Formula Student 2007 Competition: - Updates, Pictures, Stories, and More

[Adam Zemke]

Originally posted by RiNaZ:
Have anyone seen the FSAE article on Popular Science Magazine? No technical comment here, but i really like the layout and the graphic. I really hope RCE is paying a lot of attention to Popular Science mag and be as fun to read as PopSci.

I saw the article yesterday. I must say that it was one of the (if not the) largest articles about the competition, complete with some great pictures and commentary about a variety of teams. Nice to see another publication take more than just a glance at the event we know and love.

[Big Bird]

Ben,

I haven't seen the RCE article yet, so can't comment directly. Agreed that good engineering needs to be brought to the fore - but also I can see the merit in giving newcomers a bit of encouragement. I would hate to be reading the same info about the same teams year after year.

Having said that, I do hope some coverage was given to the better performing teams too. I know when we were last there in 04, we were rapt to have been successful with a bit of an unorthodox design concept, and were really looking forward to seeing what the press had to say. But when RCE came out we were really disappointed to see that the FSUK review comprised around one line reporting our win - followed by a page of criticism aimed at the UK university system. I know that England is traditional home of motorsport, but the magazine is a global one.

Like everyone else, press clippings are vitally important to us when we approach sponsors, so we all benefit when there is a balanced coverage of the various competing teams.

Cheers all, and thanks Sam for your continued support.

[RacingManiac]

Originally posted by Big Bird:
.... But when RCE came out we were really disappointed to see that the FSUK review comprised around one line reporting our win - followed by a page of criticism aimed at the UK university system. I know that England is traditional home of motorsport, but the magazine is a global one.
....

Yeah I definitely remember that article well...lol

Despite being quite fortunete to have won Formula Student UK 3 times, I think all of the mention for us in the RCE is probably less than 50 words combined all 3 years. We did make the pages in RCE a few times in pictures though.

[ss_collins]

Err... yup you got me there - just looked back over that one and the RMIT car really shoulda had more on it as it was so unconventional. Toronto - yup need to do your car a bit more too.

I have to say though this year the car that I wanted to do more on was Bayreuth - some really nice ideas in it and four seperate judges pointed out that car to me. The other cars people talked a lot about were Graz (of course), Brunel - didn't take any pics of it - my bad and RMIT (for building a proper little racing car).

The problem is every year I have to fight for space for the FSAE events, though its a fight I'm winning - I am dissapointed that since I left haymarket both motorsport news and Autosport have dropped coverage of the event, race tech also seems to have forgotten about it.

Problem I have is - if I write about the top cars every time - t would be the RMIT/Toronto/Brookes/Graz/Delft etc... show.

And of course ETS - who I''m sure had the same car last year (just changed tyres)!!!

next year I'm going to try and integrate the reports from the three events and look over the best cars in the world(Germany is a month later - 2 pages). I tried to compare things this year - skidpad / weight / accel but I want to get more of that next year. Opinions?

[Corey H]

Hey I heard from a friend that there were some pics of the U of Arizona mohawks and I was wondering what month this issue came out in. Thanks!!

[ben]

Originally posted by ss_collins:

I am dissapointed that since I left haymarket both motorsport news and Autosport have dropped coverage of the event, race tech also seems to have forgotten about it.

Like I said, do you think posting lots of pics of mediocre cars as opposed to the good ones makes Autosport more or less likely to care about the event?...

If all they see is pics in RCE of unfinished Class 2 cars with "innovative" features, what is the editor of Autosport likely to think?

Ben

[fade]

must be tradition, back when i subscribed i recall seeing pics of UCLANs sidewinder concept in several issues.

[ben]

Like I said there's an interest in innovation for the sake of innovation in all the reports onn the UK event.

William C. Mitchell's report on the US comps was better because it identified precisely the way the competition has gone, which is to have similar designs each year with better management, testing and optimisation work scoring these teams the points.

This is important for two reasons:

1 - you ain't going to do a decent optimised concept in a single year without a very high level of resources that most teams don't have.

2 - The optimisation of an existing concept is 99% on most engineering work in the real world. It appears to need pointing out that this competition is about training engineers not creating innovative vehicle concepts.

Regards,

Ben

[Mike Hart]

Just came accross this on YouTube from HondaTV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQeOUYRVGaw

Nice to see a well produced documentary video on FS

[RacingManiac]

hey that could've been me in the end with the UofT car on my botched accel run....lol