Introducing Total Weight into the competition score?

[murpia]

A private discussion has prompted me to ask the following:

'The engineering disciplines required to set a weight target and to meet it are vital skills. I can't conceive of designing a racecar without setting a weight target and analysing and managing the design to achieve it. It's my personal opinion but weight should form an actual part of the competition score, kind of like the cost event.

'What should happen is teams should declare a running weight when they submit their competition entry. Then they are scored against a minimum weight (analagous to the maximum cost). Finally, they lose points if they weigh in heavier than their declaration (say 5 points per kg). Will get the teams much more focussed on a good design process. Safety should not be compromised because we already have adequate structural regulations and the minimum weight score can be made sensible enough (say 140kg). Teams can go as light as they dare given the stiffness and reliability tradeoffs.'

What do you all think?

Regards, Ian

[murpia]

A private discussion has prompted me to ask the following:

'The engineering disciplines required to set a weight target and to meet it are vital skills. I can't conceive of designing a racecar without setting a weight target and analysing and managing the design to achieve it. It's my personal opinion but weight should form an actual part of the competition score, kind of like the cost event.

'What should happen is teams should declare a running weight when they submit their competition entry. Then they are scored against a minimum weight (analagous to the maximum cost). Finally, they lose points if they weigh in heavier than their declaration (say 5 points per kg). Will get the teams much more focussed on a good design process. Safety should not be compromised because we already have adequate structural regulations and the minimum weight score can be made sensible enough (say 140kg). Teams can go as light as they dare given the stiffness and reliability tradeoffs.'

What do you all think?

Regards, Ian

[Igor]

I think this will give an unfair points advantage to the teams that chose the 1 cylinder light car philosophy. The 1 cylinder and 4 cylinder cars seem to be somewhat balanced now on the track, giving teams a choice to implement their own philosophy. Giving more points to the 1 cylinder cars just based on weight will only force teams into the 1 cylinder option for no good reason.
Imagine the complaints if the track is opened up a bit within the rules and the 4 cylinders kick ass with their power advantage.

Igor

[Pete M]

I don't see the point really. Why select one vehicle parameter to pick on? Why not dyno all the cars and give points based on raw area under the power curve? Just as irrelevant on its own to the performance of the car as weight. Scoring power to weight ratio would be slightly more valid, but i'd still argue against it (even though we'd score pretty high).

I personally think the best car is the one that is quickest in the dynamic events. The less BS metrics in SAE the better.

[John Valerio]

Igor has a good point, plus the 1 cyls already get the fuel economy advantage, so I dont think an absolute weight score would be a good idea.

I would, however, support a score based on how far off the teams are from their estimated weight (on the heavier OR lighter side) to be submitted with the design report. Submission that early would make it so the teams that can't afford good scales (i.e. most of us) won't be at that much of a disadvantage and just have to be more diligent with keeping track of weight.

Pete, dynamic events are a bad way to judge the cars' merits. Just look at the extreme range of driving talents we have, from nation kart champs to the math nerd who's just quicker than his team mates. The only way to judge the cars equally would be to have a pro racer (fsae stig?) drive them all and then compare lap times...

I think weight should be more of a part of comp, we are after all the only open wheel class that doesn't have a minimum weight.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

This is already done by every team, its just not scored and shouldnt be.

Everyone wasnt to make the lightest car possible but still make it reliable. Neither of these happen in many cases.

My vote is no. For those of us that are comfortable with a 4 cylinder with 13" wheels, why compete against a single with 8" solely on weight.

Look at the top 10 teams and count how many run singles and 10" wheels.....see where I am going.

[mtg]

Hell no. The weight of your car is already posted on the nose when you go through design, so one could argue that points are affected by your weight.

But, if weight was a scored event, it would take away a lot of the coolness of FSAE- which is a 300 lb single cylinder and a 450 lb four cyliner winged car both battling it out for the win. Everybody wanting to win would have to go down the tiny car path. I'm not saying that's a bad path, but the competitions would not be as good if all the cars starting looking more similar.

[BeaverGuy]

While I see how you have tried to balance it, by making the teams declare their design weight when they register months in advance and then grading against that. HOwever, that just gives the teams an incentive to set their weight goal higher than they otherwise would. And in reality these are prototypes, prototypes almost never reach their weight goals in the real world. While a team that has minimal turnover could realistically hit their weight goal using previous desisns and effectively making the current car "production ready"; many teams have complete turn over every year and each car would be a new prototype.

[flavorPacket]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by mtg:
Hell no. The weight of your car is already posted on the nose when you go through design, so one could argue that points are affected by your weight. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's not in England

And Pete M, the issue with the dynamic events is that the cars are all driven by different people.

[murpia]

To clarify, the reason I suggest scoring competition weight vs. declared design target is to attempt to improve the design process of many of the teams.

I have now judged too many teams who don't have a coherent design process, don't set proper design targets and don't put in place management systems to stick to those targets. I am coming at this from the competition objective to train better engineers. The cost report, while almost universally hated by those who express their opinion on it, does have this objective in mind and does contribute to the competition score.

Simply scoring competition weight vs. declared design target opens up the tactic of declaring a heavy car just to get you through easily. Therefore actual weight will also need to be scored to ensure teams make a proper effort.

The cost report costs engines by their performance per cc. Something similar could be done for weight, so the lower power singles need to be proportionally lighter to score the same.

Perhaps declaring and scoring power to weight ratio might be sufficient? But then all the cars need to be dynoed too.

And just so you all know, I have no rule-making power beyond the ability to email those who do for Formula Student UK...

Regards, Ian