FSAE Innovation

[Jon Prevost]

The design judging is only human. Every year something changes in the minds of a judge. One judge might be focused on engine calibration, another on the internals. You just need to have all the answers, it's that simple. If they ask you why you went with such and such, then have data to show that you tested such and such but found this to be the best compromise.
Don't focus on one part of the car but don't focus on the whole car. The judges know you're human and can only do so much, this is why they like to hear answers that might sound like "we just ran out of time but it was on our list of things to do." This answer is genuine but it still won't get you into finals!
As for the design finals, I can't believe all 6 gears were being used at competition. If a team has proof then please e-mail me it later or give me a REAL answer.
All in all competition was fun. The only thing I couldn't believe is that our muffler failed by 5 db while last year we passed by 4db. Anybody else have trouble passing sound tech in? We ended up with a 1" restrictor as our tailpipe it killed our acceleration times down to wheel spinning and then no pulling 4.6s

[Michael Jones]

Sam, I'm inclined to agree with you on most of what you say - the learning experience is key. FSAE, after all, is supposed to be educational first and foremost, and the cooperative nature of this competition is something that should be privileged and defended, IMO. It's what really turned me on to all this nonsense in the first place.

In my time here I've tried to mollify Cornell's reputation some, since we were at least at one time not much off the team in question you describe.

It's not a winning formula - if you engage others with suspicion and distrust, they will return the favor in kind. We've learned a great deal from competing teams with different talents than ours from talking to them and trying to get along as best as possible - and we couldn't do this without being open and frank about our own activities. While you can get information from your external environment without giving some back, such a situation won't last for long.

All this noted, innovation for innovation's sake isn't necessarily a good idea. Ben's right in noting that overall success is an important goal, especially for teams like Cornell who have a reputation to upkeep.

Besides, framing innovation in the context of winning the overall competition is a learning experience in its own right. The lessons have a lot to do with compromise, balance and integration, vs. whiz-bang widgets of any sort.

Not as exciting for some, to be sure - the true creative minds out there get frustrated by such a model quickly. That said, they're usually the ones to bring old models crashing down by coming up with the next best thing, occasionally leaving the old standard bearers completely screwed in the process.

As I noted elsewhere, a team like Lehigh is considerably more likely to come up with a radical and potentially successful design than us, if for no other reason that we're inclined to keep our trophy case full for a little while longer whereas they can go balls out and see what happens a bit easier.

We're probably one of the best out there in incremental innovation, but we'll need to be brought down some to get to the point where we enter a crisis area and are forced to think revolutionarily to get out. Ideally, you fix that situation before it gets too far - the fall from grace can be precipitious otherwise.

[Michael Jones]

P.S. Nice shocks, James...we made our own last year, and it's a huge project. We didn't have the manpower to really pull it off this year but I'd bet they'll be back next year, given that the person in charge of the project then is coming back for his master's. We'll see what transpires there - could be very interesting.

[RiNaZ]

hey sam, i also had a similar incident, although not to the extent of them checking my camera. I was trying to film UTA during their design semi, but one of the UTA guy stopped my from filming coz he said they were doing presentation. He said i could come back tomorrow and he'll be happy to answer any of my question. And i did, and i was lucky enough to get my hands on their carbon fiber rims and got about half an hour worth of explanation about it (even got to film it while he was talking). I dont know why he didnt let me film the design presentation, but i respect his decision. Im just happy i got my hands on those rims .

UMR was pretty cool though. I was filming some of their presentation and nobody said anything. The guys at UMR were really friendly and their faculty advisor looked so young! I thought he was one of the team member. Although, i was wondering, why they always covered the rear wing (maybe the front wing too) all the time.

i guess there so many secrecy going around in this year competition. I have nothing against it and i just hope everybody would be in secrecy towards Cornell and work together to bring down Cornell!! (just joking Michael )

Hey michael, i read the thread about innovation vs winning a while ago. My intention wasnt to bring up the same topic twice, but i was just trying to see if there is advantages with the innovation that the teams had at the competition. Claude was talking about the stock FSAE dampers (as in FOX shox or KONI) as being too big. And he was talking about making the shocks smaller and making it more of a monoshocks. So that's why i was interested in asking the WWU guy if their custom shocks (which is a lot smaller than the usuall FOX shocks) has any advantage in their performance. By the way, I love Cornell's neat packaging. Everything looked like it was on its place. But i dont see anything new from the outside besides the new nose and that gear shifter. But im sure you guys had a lot of new things underneath the body. Congrats again.

[Michael Jones]

One drawback of custom shocks - the suspension guy insisted that ours last year were "just the same thing as Fox shocks" and trying to cost them as such. Flattering at one level, but a $250 per shock penalty at another. I managed to bargain him down to about $80 per, since they clearly weren't "just the same" and given the rules of the cost report, manufacturing things yourself actually does become cheaper, since you can foresake any R&D, marketing, retail chain markup, profit, etc.

If you're there next year RinaZ, I'm sure we'll have some interesting developments on the shock front, since the guy who did the custom ones is back. Can't imagine he'll just ignore the work he did.

As for bringing down Cornell, I'd prefer to have people try than not - it will keep us honest and trying to do different and better things. Without this pressure, it's too easy to do the same old thing.

As for what was new, the biggest addition was the electronic wastegate controller, which as I understand is probably the only one out there. Not super visible with the body on, but it is - the shiny box down near the turbo to be precise. Gear shifter was new for us this year, but of course paddle shifting's been done before. The frame was actually quite new (unconventional, we were told), with a flared lower bar allowing for a reduction in overall height, upper suspension rails tilted at an angle, a much smaller driver bay and a longer foot bay to accommodate larger drivers in a reclined position. The front crushable was engineered for the first time ever, made of medium-density energy absorption form reinforced with Kevlar and backed up by aluminum strips. An anondized Al fuel tank vs. titanium, and custom Tanner shocks vs. homemade, both projects that were time sinks last year and that people didn't want to try again this time. A return to hydraulic clutch as well. A new iteration of the ECM that solved a couple of the problems from the last one, and a lot more sensors fed into it and data acquistion. I think that's all the big stuff.

Packaging and final details is one thing we do spend some time on, yeah. This year was one of the better ones on that front, I think - 2002's car was similar. As both Carroll Smith and Jay O'Connell have now pointed out, aesthetics nominally is only 5 points, but there's a simple subconscious impression that a well-packaged, cleanly presented car presents.

[mtg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RiNaZ:
Just curious mtg, during the R&T awards, your car seems to be spinning everywhere, is the wing a disadvantage during the wet?

Well i know the wings generate downforce and all and should give you more grip, but my question is more directed at the possibility that the wing adds more weight to the car and that's why the car wasnt having a lot of grip? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That was a driver issue- I was trying to drive the balls off the car in the rain, and got a little loose on the first run. I got better on the next two runs, with the third being pretty decent. I lost some time though on the stop after the skidpad. I got down to about 2mph and went to hit the gas, then remembered I hadn't come to a complete stop yet and had to stop, then hit the gas.

The squirreliness under braking was a lot due to the water. I know the car was dancing all over, but someone told me it looked liked I stopped pretty quick. It felt slow.

If Cornell would have gone faster in the dry after Design Finals, and everyone would have had the chance to run in the dry, I think I could have layed it down a lot better.


The wings help whenever the car is moving, rain or dry.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
UMR was pretty cool though. I was filming some of their presentation and nobody said anything. The guys at UMR were really friendly and their faculty advisor looked so young! I thought he was one of the team member. Although, i was wondering, why they always covered the rear wing (maybe the front wing too) all the time. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sure our advisor, Dr. Hank Pernicka, will be flattered.

Ahhh, the wing covers. They're one of those mysteries the authories say are better off left unsolved. [/Spinal Tap]

[RiNaZ]

Hey michael, yeah, i met some guys from my school at detroit who were thinking about starting a new team for 2005, so let's hope 2005 would be the year (my school has been trying for at least 7 years now). If not, im always gonna be there as an observer just like the past 3 years ive been. Ohhh and we're definitely put "bringing down Cornell" as one of our to-do list .

Hey mtg, i wish i can post a video up here in this forum. I have your first run on tape. I'll see if i can upload it on my personal website and link it here. Im not so good with websites, so it might take me a while.

[Michael Jones]

Best of luck on that, RiNaZ...For a rookie team, just try to get a car that runs and completes all dynamic events. That's hard enough, even with a few years of following the competition.

You can work to bring us down after that. I'm sure it's a goal that many teams have - in fact, I've seen evidence of it in people's trailers and heard of similar things in other labs we've visited on occasion.

Feel free to post up any pics of anti-Cornell motivational posters and propaganda here - it's all in good fun after all, and it just gets us fired up anyway.

[jack]

the next time wwu shows up in detriot it will be with a much more "conventional" car, so until then we can only speculate on what is "better". but right now we need to climb the mountain called fundraising...

[Kevin Hayward]

I thought I would post a reply on behalf of Western Australia. First of all we cannot really divulge how we cure without an autoclave. The process is under patent application and the commercial backers do not wish us to let out any of the info.

Once the patent is all cleared it will only be a matter of time before the process becomes more well known.

...

Secondly I wanted to state that we felt honoured to be in the finals with UTA and Cornell. We have a huge admiration for both teams and the history they have created in the competition.

However we are not trying to build cars that win design ... we are trying to build cars that win the competition ... and at 13th place overall we still have a lot of work to do.

I am intrigued by discussions on innovation. I really do not think that anything on our car was particularly innovative. Some of the processes we used in design and manufacture definitely were and the curing method is the example that most teams would know. However I would assume that most teams have come up with very innovative processes to cope with the restrictions in time and money that defines FSAE.

Back to the car though ... everything we did can be found on another competition car ... if not in FSAE. So I really do not see how innovation really made much difference in design. What we really focussed on was systems integration and trying to build an overall competitive package. It is clear that anybody trying to build the same car as UTA or Cornell will be beaten by UTA or Cornell. They have been doing it longer and better for years.

I am skeptical of a couple of things in FSAE that have become standard and do not share much in common with most forms of competitive motorsport. The first is the idea of spaceframes being better than monocoques. There is no way that is true.

We built our monocoque chassis cheaper, faster, lighter, stiffer than our last spaceframe. The only bonus I would give to spaceframes is accessibility and the ability to make late changes.

The other main issue I have is the single brake on a Torsen LSD. Simulations and physical testing both show that the twin rear brakes definitely outweigh the weight penalty. I know of no other situation in motorsport where this sort of thing is done on a competitive level (please correct me if I am wrong). We made the switch from a single to double and will not even think of going back now ... Woolongong paved the way for the Australian teams doing this.

...

I think as a group of engineers we need to make sure that we are undergoing a full design process, which means giving due attention to conceptual design.

...

Lastly I would like to say that I thought the judging was of an extremely high standard (which I know is really easy to say having won the event). The judges really knew what they were talking about. Once we reached Semis we got the idea that it didn't really matter what we had built but rather how much we knew about it and why we had built it. After finals I think all of our team had pretty much nothing left to say.

Personally I wanted to find a little corner to sit in and start muttering to myself incoherently.

After the event was conducted it was really great to chat to the judges on a more friendly basis. We learnt a lot from them and if any judges read this forum I wanted to say thanks for your time and input.

Cheers,

Kevin Hayward
UWA Motorsport