Proposed delay for 2015 rules to 2016

[Kevin Hayward]

I started this post with the knowledge that some of the rules committee read these forums, and may benefit from some feedback.

I suggest that the proposed rule changes for 2015 should be delayed until 2016 for the following reasons:

- There are a number of rules that affect the conceptual design of a lot of cars, and they are being released with less than 9 months before the comp they will be first used in.

- The delay will mean that the 2016 rules will have been released much earlier than normal. This has the following advantages:
- Teams from Japan and Australasia will be able to travel with the cars they are designing now, and will not create the same problem for 2016
- Sufficient time is available for feedback and revision of the rules if necessary. (I think this could be important given the magnitude of changes)
- It allows for plenty of time to work on the next revision (2017 rules)

- There is time to deal with differences the rules committee appear to be having within the committee (i.e differing rules for Germany vs other comps)


This request is not being made in order to change the proposed rules, or direction of the rules committee. The FSAE / Student community itself is split on whether they are a good idea or not. As long as all teams compete to the same rules we are still likely to have good competition. The ideal concept may change, some teams will win out some will take a hit.

I do feel that there are two points we can agree on:

- Rules should be released in their final form prior to teams beginning conceptual design. This should be more than 12 months before the first comp they will be used, ideally 18 months or so to allow international teams to be able to effectively plan ahead (i.e. change concept to suit planned international comp)

- Rules should be written clearly and objectively. No team wants to get caught out at scrutineering because either there is no clear scrutineering guidelines for the new rules, or because the scrutineer has a different interpretation of the rules.

Finally, before offering this post up for discussion I wish to make the statement that I am not making any form of negative comments towards the rules committee or anybody on it. It is a difficult job with a large number of stakeholders.

Lets try and keep this post civil and constructive. Please post on here whether you support or object to the delay of the proposed 2015 rules until the 2016 season. Offer constructive comments and lets hope it engages people on the rules committee.

Regards,

Dr Kevin Hayward

Faculty Advisor
Edith Cowan University (2008-present)
Team member at UWA Motorsport (2001-2005)

[mech5496]

Kevin,

I fully support your proposal; not because I like or dislike the direction of the rules, but mainly because the time to implement those changes is too short. I agree that rules should be posted at least 12 months before the first comp in order for the teams not to "lose" a season. Moreover I would add that the whole rulebook should be cleared; new aero rules showed some perspective in that direction by removing some unnecessary bits, but then they are still too subjective as Z and others pointed out. Why not simply define "green boxes" where the teams are allowed to place wings/undertrays etc. instead of defining "red" keep out zones as I have pointed out earlier on? Rulebook would be much clearer and smaller...

[Dylan Edmiston]

I do not fully support this. There are some rules that have HUGE affects on all teams (aero) and even larger affects on those teams that have already designed their cars and plan on going overseas to compete in Michigan. However, there are perhaps some smaller rules that can take affect this year that won't prevent teams from having to redesign major parts of their car or perhaps even do a redesign at all. The first thing that comes to mind regarding that is DBW (something I'm hoping for). That is something that won't require a team to do a redesign for legality (their existing cable system should still be legal) and if they wish to benefit from it they will only have to do a small redesign. Regardless if the rules were released earlier or not, they still would have had to do this, but they don't have to go to this system.

The shocking part to me is that the rules committee has essentially had two years to get this done. It is in everyone's nature to push things off until it has to be done because of more immediate things that have to be dealt with, but they should have been aware of the concern teams would have with changes like this being released so late.

[apalrd]

I too have been waiting for the 2015 rules so I can implement our electronic throttle system (which is extremely successful on our snowmobiles) on the FSAE car.

There are several big powertrain rule changes which have been proposed and are being eclipsed by the huge aero rule changes - the ETC throttle and turbo restrictor placement can greatly change the design and concept of many powertrain packages, as they enable many other things.

Maybe we should push the aero changes off another year and debate the rest for this year?

[John_Burford]

Please correct me if I am wrong. I recall the FSAE rules being released August each year. Hasn't it been the same August release for 20 years?

[John_Burford]

Kevin

Perhaps the best to frame your suggestion would be to define the rules committee of a steering committee. The steering committee generates directional guidance like:

- Improve side impact survivability for monocoque chassis
- Decrease performance gap between aero and non-aero cars.
- Increase selection of engines for the benefit teams who have few options in the native counrty.
etc.

The students as individuals or as groups can then research and recommend specific rules.

[Kevin Hayward]

Please correct me if I am wrong. I recall the FSAE rules being released August each year. Hasn't it been the same August release for 20 years?

John,

For most of the last 20 years there have not been considerable conceptual changes to the rules. Usually these changes were announced well ahead of time with some decent definition of the wording. It is also useful to note that the larger changes have been increasing in frequency in later years.

I will also note that this is not the first time the timing of rules has created problems for international teams traveling, or by affecting conceptual design late into the process. Each time these events occur there is a fair bit of complaint.

Having a history of releasing in August is not a good reason for continuing to do it that way.

Again I have no issue with the particular rules. Generally the opening of rules (i.e allowing electronic throttles, increasing engine selection) does not cause issues. If a team does not take advantage of the changes it doesn't matter nearly as much as when they have to quickly change concepts well into their design phase.

I don't want to discuss the changes point by point here. I like some of the changes, dislike others. All teams compete to the same rules, and as long as they are clearly and objectively written everyone is in the same situation. I do think it is handy to workshop the ideas to better consider the implications of the changes, and maybe this is an area that the community can be more engaged with. Maybe even something formal like releasing rules prior to the season and quizzing teams in the design event about how they would change their concept / car according to the new rules. Teams could be encouraged to bring simulation results / details of proposed designs.

Dylan and Andrew,

Apart from noticing that neither of your teams will be negatively affected by the rule changes (i.e. non-monocoque, non-aero, non-electric), do you believe that the best situation is to release the rules less than 9 months before your competition? Remembering that next time around it could be electronic throttles that are banned, or significantly modified.

...

I also want to state that this time around the university I am involved with does not have any problems with the timing of these rules. There are no plans to travel in 2015, so these rules come in time for us to design for Australia without issue. I will note that our trip to the UK in 2013 was cancelled due to minor (and unannounced) changes to the chassis rules that invalidated our car built for the 2012 Australian comp. So while we aren't affected this time around, we have been in the past.

As to how we fare in the new rules; the students have done a bunch of simulations, and given our current base car we should still be fine in the new rules. In fact these changes provide an advantage for our current concept over some of our main competitors. If I was advocating for my team (at the expense of others) I would be in support of these rule changes and have no issue with the timing.

Regards,

Dr Kevin Hayward

Faculty Advisor
Edith Cowan University (2008-present)
Team member at UWA Motorsport (2001-2005)

[Dylan Edmiston]

J

Dylan and Andrew,

Apart from noticing that neither of your teams will be negatively affected by the rule changes (i.e. non-monocoque, non-aero, ...), do you believe that the best situation is to release the rules less than 9 months before your competition? Remembering that next time around it could be electronic throttles that are banned, or significantly modified.

Please expand on how my team is not negatively affected by those rules changes more than other teams trying to design those systems .

Also, notice that I said I do not fully support it, meaning I partially do. I am in favor of your idea for big changes like aero, but I'm sure there are smaller changes that can still take place (none of us are aware of all the rules they plan to change, so unfortunately we can't discuss this in detail beyond aero rules). On top of that, even if my team wouldn't be negatively affected by something, does that make my opinion invalid? I really hope not.

edit: I think we can agree the teams that are hurt the most by these are the oversea teams. Although the rules release has delayed my team's design work, we aren't having to redesign a car in the same season to compete at Michigan, unlike the oversea teams. It'd be a shame to see plenty of them not come to the 2015 FSAE-M comp because of these rules. As you said Kevin, my team would benefit (placement wise) from these changes due to loss of competition, but that's not how I want to see my team do well. It's not rewarding.

[StevenWebb]

I would be against pushing the rules back 1 year, as it is against the rules!
in the rules introduction

"This introduction normally highlights areas of the 2014 Formula SAE rules that teams should understand and
consider. However from 2013, the FSAE rules have moved to a 2 year rules cycle such that only on odd
years will major changes be made to the regulations.
For the 2014 FSAE rules, most changes are small corrections or clarifications except for the EV regulations
where the changes are more extensive since these regulations were new for 2013. Any changes can be
identified by text that is in italics. "

So by changing this, it may screw up teams with multi-year strategies/plans for competing overseas. In many ways it's a BIGGER rule change than the technical rules themselves. I'm all for 2017 though .

As for the late rules, reduction of wing size has been on the cards since 2012 (i thought it would happen in 2013) so conceptually it should have been on the radar for a lot of teams. Compared to 2011 when big aero was introduced at a similar time of year with no warning which made me doubt the single cylinder I had already started designing for. Of course this is no excuse for the pathetic timeline that the release of rules has been following for as long as I've been around. I'd like to see a firm release date to be set in the rules from now on to be added to the "potential changes" list


Maybe the rules committee needs to work more like the teams. Aim for a good management structure and transfer of knowledge while they design the rules, 3 months of testing before they are released, simple and reliable rules... and at each competition they have to explain and justify their rules to the "judges" from each team, explain how this will effect the cost of producing a car and make a presentation of how the rules will effect sponsors and the sustainability of the cars? A video submission of the rules will need to be submitted to prove they are complete enough before the release date for any rules which effect FSG.


In summary
Do I think rules changes should be pushed back 1 year? - NO
Are September releases of rules acceptable? - NO
Should something be done so this doesn't happen again in 2/4 years time? - YES

[StevenWebb]

Ahh, the memories