There's been some discussion about the FSAE-A design event but it's been muddled into other threads and so I decided to post here.
Keep in mind what I say is by no means an official word but my opinion; which may differ from how other judges see things. That's the good thing about posting this here because you can get feedback from others involved.
The Design event will always have one major issue, and that is you can't have all the same people judge the same cars. There is simply not enough time. So the result is you don't have a completely even playing field. Communication between judges, understanding of judging criteria, and spreading quality cars (from design reviews) among groups can minimize this.
The solution to this is having Design Finals. This means that the best cars do get a completely level playing field, and the winner is judged fairly. This puts resources to thier best use. The Design event is a lot of points but I think most would agree that the prestige factor is bigger than the points. Therefore more effort is put into deciding the proper winner than getting all cars ranked perfectly. Because nobody goes home upset because they think they should have gotten 9th in Design but they got 12th.
So.. for example in FSAE-A this year the two best cars in each design made the finals. Were they the 6 best cars? That is debatable, and really impossible to prove. But that's not the point of the finals. The point is to make sure that any car that is considered a possible winner gets a fair shake at the final prize. Yes it is prestigious to get into the finals, and I'm sure some teams were disappointed they didn't get in. But all a team had to do was prove to thier group of judges they are top 2 of 8 cars. If you can't do that, then in my opinion I don't think you really deserve to be in the finals.
The design event overall rankings seem to be far too carefully analyzed. One reason is the previously mentioned problem of different judging groups. The other is these are a lot of really good cars! Look at the points, not the ranking. Because in some cases 5 cars are under 10 points apart. So you might say that a car finishing 10th in design finishes 5th in Endurance and 5th overall, so the design judges must have missed something. But in reality maybe that car was only 8 points away from being 6th in design. It really was that close.
Comparing the dynamic events to design is nice, and certainly you want the results to be close. But it's not something that should always happen. They are two seperate events. All teams I saw had a good understanding of how to make a good vehicle. So any of those teams with a good testing program and trained drivers can have a solid finish dynamically without being stand-out in design. There is also the problem of teams having the knowledge but not being able to show the judges due to lack of information at the event or just poor communication skills.
Of course UQ was the only real obvious discrepancy at the event this year, being extremely good dynamically but only marginal in the design event. I was not in that judging group so I can't comment. I don't know why they were ranked where they were. But a car that good does not come by mistake so I know they did a great and competant job designing it. Only someone from UQ or the judging group can offer any info on that.
I was impressed by the judging group at FSAE-A. They are very dedicated and they really want to do the best job they can. Much discussion was put into every decision. However, it's a question of evaluating a lot of information in a short amount of time.
I have read all design reviews and if anyone wants comments I would be happy to oblige. Please contact me directly at cping@hra.com