Having read the FSAE comments in the carbon monocoque thread I hope people will not mind me starting a new thread on FSAE since I have never been involved in it and have less experience than many people here!
I understand many of the comments made about why don't the teams build on the previous efforts etc. but is that not rather missing the real beneefit of FSAE?
Clearly developing last years car is a good way to win races but I think it is fair to say that winning in racing nees three things - Talent, Experience and Money.At leat in amateur and semi pro you can probably be short of one of them and still win. I THINK that FSAE is deliberately trying to eliminate two of them -money and experience to test the real talent of the teams. Design is iterative , as soon as you have built your design you can see ten ways to improve it, but college courese last only 3 - 4years or less for a masters. With exams and other details the teams have limited real time so they can never gain proper racing experience.
So isn't the point to judge how well they do in looking once at a problem and runnning the project once to completion? All the potential mistakes and screw up's due to lack of experience are part of the test. The winners should be the ones who make the right strategic/architectural decisions and think through the execution ahead of time to minimise errors. If the teams can take a prior car and improve it that is less of a test of their own engineering abilties and more a test of prior documantation, record keeping and the skill of the previous team.
To make the point a different way each F1 team has 700 people ( including engines), one or two wind tunnels and $400M per year. If you told them all to build a 12 seat plane with a new engine in 24 months and get it to fly 2,000 Km non stop I expect the results might well keep Piper, Bombardier, Cessna, Airbus and Boeing engineers in fits of laughter for months.
Formula SAE
Started by
mariner
, Jun 13 2008 08:42
8 replies to this topic
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#2
Greg Locock
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Posted 13 June 2008 - 11:27
Well, sort of.
To be honest I'm far more interested in the process that they go through than whatever the result is.
One of the local universities here can turn out a good consrvative car with good documentation in 6 months. But who has learnt anything from that?
To be honest I'm far more interested in the process that they go through than whatever the result is.
One of the local universities here can turn out a good consrvative car with good documentation in 6 months. But who has learnt anything from that?
#3
Fat Boy
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Posted 13 June 2008 - 15:50
When judging, I look at the logic in their approach. My biggest criticism of any FSAE team is a lack of actual engineering work and an over-reliance on rules of thumb.
Choosing track width is a great example. Teams will say, "Well, our last year's car was X and the winning car was Y. We thought it should probably be somewhere in the middle." That's _not_ engineering. You know the width of the racetrack. You know types of corners that you're liable to see. Start from there and then figure out what track width makes your car fastest around the racetrack. The compromises are that a wider car has less lateral load transfer, but a narrower car can take a better line. The answer to this question will likely surprise you, but in this situation, wider is not necessarily better. As a design judge, I have yet to have a team approach their track width selection with this simple, basic approach. It's always thumbnail stuff.
Roll center heights are the same deal. They all have software that lets them play around with suspension points. They come up with some sort of 'ideal' in their heads and then juggle the points until they get there. None of them start from 'these are my tire characteristics and these are the corners we're going to see'. It's a lot tougher to do it that way, and the 'hot-rodder' guys that flock to FSAE just aren't prone to taking this approach.
It's very inefficient to start from a clean sheet of paper every year. This is school. We don't take freshman out and sit them under an apple tree for them to come up with gravity. We teach it to them. Racecar design should be the same way. Teach them the in's and out's of this particular type of problem solving and then let them run with it. Having the ability to facilitate knowledge retention is key in any program, and it needs to be a high priority on a FSAE team. It never is.
Radical designs are rarely successful in any type of business. Racing is no different. There is never enough time, money, or resources to get all the bugs worked out. A well-executed conservative design will be more successful 99 out of 100 times. If the students understand the base principles at work, though, it's a moot point. It means they 'get it'. The actual design can be radical or mundane. As long as they have the ability to quantitatively justify what they've done, I'm happy.
Choosing track width is a great example. Teams will say, "Well, our last year's car was X and the winning car was Y. We thought it should probably be somewhere in the middle." That's _not_ engineering. You know the width of the racetrack. You know types of corners that you're liable to see. Start from there and then figure out what track width makes your car fastest around the racetrack. The compromises are that a wider car has less lateral load transfer, but a narrower car can take a better line. The answer to this question will likely surprise you, but in this situation, wider is not necessarily better. As a design judge, I have yet to have a team approach their track width selection with this simple, basic approach. It's always thumbnail stuff.
Roll center heights are the same deal. They all have software that lets them play around with suspension points. They come up with some sort of 'ideal' in their heads and then juggle the points until they get there. None of them start from 'these are my tire characteristics and these are the corners we're going to see'. It's a lot tougher to do it that way, and the 'hot-rodder' guys that flock to FSAE just aren't prone to taking this approach.
It's very inefficient to start from a clean sheet of paper every year. This is school. We don't take freshman out and sit them under an apple tree for them to come up with gravity. We teach it to them. Racecar design should be the same way. Teach them the in's and out's of this particular type of problem solving and then let them run with it. Having the ability to facilitate knowledge retention is key in any program, and it needs to be a high priority on a FSAE team. It never is.
Radical designs are rarely successful in any type of business. Racing is no different. There is never enough time, money, or resources to get all the bugs worked out. A well-executed conservative design will be more successful 99 out of 100 times. If the students understand the base principles at work, though, it's a moot point. It means they 'get it'. The actual design can be radical or mundane. As long as they have the ability to quantitatively justify what they've done, I'm happy.
#4
imaginesix
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Posted 13 June 2008 - 16:13
In my mind the point of the competition is to see how well engineering students would fare in the real world, and the real world is a freight train moving at 200mph that isn't stopping at any station to pick up the new guys. They need to get up to speed with all the progress, knowledge and limitations that the company's projects will have gained up 'til then and find a way to contribute something useful as quickly as possible. In relation to FSAE, that means building on previous generations' efforts and improving them, sometimes starting over but always with history's lessons in mind. In fact, it would be foolish to deliberately 'forget' anything that was learned in previous efforts in the hopes that it impresses the judges more. "Look what WE did on our own!" is great for the ego but no so great for industry.
#5
Fat Boy
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Posted 13 June 2008 - 18:36
Originally posted by imaginesix
"Look what WE did on our own!" is great for the ego but no so great for industry.
That's it in a nutshell. Some of the attitudes and arrogance that are displayed by FSAE'ers is pretty impressive. I heard stories of FSAE guys getting hired on race teams and inside of a week getting the finger point with, "Get the F- outta here!". It's not really racing. It's an interesting student project. There just seems to be a preponderance of students that come out of it thinking their poo comes out shrink-wrapped.
#6
Ray Bell
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Posted 13 June 2008 - 21:42
To be honest, I don't think I saw a lot of ego among the guys at the final outside of Adelaide a few years ago...
There was a lot of teamwork evident. Talking to some of the people, they were able to tell me who did what on the team, how they relied on each other and how they worked together.
Let's not forget the impact of a bad run, either. The people from Newcastle went very radical, 4WD and so on. Did they learn more from the experience? Perhaps?
There was a lot of teamwork evident. Talking to some of the people, they were able to tell me who did what on the team, how they relied on each other and how they worked together.
Let's not forget the impact of a bad run, either. The people from Newcastle went very radical, 4WD and so on. Did they learn more from the experience? Perhaps?
#7
Greg Locock
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Posted 14 June 2008 - 00:27
I'd rather interview a grad who has done FSAE, or an equivalent, than one who has not. At least it is a guarantee that they know which end of a car is which and that they have some idea of the complexity, and the importance, of tradeoffs.
So far as RCH vs tire properties go - guilty as charged!
So far as RCH vs tire properties go - guilty as charged!
#8
Ben
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Posted 16 June 2008 - 16:21
Originally posted by Fat Boy
That's it in a nutshell. Some of the attitudes and arrogance that are displayed by FSAE'ers is pretty impressive. I heard stories of FSAE guys getting hired on race teams and inside of a week getting the finger point with, "Get the F- outta here!". It's not really racing. It's an interesting student project. There just seems to be a preponderance of students that come out of it thinking their poo comes out shrink-wrapped.
Which is why I'm so glad my first motorsport job was two wheels not four. I knew nothing about bikes - not even enough to pretend I did, so I went back to first principles and got on with it.
If I'd started on cars I could have easily gone that way. I read back some of my old posts on here from when I was at Uni and I sound like someone who knew it all. I think (and hope) I've matured a bit since then and realised I don't know anything like all of it.
I've also design judged and agree with most of FBs points. My advice to any student doing the comp is that "Claude Rouelle / Carroll Smith / Last Year's team said I should do it like that" is not an acceptable answer in the design event.
Ben
#9
phantom II
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Posted 16 June 2008 - 19:41
Are you telling me that you may abandon Karl Marx's economic ideals? I knew that you were to smart to be a commie. Why, I remember your uni days. I remember when you were looking for a job for all those months. I'm proud of you my son. Proud. 
When you run your own shop successfully(profitably) one day, you will learn the true meaning of life. 
When you run your own shop successfully(profitably) one day, you will learn the true meaning of life. Originally posted by Ben
Which is why I'm so glad my first motorsport job was two wheels not four. I knew nothing about bikes - not even enough to pretend I did, so I went back to first principles and got on with it.
If I'd started on cars I could have easily gone that way. I read back some of my old posts on here from when I was at Uni and I sound like someone who knew it all. I think (and hope) I've matured a bit since then and realised I don't know anything like all of it.
I've also design judged and agree with most of FBs points. My advice to any student doing the comp is that "Claude Rouelle / Carroll Smith / Last Year's team said I should do it like that" is not an acceptable answer in the design event.
Ben
