FSAE Australasia 2018

[DougMilliken]

Hi Z, good to see you back here.

For anyone that didn't get the "both Country AND Western" gag, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS-zEH8YmiM a truly classic comedy, but perhaps one not seen by the current generation? Instead of music at night, The Blues Brothers could be projected on the side of a white building?

[Z]

Doug,

Hey, I was serious!

In fact, I am so liberal I would love listening to some Country, some Western, AND The Blues Brothers, live. Especially the Rawhide theme song, complete with flying beer-bottles!
~~~o0o~~~

SATURDAY UPDATE.
=================
Some results below, but first some ranting.
~o0o~

"The FESTIVAL of FSAE-Oz".
======================
Yesterday I said that this show has the potential to attract thousands of mums, dads, and their teenage kids, all of whom might be interested in seeing some "cool engineery stuff". I took it as read that those thousands of interested onlookers would each spend a few tens of dollars while at the show. But to spell it out fully, this show has the potential to generate many tens of thousands of dollars of income, possibly even into the hundreds of thousand$.

Of course, this income should not be taken as pure profit, but should instead be reinvested into a bigger and better show next year. To repeat, the main goal should be to attract as many of the teenagers out there who are thinking about going into the "STEM" subjects at Uni, but are not yet sure if STEM is for them.

So at lunchtime I was sitting out front of the cafeteria (remember, the one that is several days' camel-ride from the pits) and I overheard two middle-aged men, with two teenage boys in tow, talking about "where is it...", and "when is it starting...". Sure enough, they were locals (well, from Wangarratta, ~50 kms away) who read something in the local paper about "Uni-students building small race cars", and they wanted to have a look.

Long story short, there are NO signs showing where the FSAE pits/events are located, NO music or jumping-castles to act as attractors or landmarks, and NO possible way that these quite keen spectators could easily learn about this whole "FSAE-thing".

So I gave them directions to the pits, they thought a bit about the distance to walk, then got into their cars and drove off in that general direction. I hope they enjoyed looking at the cars and talking to the students. If they ever found them.
~o0o~

The Escher Staircase of Design Feedback.
=============================
For as long as I have been coming to these events there has been some sort of public Design Feedback session.

Today's feedback session was remarkably similar to all others. The most common feedback, EACH YEAR, is along the lines of,
"Well, I'm happy to say that this year's cars are so much better [or "10/20/50% better"] than previous year's cars. And, most importantly, you students seem to be getting a much better UNDERSTANDING of [blah, blah...]"

I must be going blind. I see the same cars now, as I saw back in 2002. And what is between the students' ears is likewise same-same as before (see below under Skid-Pad). For a graphical representation of this claimed "upwards progress", google "Escher's staircase". The 'Gong car that won in 2002 would be near top-of-ladder this year. Note that there are more cars in the competition in recent years, so the bell-curve is getting wider, but its centre surely ain't budging.

(Edit: Above paragraph refers to Oz-teams. Munchen, of course, are a lonely outlier on the Oz-bell-curve here.)

Anyway, if genuine "upwards progress" is wanted, then there must be some HONEST feedback. Which means some UGLY TRUTHS.

(And for those in attendance today, pay attention to Mitchell's comments on the "...two sub-160 kg cars".)
~~~o0o~~~

Saturday's DYNAMIC EVENTS.
=========================
Find all raw times at,
http://racing.natsoft.com.au/results/
Click on "Circuit racing" icon, then scroll down.
~o0o~

ACCELERATION EVENT.
===================
I used to kid myself that the old Calder track surface must be very low-grip, hence the poor Oz-team Accel-times. But today most Oz-teams clocked very similar Accel-times to their previous year's times back at Calder (Edit: namely ~4.2 s -> 5++ s). So, clearly I was delusional thinking that Calder is the problem, unless this Winton track is just as bad as Calder.

Hmmm..., so how to resolve this conundrum (ie: is the problem with the Oz-tracks, or the Oz-teams)? Maybe check what time the Muncheners managed here?

And it is, ... best time of 3.499 seconds!!! (Check natsoft, it not lie!)

CONGRATULATIONS MUNCHENERS!

And shame on all you Oz-teams!

Now, despite Munchen's record setting Oz-time, I am quite sure some "toothless hillbillies" (wonderful people, very friendly) could knock another half-second off it. Yes, absolutely for sure! I have no doubts they would quickly learn how to "...wrangle them dang'd eee-let-rons" just as well as they can wrangle-the-rubber, and do all the necessary blacksmithery to keep the car together when "the launch" goes really well.

Similarly, I am sure I could knock a few tenths-of-second, or more, off any of the Oz-team's times, given a weekend with angle-grinder, stick-welder, and access to their car. Really very easy.

So, come on boys and girls, GO THREES or GO HOME!
~o0o~

SKID-PAD.
=========
Similar story, really.

Munchen best time = 4.614 seconds. More congratulations!

I was listening to some Monash team-members and this may be very close to a world record, and I guess certainly a record for Oz. Check the FB feeds for more accurate info.

What to say about the Oz-teams' performances?

Hmmm... Well... Maybe just for the educational value... How about you try and find a video, or just static pics, of #12 RMIT C-car doing its laps.

I could give a very long lecture here, but suffice to say I talked to RMIT-Suspension-Guy, he had some reasonable high-level goals, possibly needed a bit more mid-level analysis, and is planning to correct the hardware-level set-up before tomorrow's events. But I fear some parts of the set-up can never be corrected, short of very liberal application of angle-grinders and stick-welders.

(Methinks a small part of Escher's staircase, the bit near RMIT's workshop, must have fallen into some sort of space-time-discontinuum, and ended up in a very weird alternate universe. No other explanation, really.)
~~~o0o~~~

Autocross tomorrow morning, and a single Enduro after lunch.

Z

[Z]

Sunday morning - some light rain overnight.

Z