Double the cars, half the fun.

[Mitchell]

How do the teams out there with multiple cars manage their competition teams?

For the first time UQ is competing with an IC and EV vehicle and we have been instructed that from a competition perspective we must have two stand alone teams. This is not how we operate, we are a single team with two cars. We would like to use certain team members in both IC and EV design event (schedule permitting) and also use some IC static event competitors as EV drivers.

Is this generally seen as a competitive advantage? We still have to source all our members and drivers from our University.

How does the project management portion of the design event work? Do you discuss both vehicles?

I have contacted the rules committee and have a response but I am very curious about peoples thoughts in general on this subject.

[Kevin Hayward]

Mitchell,

I understand the reasoning behind the two separate teams when it comes to drivers, especially where the IC and EV teams run in the same competition. An equivalent in Australia would be one of the top teams bringing along a second year car (legal in Australia) in addition to their current car and making sure all of its drivers get a run in comp prior to running in this year's car. A huge advantage for very little cost as the drivers get a twice the laps.

However if someone designed on both teams they should be free to present on both teams, I fail to see the competitive advantage here. Up against well prepped teams it is likely a disadvantage due to having to split focus. Space and other resources should be free to share etc.

Kev

[Mitchell]

Mitchell,

I understand the reasoning behind the two separate teams when it comes to drivers, especially where the IC and EV teams run in the same competition. An equivalent in Australia would be one of the top teams bringing along a second year car (legal in Australia) in addition to their current car and making sure all of its drivers get a run in comp prior to running in this year's car. A huge advantage for very little cost as the drivers get a twice the laps.

However if someone designed on both teams they should be free to present on both teams, I fail to see the competitive advantage here. Up against well prepped teams it is likely a disadvantage due to having to split focus. Space and other resources should be free to share etc.

Kev

Kev, at no point did I suggest one driver should be allowed to drive multiple cars. I am saying that anyone on our team that has anything at all to do with the IC static events is not allowed to participate in the EV static OR dynamic events. I just don't see the issue (for example) of one of our team members doing the IC cost event and driving EV skidpan. I have been told by the rules committee it would set an unacceptable precedent but I am still unsure as to why - there is no competitive advantage.

[JulianH]

Mitchell,

to be honest, I don't have an answer.

I try to remember back in the days when the first combined competitions and therefore the first universities with two cars came along.
If I remember correctly, in the first 1-2 years (2010-11) it was allowed to share team members at least in the statics. The chassis chief could therefore be part of the EV design event and the IC design event.

At one point this was not allowed anymore.

My guess would be that the rules basically imply that one team build one car. Not one team builds two cars. Therefore those two teams of one university have to be separated and cannot share members in events.
Especially in a mixed competition it kind of makes sense. Otherwise a team could also come to competition with two completely different IC cars and just see which is better.
You could "ruin" an EV competition with a slow running EV that does not use a lot of energy by the way because you expand the range of possible Efficiency points (an effect seen at FSA this year with Helsinki...).
Tactics like that probably should be prevented by disallowing a two car team.
If you have one great Suspension guy that does your whole kinematics he basically would enable two teams to compete for a great design score. Which is kind of unfair.

I know all these arguments are not really strong and probably don't hold up, but I think the argumentation of the organisers are somewhere around these topics.

I think it is still not only "half the fun". If you have enough resources for two cars, you should be able to have enough good drivers and statics members, otherwise you should maybe focus on only one car...

Best of luck with the competition!

Julian

[Bemo]

For my team this was not an issue when we started building electric cars in 2010 as we decided to start a whole new, seperate team (Rennteam Stuttgart -> IC, Greenteam Stuttgart -> EV) and operate independently. The introduction of the electric class was followed by a lot of discussions, on how to handle this topic. There were even thoughts of allowing only one IC OR one EV team from a single university.

In the end the result was that there may be IC and EV teams from one uni, but they need to be seperate at comp. At FS Austria we take care in the schedule that if there is an EV and an IC team from one uni, they have their static events at the same time, to make sure that one person cannot participate for both teams in the static events.

Of course you can have different opinions on this topic, but I have to agree with Julian here. If you don't have enough team members to operate the two cars independantly at comp, you should think about if you have the resources for building two cars. When the electric class was introduced, a lot of teams started to build two cars, but most of them are building only one car nowadays as they had to realize that they don't have the required resources for building two.
Out of my mind the only European unis where two cars per year are built are Uni Karlsruhe, Uni Stuttgart, TU Munich, UAS Munich (also GFR, but as these are two schools, I'd say it's a special topic).

These are some of the schools which have the biggest engineering faculties in Germany. All other schools decided to build either IC or EV cars (even big unis like TU Delft!). So you should not underestimate, what it means to build two cars.