rear allowed position. That's how to restrict aero, not with stupid keep out zones and "xy percent of the tire must be unobstructed". I simply don't get why the height of the front wing is even considered to be restricted.

I think the teams should send in something like an SES for the Aero mounting with clear rules what the mounting has to withstand, nothing which depends on the mercy of the scrutineers.
As long as we are still going to see flying tires from two design finialists in one endurance, I think there are bigger problems than that.

Last thing about the openness:
As Europe is still the center of electric FSAE, we have the same discussion here: They want to limit the power of 4WD to 55kW and give the 2WDs 80kW. Nobody knows why and what's the point for that. And of course nobody of the Rule-Makers wants to talk. The only really open guys are the Germans (this has to be said!). They are willing to sit down and make their case. Interestingly, they see the whole thing different...

Julian,

I also agree with most of what Z says, but one comment about your point on SES like documentation for aero mounting. The one problem I have with saying "if you're going to have wings, your mounts need to withstand xxxx newtons in direction X, yyyy newtons in direction Y" is that if a team shows up with Monash sized wings, the loading conditions are going to be considerably different compared to ETS sized wings. Unfortunately, removing the flat requirement adds back subjectivity, which is what we're trying to avoid as much as possible.

I agree, the height of the front wing rule is simply stupid. If the rulesmakers wanted to make sure the drivers could see something, have a "colored dot test" where driver must sit in the seat, belted in, full gear and must tell a judge what color a certain dot is, if it's placed x meters in front of the car at y angle from the car centerline.

-Matt

[Z]

I have had another quick look at these 2015 Rules Revisions. These are described on the SAE site as,

"The long awaited decision on the revised aerodynamic rules changes are now published.
... Though the dimensions are correct there is some final word-smithing to be ..."

Just some "word-smithing", huh?
~o0o~

So...

"T9.2 Location - Front Mounted Devices
T9.2.1 In plan view, no part of any aerodynamic device, wing, under tray or splitter can be:
a. Further forward than 700 mm (27.6 inches) forward of the fronts of the front tires
b. Wider than the outside of the front tires measured at the height of the hubs.
T9.2.2 When viewed from the front of the vehicle the part of the front wheels/tyres that are more than 250 mm (9.8 inches) above ground level must be unobstructed by any part of the aerodynamic device or other bodywork, with the exception of any vertical surfaces (end plates) less than 25 mm in thickness.
Note: 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 apply with the wheels in the straight ahead position."

My interpretation of this, based on my understanding of the English language and the figure attached to the proposed Rules, is that it is PERFECTLY LEGAL to have a "venitian blind" of front wings, with chord = 625 mm, span = full-width of car, and reaching from about 550 mm above ground ALL THE WAY UP TO THE EDGE OF SPACE!!! Or higher, if you want...
~o0o~

And...

"Between the centrelines of the front and rear wheel axles, an aerodynamic device (e.g. undertray) may extend outboard in plan view to a line drawn connecting the outer surfaces of the front and rear tyres ...[blah, blah]"

So it also seems that full-width wings above the cockpit area are legal and can be at ANY HEIGHT AT ALL. Note that the UNDEFINED (!) "undertray" is only given as an "example".
~o0o~

What you have here, dear FSAE students, is some Kindergarten kiddies who have barely learnt how to ride their little push-cars, but are now sitting in the cockpit of the Jumbo jet that you are all flying in. And don't they just love pushing and twiddling with all those little knobs and dials, and making all the pretty lights flash on and off.

If you let them continue with this, then there is only one way it will end. Not pretty.

I strongly suggest that all Teams send official letters, on your School letterheaded paper, to this Rules Committee, and ask for just two things.

1. That you be given the names of the various RC Members who propose these Rules changes. This should include the higher level members who sanction these changes.

2. That those RC Members be held responsible (preferably FINANCIALLY responsible!) for any disputes that arise from the above sort of ATROCIOUSLY WORDED Rules. (For example, when a Team arrives at a competition and is ordered to toss its very expensive mega-front-&-mid-aero-package, even though the Rules do NOT specifically ban it.)

At the very least, the responsible RC Members should be publicly ridiculed.

(I note that it is pointless for me to write to the RC directly, but I will do my best with the public ridiculing. )

Z

[Big Bird]

Q. How many arms does a FSAE Organizer have?
A. The same number as you do.

OK, so maybe that is a smart-a**e way of making a point, but having been on both sides of the fence I know how many have opinions on how to improve this thing, and how few are willing to invest their own time in actually doing it.

That is not to say that the proposed rules are worded well, or couldn't be improved. But, especially to the student generation out there - if you want to see change, then get involved.

And sorry, I don't think it is "the organizers" responsibility to lead the teams by the hand through the whole reliability lesson. Personally, I have invested heaps of time and energy writing on these boards about prioritizing and reasoning your way through your projects, and have turned myself inside out thinking up metaphors to bring the lessons back to your everyday lives. I've seen any number of FSAE officials on here (e.g. Edward, Doug, Claude, Pat) offering similar advice about understanding priorities and the value of presenting a reliable, tested vehicle. If the lesson hasn't been learned yet, and if the pain of repeated failures within your own teams hasn't hammered the lesson home, then it isn't going to be learned by tweaking points allocations.

Cheers,

Geoff

[Swiftus]

Just some "word-smithing", huh?

...ATROCIOUSLY WORDED Rules...

Z

Z - I like to think of this as taking our engineering learning experience to the next level. Before, our customer requirements were quite open. The customer simply asked for an autocross car which would be priced appropriately, able to perform well in structured acceleration, skidpad, autocross, and endurance events, able to be marketed well, and would be found on good engineering design principles. The task was easy to identify.

Too easy to identify. Now the customer has decided that they would like us to meet the exact same deliverables as before but the car must also 'look a certain way'. Sure, marketing a look or defending the engineering design principles which developed the newest generation of cars will be skewed by external forces which has little basis on the deliverables at hand, but it does legitimately make Formula Student more like the real world.

I am positive that every engineer who participates in the wonderfully unrestricted world of Formula Student will leave their team and go to a company where their customer is asking them to design and build the toughest earth digger ever to grace this planet, but it 'must look elegant, like a ballerina'. My cinicism is that the customer will always have at least one deliverable which is impossible or silly when juxtaposed to the rest. Why make Formula Student any different?

If we as engineers are going to have to deal with a unreasonable customer or a 'pointy-haird boss' for the rest of our lives, why let us live in the false eutopia of this reasonably unrestricted design competition? From a logical standpoint, it simply does not make any sense.

---

I would like to thank our 'garbageman' for sitting at his computer and shouting on our behalf.

---

I will clarify my intent. I am not upset with introducing new rules. Nor am I upset with the direct impact it has on my team's performance. I am confident that we will come up with a good solution in the new rules set. What is frustrating is the timing of creating a new set of rules which forces teams already constructing their car for the next season to go back to the drawing board. Additionally, a rules set which is worded so criptically, the gap between 'intent' of a rule and wording of the rule is only widened.

[Freddie]

Z: While not having the rules in front of me, I'm 90% sure that those "loopholes" that you propose are not loopholes. Both these scenarios are covered in the rules, while not being specifically for aerodynamic devices. But that's how it is, sometimes you have to read the whole rule book to get the context; not read every single rule by it self and scream about it not covering every scenario.

I agree with Jay on the new rules, I find them good enough. Not perfect (I think there are some loopholes), but certainly not that bad as some suggests. My only "fear" is that these rules effectivly make the combination of 13" wheels and aero obsolete. This would mean that a team coming from a 13" no aero car (like us) have a defined "best" development path (transition from 13" to 10" or smaller, then go for aero) instead of being able to choose multiple paths without too much penalty. I would also have preferred to have the rear wing height in relation to the main hoop, to see teams make the trade-off between high roll hoop and aero, but that is a personal opinion.

[JulianH]

My interpretation of this, based on my understanding of the English language and the figure attached to the proposed Rules, is that it is PERFECTLY LEGAL to have a "venitian blind" of front wings, with chord = 625 mm, span = full-width of car, and reaching from about 550 mm above ground ALL THE WAY UP TO THE EDGE OF SPACE!!! Or higher, if you want...

So it also seems that full-width wings above the cockpit area are legal and can be at ANY HEIGHT AT ALL. Note that the UNDEFINED (!) "undertray" is only given as an "example".

I strongly suggest that all Teams send official letters, on your School letterheaded paper, to this Rules Committee, and ask for just two things.

1. That you be given the names of the various RC Members who propose these Rules changes. This should include the higher level members who sanction these changes.

2. That those RC Members be held responsible (preferably FINANCIALLY responsible!) for any disputes that arise from the above sort of ATROCIOUSLY WORDED Rules. (For example, when a Team arrives at a competition and is ordered to toss its very expensive mega-front-&-mid-aero-package, even though the Rules do NOT specifically ban it.)

At the very least, the responsible RC Members should be publicly ridiculed.

(I note that it is pointless for me to write to the RC directly, but I will do my best with the public ridiculing. )

Z

The three points you made:

1. The "incredible high front wing": The rule makers introduced to nice little rule "it must be positioned not to hit the driver in an accident." (or something like that). A front wing above the tires will, if failed, hit the driver pretty good. So that's out.

2. Wings above the cockpit area: Are banned by the nice little rule "The driver egress must be unobstructed" (or something like that).

Those things are going to bite you "Luckily" they are not 100% defined, so they can kill you with the "intend" of those rules... The rules commitee made the mistake to define "open wheeler" in the last year and got the Michigan Ann Arbor car as response to mock them. So they will not make that mistake again.

3. Every competition participant signs some funny documents about liability and so on. So we all can write some nice letters but the guys won't care about it...


Geoff,

so far, I'm not too old, not too grumpy to just sit here and shout. I'm trying to reach out to those guys. As I said there is discussion in Europe about the power limit of 4WD Electric cars. So we gathered all the "big teams" with 4WD and sat down with the German organisers. It works. In contrast to that, I was trying to contact the FSAE organisation about the 300V limit at Lincoln that is simply there to prevent those mean European teams to come to the US and win the competition over there. Result: Nothing. It's not like a page with contact details where you can write to Mister Miller or Mister Deakin or Miss Smith about something. It's a closed door organisation.
I really would try to help them out.
After the first drops of "2015 Rules" came out, we proposed to do LapSim with differnet concepts to help them balance the rules (if that's what they want to do). But what was the result? Correct: Nothing.

From what we heard, all those rules are made by gut feeling of some old guys. No data behind it, just "what they like".

A competition that has become so professional (at least in Germany and Austria...) should be better than that when it comes to rule changes.

I mean we can leave the discussion about wings behind. As Jay said, the teams will bounce back, it's not too difficult to trim your package until May. But what comes next? Ban of Single-Cylinders in September 2016 for the 2017 season? Ban of 10'' tires in October 2019? Ban of Carbon Fibre?

So yes, I was trying to help, I am always the first guy to give feedback to the organizers when I participated, I write to them throughout the year with suggestions and yes I will help organize something but I will not be the next guy behind closed doors that isn't allowed to talk about decisions. That's not my outlook on this competition.