It is funny how this annual thread ends up morphing into something other than "updates pictures and stories" about the Oz event. Just an observation, and certainly something I'm to blame for as much as anyone else.
I read the various comments about "inexperience" last night, and spent a few minutes thinking of how I would respond. It seems that overnight GTS has beaten me to the punch, and always the better wordsmith than I, has pretty well nailed everything I was going to say. Cheers mate, I won't have to labour so much.
I'll throw in a few random comments though:
LEADERSHIP:
Every one of the really ground-breaking top level teams I've competed against has had a strong leadership group steering the overall direction of the project. In particular I'm thinking Wollongong around 2002, UWA around 2003-2004, Cornell when they were on that incredible winning streak. At the managerial end of each of these teams were a small group of individuals who had a well-formed vision of where the team was going, and the leadership skills to bring everyone along with them.
The world-view that these leaders had developed didn't just encompass the usual component level design skills (e.g. mass minimization processes, engine development, FEA and stiffness calcs), that most of us have learnt in our engineering educations. It included a whole vehicle level vision of how the car would integrate; where its strengths and weaknesses would lie in regard to the overall competition; which project tasks were worthwhile and which were "high-risk, low return"; how this direction could be achieved with the existing time, budget and human resources; which developments could be implemented this year and which were for longer term development; how the vehicle development would tie in with all the "non-vehicle" requirements (e.g. Static Event goals, team members meeting academic requirements); how the acquired team knowledge will be transferred to later teams, etc etc etc. I'm no fan of autocratic governance, but if you don't have some sort of core leadership and overall vision, then any success you may achieve becomes purely a matter of chance.
INEXPERIENCE:
Nothing I've seem indicates that a good team needs experience. I've seen teams of relative amateurs put up a really competitive effort, (usually because they are united in their lack of experience) and teams of "old hands" that should have done better fail miserably (often through team bickering / politics or just plain complacency).
An inexperienced team is much more likely to assess the task at hand objectively, and take the advice of others (academic staff, workshop staff, team alumni, etc). This is a very big project, so a little bit of fear of the task at hand can aid in making sure the team doesn't bite of more than it can chew. Experience on the other hand can lead to unfounded confidence. How often do you see a team put in a good honest first effort, and then go backwards the following year when they try to do too much. (We certainly learnt the hard way).
As far as the wider definition of "experience", who says we lack it here in Oz? We have been running a comp here for 9 years now, and you could near fill a football stadium with those who have some experience with this Formula. Team alumni, event staff, industry visitors and sponsors, uni staff, judges - there is a whole raft of individuals that can give good honest advice on what they have seen. (Note Pat Clarke's comments above - we have an impartial and highly experienced FSAE judge here who is willing to help us out, but hardly anyone bothers to contact him). I'd accept that a first year team like Edith Cowan Uni could argue inexperience as it usually takes a year to get to know the right people. But for the rest of us I think it a very poor excuse.
I'd suggest that a lack of willingness to accept advice is a much larger problem. Nearly every good FSAE alumni you speak to says the same thing - attempt less and get it done early. I know many alumni who are still happy to help and advise their old teams to achieve this aim. But I also know many who despair when their well-intentioned advice is ignored and the same mistakes are made over and over. Given we are returning to completion rates experienced at our very first Oz event, it is obvious that the most important lesson is just one that current participants just don't want to learn.
Cheers all, sorry for the thesis