Hey everyone,
My name is Phil Piper and I am the chief engineer for Bulldogs Racing over at Yale University. I've been lurking around the forums for the past 6 months or so but I haven't really spoken up until now. Registration was today, and it was just as tumultuous as I heard from previous years. I'm sure these forums get a post like this every year, but as far as I can tell registration could really use some rethinking.
It was my first time registering a team so I setup shop 30 minutes early and reread the FSAE registration instructions. Everything looked good to go until about 10 minutes before 10am EST, at which point the registration page stopped refreshing. I left it for a few minutes to no avail, so I refreshed the page hoping to get back into the system; no such luck. It wasn't until about 10 minutes after 10am that I got in, at which point Formula Electric was filled up.
Bulldogs Racing is now fifth on the waitlist. It is what it is, but I don't feel like that registration process was completely fair. We've been working on our car since January (we took a design year) and are already in the process of manufacturing a chassis and battery box because that's what it takes to get a rules-compliant electric vehicle. However I now have to return to the garage and take responsibility for not getting the team into the competition. Additionally I'll qualify this next statement by saying that by no means am I completely in tune with University of Texas at Arlington's registration process. However UTA are first on the waitlist and they're a FSAE powerhouse that has been working on their electric car for the past two years. I can only imagine that they, along with many other teams had similar problems with the SAE website.
Maybe I missed something, or didn't have the right strategy for navigating the registration website. But is that what registration should be about? Here are three fairly simplistic solutions to get around this web hosting problem. The first is to do a better job hosting the website such that it can handle the registration load. The second is to have a set registration window (perhaps 30 minutes) that allows prepared teams to register for the competition. Then randomly select the teams that make it in (and maybe take the top 10 from last years competition). The third is to do what Formula North is doing with the registration quiz.
I guess when it comes down to it, the issue is that there are more teams than there are spots. Fixing that would be the million dollar solution. Either way let me know what you think about potential amendments to the registration process.
Phil