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Thread: 2006 U of Washington Unveiling

  1. #11
    you have to remember though, FSAE is the easiest senior project ever...its already defined, and you can copy a design from last year. no need to be creative at all.

    lawrence tech is hurt badly by this phenomenon. the seemingly HARDEST senior project is the easiest path to graduation for some people that dont want to do anything. that go-kart is probably comparable to some of effort put forth by the slackers on any FSAE team

  2. #12
    Good to see that this is a national phenonom. I see the same quality at my school, except that kart would be made with a team of four, which will go unnammed, but starts with m and ends with arquette. We call it senior design.

    Some of you may be aware of the basic utility vehicle competition. Essentially it is a challenge to make a cheap vehicle for third world countries. It uses the same briggs engines as the Baja cars. This competition really can highlight brilliant mistakes. One car had steering similar to the kart presented, only worse. Instead of having two threaded rods coming off off the steering shaft, there was only one. This rod then whent to the left upright. Then another threaded rod, looked to be about a 1/4 inch in diameter, spanned from the left wheel to the right. Under a right turn it worked fine since the rods were in tension, but left turns were trickier. The shorter rod was fine, but the longer rod would just buckle, causing the only the right wheel to turn. This was in addition to a kingpin inclination that caused the ride hieght to jump up about two inches under full lock. Seat belts that were stapled to the wooden seat. the only brake was a cable brake going to a 5in diameter rear disk. The vehicle was a two seater with the pedals set up for left hand drive, except the steering wheel was perfectly centered between the two "seats." Luckily for them and innocent victims they were incredibly inept. They did not think it was important to know which direction the engine rotated. They assumed the opposite way, they learned this after the car was completed and they tried to drive it.

    This is only one of the BUVs. Another figured that they needed a mechanical reduction in the steering. So instead of using a simple rack and pinion, they bought a reduction box for a 20hp motor. They tried to weld the cast iron reduction box housing to thier 4340 (yes 4340), frame, even when the housing had a mounting bracket in the perfect orienation. This is also in addition to the brilliant idea of having a chain drop from the gearbox (unsprung) to the sprung driveshaft.

    Some other senior design highlights include a human powered vehicle that was just a recumbant bike that was bought off the shelf. A whole collection of battle bots, including one that instead of a welded frame used jb weld.

    Also the forumla team would get a senior design team made up of EE and CEs to do the electrical design. After two groups attempting, finally a third actually produced something. They made a dash for us with a oil waring light (low pressure) and a tach. The light did not work. The tach did work. We requested 1000rpm to 13000rpm in 500 rpm increments. Well instead of working at 1000 rpm, it worked at 1000hz, slight difference.

    Needless to say all of these students passed the class, many even getting As. This is because they actually built something, instead of many groups not even making anything.

  3. #13
    There's quite a gap between the standards students are graded on in universities (the design projects mentioned in this thread), and the standards we're held up to in the Design judging tents at competition.

    It's like the difference between a professional race engineer and somebody who doesn't know the difference between a mill and a drill press...

    I wish more people understood the value of FSAE. But, I guess it's up to us to promote it.

    Oh yeah, the only other project at UW that actually builds anything is the human powered sub team. And they always say "I wanted to do something cool, but you guys spend too much time on your project, so we picked the sub team".

    Kids these days, I tell ya...
    Alumni, University of Washington
    Structural / Mechanical Engineer, Blue Origin

  4. #14
    Haha, our sub team is unbeliveably lazy. We scare off the slackers here too. Much better off without them. Our team doesn't farm out any of our subsystems to other classes or senior peojects because of the problems EliseS2 mentioned. Some engineering students just dont have the knack to design parts, all they want to do is run numbers. Or do nothing. Lame...

    Bryan
    UMD
    Bryan Hise

    "The price of winning is always the reduction, if not the elimination, of play time. However, since racing is basically playing any way you want to look at it (real people make their livings by doing something they hate), we cant bitch

  5. #15
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by B Hise:
    Some engineering students just dont have the knack to design parts, all they want to do is run numbers. Or do nothing. Lame...
    </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

    Quick poll:

    which would you rather do, run numbers (and make bank because instead of doing engineering you're working in some finance job at $200k per year 4 years out of school), or be poor, work 120 hours per week, and produce racecars for a living?

    Seriously, though, I think if enough of us get together, we could have a serious shot at starting a (pro) race team. i'll go find some venture capital people, who's with me?
    Mike Miles
    Carnegie Mellon SAE/Carnegie Mellon Racing -- Formula SAE 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006

  6. #16
    I'm trying to get FSAE started up here at ASU. One of the things I'm trying to do is get a class set up for the team, on top of possible senior design stuff. The stuff on this thread scares me, but luckily I've heard enough other teams having some success that I'm not too worried. If anybody does try shit like this though, I think it might be time for my foot to meet their ass.

  7. #17
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by TG:
    I'm trying to get FSAE started up here at ASU. One of the things I'm trying to do is get a class set up for the team, on top of possible senior design stuff. The stuff on this thread scares me, but luckily I've heard enough other teams having some success that I'm not too worried. If anybody does try shit like this though, I think it might be time for my foot to meet their ass.

    Tim Gruhl
    President, ASU SAE </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

    If you are starting a team, I'd recommend not having it part of a class. As mentioned above, when there's a grade associated with it, people tend to do "just enough work not to get fired", or this case, a failing grade.

    Our team has no class credit with it. We also have no slackers, they quit immediately because they don't have to be there. One of the larger problems we have is people trying to do too much work and reinvent the wheel all the time.

    If people want a senior design project, let a couple senior veteran team members basically get a little credit for something they were already going to do anyway. Other than that, I think class credit hurts the team.
    --------------------------
    Matt Giaraffa
    Missouri S&T (UMR) FSAE 2001 - 2005

  8. #18
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by mtg:
    If you are starting a team, I'd recommend not having it part of a class. As mentioned above, when there's a grade associated with it, people tend to do "just enough work not to get fired", or this case, a failing grade.

    Our team has no class credit with it. We also have no slackers, they quit immediately because they don't have to be there. One of the larger problems we have is people trying to do too much work and reinvent the wheel all the time.

    If people want a senior design project, let a couple senior veteran team members basically get a little credit for something they were already going to do anyway. Other than that, I think class credit hurts the team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

    I've been basically hand picking the people that will be in this class. All of them are A students and seniors. It will all be for tech elective credit in a project design class. All of the guidelines and a timeline will be figured out before the beginning of the semester. In addition, we were trying to go to competition this year, but the money didn't play out, so we now have material suppliers and know what we have to work with.
    Something tells me I won't have to worry about their motivation. I think my main worries will definately be elsewhere (getting money for one, other parts of the design that will not be in the class, etc.)

  9. #19
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by TG:
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by mtg:
    If you are starting a team, I'd recommend not having it part of a class. As mentioned above, when there's a grade associated with it, people tend to do "just enough work not to get fired", or this case, a failing grade.

    Our team has no class credit with it. We also have no slackers, they quit immediately because they don't have to be there. One of the larger problems we have is people trying to do too much work and reinvent the wheel all the time.

    If people want a senior design project, let a couple senior veteran team members basically get a little credit for something they were already going to do anyway. Other than that, I think class credit hurts the team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

    I've been basically hand picking the people that will be in this class. All of them are A students and seniors. It will all be for tech elective credit in a project design class. All of the guidelines and a timeline will be figured out before the beginning of the semester. In addition, we were trying to go to competition this year, but the money didn't play out, so we now have material suppliers and know what we have to work with.
    Something tells me I won't have to worry about their motivation. I think my main worries will definately be elsewhere (getting money for one, other parts of the design that will not be in the class, etc.)

    Tim Gruhl
    President, ASU SAE </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

    I'd rethink having 'A' students. I say this because when you have 'A' students, they may have the book smarts, but are almost never willing to put the time into it that it needs, because they are too busy concentrating on school, and can't be dedicated enough to the program. This is a problem we've had before, and the trend seems to be the better your grades are, the less of an asset you are to the team.

    Building a fast race car is not necesarily related to good grades...

  10. #20
    We have a class at our college. Anyone who wants to be in the class has to fill out a form. The prof picks the people based on background and on word of mouth from active members in SAE. However, i don't think that A's only should be allowed. We had a couple of people who had A's and don't do anything or understand why you can't make that part. Which is better a gearhead with a C or someone who has never picked up a hand tool that has an A? Remember you got to make a car. You can't teach common sense

    Vince
    Texas A&M

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