Formula SAE Australasia 2007 Competition: - Updates, Pictures, Stories, and More. [Archive]

Big Bird

12-15-2007, 01:52 AM

It's been interesting to say the least. UWA are visibly quicker than anyone else, Swinburne are kicking goals, changing track conditions on the skid pad and the nature of the point system gave great advantage to those who scored the quicker times.

Many, many, many comments about the lack of preparation of the teams - a full post in itself, but I'll save that for later. I think it is very disappointing that in a mature comp (this is the 8th Oz comp remember), that the basic lessons of preparation haven't been learnt. Most of the cars have been finished in the last week or two, (or the last hour or two in some cases), with the prevailing attitude that fancy design will somehow supercede physical testing. As a result, the Risk Monster is having a wonderful time out there, merrily slapping around anyone who thought they could be a bit too clever.

The greatest travesty is that the team who were better prepared than anyone else, Adelaide (who have had their car finished for three months, and who have had over 30 hours of on track testing) have sprung a leak in their fuel tank today, and have missed all their events. Commiserations to Brett, Costa, Luke and all the lads - you deserved a hell of a lot better than that.

For those who couldn't be bothered adding all the above numbers in their heads, here is the breakdown so far......

UWA 418.76
Swin 320.98
RMIT 310.16
Monash 301
QUT 299.23
Deak 295.77
UoW 286.13
Munich 279.37
Melb 247.37
Syd 238.1
USA 235.15
TDU 224.9
Auck 218.24
ADFA 191.11
Vic 186.57
Tokai 163.58
New 150.06
Adel 124.79
UNSW 113.26
UQ 112.03
USQ 107.07
UTS 97.09

Congrats to the UWA lads for some brilliant results thus far across all events, and to Swinny for getting right up there too. RMIT struggling with engine misfires - most of the day spent chasing gremlins in the fuel injection...

I'm too scared to offer any tips, as I think luck has been allowed to play too great a role. But Swinny's car has seemed the most solid of all the top runners, and goes when it is meant to. I think they are on track for their best ever finish.

All the best for tomorrow everyone

Cheers all,

benny41

12-15-2007, 04:01 AM

sorry about the rushed post before i just thought id get some info out for those who wanted to know.

From what i heard around the autocross track was much more open than it was last year. The rain played havoic with skidpan with many cars struggling to go much faster than walking pace.

another hard luck story goes to new zealand after they also had a fuel leak and electrical problems.

i think adfa had more diff problems and newcastle had starter motor trouble.

cant wait for tomorrow!

PatClarke

12-15-2007, 04:28 AM

Hi all,
I probably will post some pictures, but it will not be for a few days. I think I am commentating tomorrow, so I may not be able to get my usual on track action shots....we'll see.

Been tied up in Design Finals all evening. The finalists in Design were UWA, RMIT, Wollongong and Tokyo Denki...In other words, the 'usual suspects'.
5 teams took a 10 point penalty for failure to accept Percy, the 95% percentile mannekin. This possibly kept one or two teams from the finals. In any case the Design Judges agreed there were only four deserving finalists. Obviously, I know the result, but this is not where the results are announced. Just lets say, I expect some robust debate tomorrow.

I agree with Big Bird about the quantity, quality and readiness of teams and the willingness for some teams to simply throw in the towel and abandon ship.

Random thoughts.
UWA, some systems not ready, so their effort, though fast, is somewhat jury rigged.
RMIT, struggled with brake issues and then a sensor problem, limiting speed on track,
Swinburne, some deserved penalties in Design, won Presentation. On the track, having the current Australian Formula Ford Champion in the driver lineup is helping them.
FH Munich. Too heavy in Design (5th or 6th)fastest in accel, crucified in cost (probably for the truth!)
Auckland. No go yet as they have cam or crank sensor problems.
Tokyo Denki. Tuning issues and hard starting. Looks like far too rich down low and far too lean up high.
ADFA. After a heroic effort re-engineering the diff to a spool (and being amazed by the positive result) ate their epicyclic gear train, probably as a result of previous failures.
Deakin. Design penalties.
Wollongong. Seemed to run okay, lots of power but a worrying smoke trail from the exhaust.
Can't remember any more right now.
Goodnight
Pat

screwdriver

12-15-2007, 06:30 AM

Thanks for the updates!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by PatClarke:
FH Munich. Too heavy in Design (5th or 6th)fastest in accel, crucified in cost (probably for the truth!)
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Don't worry, Pat we're used to being slaughtered in cost.
I'm glad to hear that our car made it to the competition safely and is up and running properly.
Our acceleration time really baffles me.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that our car makes it through the endurance tomorrow.

muffrx4

12-15-2007, 08:10 AM

Is it just me, or is there more than a little ambiguity in suggesting teams should opt for a simple, effective (read conservative) design, when teams like WA with active suspension, tub, motec, traction control and custom electronic doobiewhatsits turn up and place second in cost? if thats not a red rag to a bull.... of course teams will push the limits of readiness and engineering practice in the hopes of a decent finish, one simply must push hard in the australasian comp environment to even have a chance of finishing 4th!

PC complains about quality of the field, yet goes on to suggest Swinny's car is a re-hash of last year, nothing could be further from the truth or a more ignorant statement. As one of last years Swinny boys nothing gives me greater pleasure than to see the car perform, especially considering the tough decision the boys and buoy took to refine a package rather than go radical. There is no greater engineering feat / lesson than learning from other's mistakes! And Pat if you think that having a good driver is why Swinny is doing ok I suggest you really consider taking photos for the rest of the w/e as some might even turn out focussed and worthy of this forum.

All the best everyone, and remember 'mistakes' are a sign of learning, whilst 'doing this right' is simply recognition of prior knowledge and best left for old people.

kind regards

tim newton

peace out everyone

flavorPacket

12-15-2007, 09:24 AM

muffrx4, the kinetic-style UWA system is not active. It's just a much better passive system than 4 coilovers and 2 ARBs.

C.Zinke

12-15-2007, 10:06 AM

flavorPacket,

i'm in hurry, but i like to discuss, if its really better, than an "normal" passive suspension. I know the UWA System a bit, but not perfect. If somebody has more detailed information on the Kinetic system, then we can start a new thread and discuss.

Regards

Big Bird

12-15-2007, 12:58 PM

Tim, Pat is one of the reasons we have this comp in Oz. He has given enormous amounts of his own time and money to ensure this competition works, and is one of the reasons that Australian teams are recognized as being amongst the best in the world. To respond to a criticism with implied barbs about his age, and even his photographic ability, is not doing your team any favors at all.

We have been at the receiving end of Pat's criticism many times in the past – and have in worn the same comments about design flaws being masked by an ace driver (when Rotor was driving our car in ˜03). The comments were taken on-board, and we set about proving that there was merit in our design. Our team has full respect for Pat, because he has proven time and time again to go out of his way to help competitors in this comp – not just our team, ALL competitors. When he criticizes a design, it is not some personal insult – it is his job. He criticizes, we justify, we all learn from the experience.

I have commented above that Swinburne has the most complete package this year, and is looking for the best finish ever. I said it because I believe it. However there are flaws in the design, just like there are flaws in every car this year. UWA and RMIT are suffering from severe lack of preparation. Swinburne has a strong and usable motor, reliability, and a good driver (crucial factors that should see success this weekend – and deservedly so) – but the car does look uneasy around the track and seems to be pitching and rolling quite violently. EVERY team this year needs to lift their act. I repeat my observation that standards seem to have dropped.

Give Pat a break, mate. I didn't see any accusations in his comments that your car was a rehash of last years, (unless you are responding to something he may have said to your team personally, in which case it would have been better to not raise things in such a way on these forums). He does a damn good job, and we are only going to see supporters of this competition disappear if we respond to their comments with such vitriol.

chavez

12-15-2007, 03:14 PM

Put the VB down long enough to post some pictures...

muffrx4

12-15-2007, 03:21 PM

geoff, the age 'barb' was to you.

the reference to photography was a suggestion that comments about field quality are poorly focussed and not in line with the reason the competition exists, ie mechanical engineering and learning.

To flavourpacket - get a name - and i dont care what WA call their suspension.

Pat Clarke said "Swinburne, some deserved penalties in Design..." -- thats an opinion.

ALSO I am in NO WAY affiliated with Swinburne, and these opinions are my own.

muffed out,

arbitraryusername

12-15-2007, 08:33 PM

From Saturday.

http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/~lachlan/2007%20FSAE/IMG_4214.JPG

http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/~lachlan/2007%20FSAE/IMG_4244.JPG

http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/~lachlan/2007%20FSAE/IMG_4332.JPG

Mike Claffey

12-15-2007, 10:27 PM

Just received a text saying RMIT with most points in Enduro/Fuel and UWA ahead in points overall... this is unofficial 2nd hand information though!

Big Bird

12-15-2007, 11:26 PM

Wow, close comp. I couldn't hang around this arvo - keep us posted Mike (anyone?), and good luck to all.

And geez you are an angry man Tim! Wow, everyone cops a barb. I've no problem if you want to insult me, (apparently now my birth date is some kind of crime - my parents are going to be pretty upset about that). But at least have the decency to make it clear who you are insulting. All this crypticism, I can't cope with it all at this advanced age.

In your own words man, peace out http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Cheers all,

Chris Lane

12-15-2007, 11:45 PM

Wow, what a flame-fest!

UWA's Kinetic system was originally designed for 4wd-ing applications, but was applied to the SAE car by UWA. Making this system work to such an effective degree is a credit to the team. Unless your team can build a faster car than UWA's, you have no grounds to discredit it.

I am really looking forward to next year! It's a shame I couldn't be there. Hope some of you got to meet Edward and Pete from our team at some stage throughout the weekend.

flavorPacket

12-15-2007, 11:47 PM

geoff, you are a gentleman and a scholar

Chris Lane

12-16-2007, 04:04 AM

So who won? I am anxious to find out...

PatClarke

12-16-2007, 04:17 AM

Tim, wake up and spit out the sour grapes! Geoff, Thanks for the support.

Let me justify my Swinburne comments....
Quote Pat 1..."Swinburne, some deserved penalties in Design, won Presentation".

Okay, after 3 years of telling you, you still couldn't accept Percy...So, 10 points penalty...DESERVED! You did win Presentation didn't you???? In which case, DESERVED.

Let me assure you that the 10 points along with some other stuff you didn't learn from last year kept you out of Design Finals, along with about 4 other teams.

Quote Pat 2......"On the track, having the current Australian Formula Ford Champion in the driver lineup is helping them".
DOH! Is that a criticism??? Surely selection of good drivers is part of good team management. I watched the drivers, he was markedly faster than your other drivers. That was neither a criticism nor sour grapes, just a simple statement of fact.

Quote Tim 1......PC complains about quality of the field, yet goes on to suggest Swinny's car is a re-hash of last year.

When and where did I make that statement? Perhaps you are reading a different forum to me?

Tonight at the presentation, I offered to come to your university and help you with planning and technical advice for next year. Consider that offer comprehensively withdrawn! Just rehash again next time.

Quote Tim 2.....And Pat if you think that having a good driver is why Swinny is doing ok I suggest you really consider taking photos for the rest of the w/e as some might even turn out focussed and worthy of this forum.

Tim, that I did, about 700 of them. Perhaps 20 or so were of Swinburn, but I can't be sure as I just consigned the lot to the trash.

Quote Tim 3......Pat Clarke said "Swinburne, some deserved penalties in Design..." -- thats an opinion.
Pat Clarke was a senior design judge. That was a statement!

Pat

Edit. Tim I thought you were part of the Swinburn team. Your post certainly reads that way!

Disco

12-16-2007, 04:20 AM

A reliable source at the closing party tells me that UWA got over the line by 10 points over RMIT for the overall win.

RMIT won both design and Endurance.

All unofficial ofcourse.

PatClarke

12-16-2007, 04:24 AM

Chris,
UWA won narrowly from RMIT. On Sunday morning, UWA held a good lead, but in Design and Enduro (Both won by RMIT)the gap was pulled back to single digit points.
Monash finished third.
Design Finals was RMIT, Tokyo Denki, Wollongong and UWA.
The attrition rate was very high, had there not been two runs at Enduro, I wonder who would have won as the top three along with stalwarts Deakin, Adelaide and others all DNFed at sometime or other.
Not one of the Australian event's great years.

I have a lot of pix. After I cull out the fuzzys, I will post them =] =]

Pat

cheester

12-16-2007, 04:46 AM

Pat

I thought I just saw you write, but now edited

"I have a lot of pix. After I cull out the fuzzys, and shit teams ones, I will post them =] =]"

u can say I'm a liar, but I saw what I saw and I was extremely disapointed at how a person like you can even think of such a comment.

And I can't understand y u and geoff enjoy being a keyboard warrior so much on these forums. I don't find any of this constructive,,,its all ppl bitching about other ppl. If you want ppl to accept your constructive criticism, then a forum like this is not ideal, coz ppl can easily misunderstand as oppose to talking to ppl face to face.

Pavs

12-16-2007, 05:03 AM

Congrats to UWAM from all at CMT.

Next year we should hopefully join you guys once again at the comp with another FSAE-A racecar from out west. And not to mention ANOTHER from ECU.

Fingers crossed we don't disappear into your shadows as seen in the past.

WELL DONE.

Nick Pavy
2007 Engineering Project Manager
Curtin Motorsport Team

Chris Lane

12-16-2007, 05:12 AM

What happened to all the grown-ups around here?

This thread is degrading to petty squabble.

Pics would be great thanks Pat! (in a new thread me thinks)

Congrats to UWA! I'll congratulate you all in person next year at our WA SAE team bbq.

ben

12-16-2007, 06:01 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by cheester:
Pat

I thought I just saw you write, but now edited

"I have a lot of pix. After I cull out the fuzzys, and shit teams ones, I will post them =] =]"

u can say I'm a liar, but I saw what I saw and I was extremely disapointed at how a person like you can even think of such a comment.

And I can't understand y u and geoff enjoy being a keyboard warrior so much on these forums. I don't find any of this constructive,,,its all ppl bitching about other ppl. If you want ppl to accept your constructive criticism, then a forum like this is not ideal, coz ppl can easily misunderstand as oppose to talking to ppl face to face. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You registered today just to write that? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Pat can be a bit acerbic sometimes, but as Geoff has pointed out he has done an immense amount for the UK comp, the German event, and is of course one of the main reasons the Aus event exists at all. He's refuted the BS leveled at him earlier in the thread so I won't add anything to that debate.

Geoff's one of the smartest guys I've met through this competition and what RMIT have achieved is a direct reflection on his ability. The fact that he's prepared to add his opinions to this board makes it a better place and you should be grateful that people like that are willing to help improve everyone's knowledge. As for suggesting he participates in "ppl bitching about other ppl" it's just not true.

Having done 4 comps myself as a student I know exactly how it feels the day after when it hasn't gone quite as well as you wanted. I'll take that as mitigation for the comments, but otherwise you and Tim are just being rude.

I've also done three comps as a design judge and you'd be surprised by how difficult it is to be comprehensive and fair to everyone. It's not perfect, but I'd love to see you try and do better. BTW the best judging regime I've worked under is Pat's.

Finally the racing - Congrats to UWA, RMIT, and particularly Monash for third http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Take some chill pills people it's only racing.

Ben

Big Bird

12-16-2007, 06:26 AM

Geez, it seems it ended up a lot closer than expected. Heartiest congrats to UWA - they have been a standard to beat in this comp for many years, and I don't think their number of outright wins has ever truly represented their talent. Enjoy the spoils all.

Any further results that can be passed on? Deakin? TDU? UoW? Monash? Etc etc. There were some teams looking for their best ever finish this year, it would be good to hear the rest of the story.

As for my growing crowd of critics - crikey, it is all getting a bit sensitive, isn't it? But if the comments I've offered above are insulting and "bitching about ppl" (purple? penpals? potplants? pimples?) then you are going to uttely wilt under the pressure of a serious design event interrogation.

If my timing was a bit out, and people are a still bit sensitive in the recent aftermath of the comp, then I apologize for that. But leaving aside my own personal observations, (biases, if you want to see it that way), I am moreso relaying observations from a number of senior design judges, officials, and respected FSAE alumni who came up to speak to me over the weekend. Some (most?) of the observations weren't particularly complimentary. My own university copped a spray as well, from some pretty senior officials - and that team was one of the more successful ones over the weekend.

I hope Eddie Martin (a senior design judge) gets on here at some stage and offers his thoughts. Maybe then you will all realize that it is not just me trying to stir people for the sake of it. There are serious concerns about the priorities of the competing teams, and some of the fundamental lessons that need to be learnt, aren't being learnt.

I've probably upset a few more people now. I'd better go to bed.

Cheers all,

Big Bird

12-16-2007, 06:32 AM

Ben, sincere thanks mate. You posted while I was writing. I hope all is going well with the new duties, keep us posted.

And Monash third! That is terrific! Big ups to Phil, Scott and all the crew.

Cheers all, lets get this thread back to its original intent.

David Campbell

12-16-2007, 07:06 AM

Congratulations Monash on you best finish yet! (Phil, Jarrod would be very jealous you got a podium without him.)

Cant wait to hear the whole story and browse through posted photos (thanks Pat).

Disappointed I could not attend another FSAE-A event.

Well done to everybody else that got their car to the event.

Frank "Ruska" Roeske

12-16-2007, 07:10 AM

Congratulations to all teams finished the enduro and the winners from UWA.

It is interesting to read the comments and more than that the discussion.

Checking the posted results, i would say the level is stagnated over there. The same teams with the same concepts are on top of the list. Why no other team make it on top? Comparing the Stuttgart and RMIT or TUG and UWA performance in UK and US this year it looks like the european teams making the speed in the moment.

What Pat wants to say, 2 or 3 years before the Aussie Teams had the lead. Only 2 or 3 teams are still on top of the board. He makes it very offensive and direct. If you will be on top, you should listen and try to think about it. Why RMIT and UWA are on top of the board? Because the rest doesnÂ´t work good enough...

I havnÂ´t seen any of the cars beside RMIT, so i can`t make any comments about the design but reading the posts and checking the websites, i would say most of the teams should improve their project management.

The best design is worthless if you canÂ´t make it in time. Most of the teams had some unique design features but when the run out of time it is worthless. And more than that you can see in what design stage the run out of time.

That is what PAT is telling you. He not talking about specific mistakes from specific teams. All he say, that most of the teams having some bad design mistakes. IÂ´m pretty sure that he has a list form each team including Design winners with their good designs and design mistakes.

If you think your design is perfect, free from any mistake why you didnÂ´t win the competition?

You have 2 chances... listen to the people how having a lot of experience and getting better or ignore them and stagnate on a lower level.

Once again congratulation to all of you, how brings a car to the competition and congratulation to the winners.

Hope to see some of you in Germany 2008.

Frank

flavorPacket

12-16-2007, 07:24 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Frank "Ruska" Roeske:

this year it looks like the european teams making the speed in the moment.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Frank, I think the results disagree with you on that one. In the US, UWA and Wisconsin wiped the floor with the rest of us, and I personally believe UWA could have gone much faster than they did. In the UK, RMIT and Stuttgart were clearly on another level. And in Germany, Wisconsin again had the fastest car in competition.

The best cars and teams are still spread across 3 continents.

Frank "Ruska" Roeske

12-16-2007, 09:25 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:

Frank, I think the results disagree with you on that one. In the US, UWA and Wisconsin wiped the floor with the rest of us, and I personally believe UWA could have gone much faster than they did. In the UK, RMIT and Stuttgart were clearly on another level. And in Germany, Wisconsin again had the fastest car in competition.

The best cars and teams are still spread across 3 continents. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of course, there are a lots of fast cars all over the world. I totally agree, but my comment wasnÂ´t just on the speed of the cars. This depends on the driver as well. But the european teams, the making the speed in the fact of design quality and design features. A full hand of new European teams increases the level of design in Europe.

Maybe my comparison confused. But i just talked about the design and the overall.

So a lot of new teams in Europe having the same enthusiasm and ideas like the OZ ones a couple of years ago. For example Stuttgart was in the 2nd year in UK, TUG in their 4th year in US.

My massage is quite simple: Try to improve your knowledge and listen to the people how shows you your mistakes. That makes you better.

flavorPacket

12-16-2007, 09:45 AM

Frank,

I agree with that assessment 100%. As of right now, the European teams seem to be pushing design the hardest. BUT, my point was that they are not definitively faster, yet.

C.Zinke

12-16-2007, 10:20 AM

And of course everybody knows it, but i like to repeat, that the driver is the most important factor, that makes a car fast. And i do not like it ;o)

TomF

12-16-2007, 10:28 AM

Well a great driver helps, but enough testing can make a good driver score quite close to the great driver. It requires a good race engineer to do so and a very well defined testing period. I am not claiming that this gets you the fastest times yet, but if you can train a good driver very well, than he will come close. However this also means your car has to be very driveable. So I do beleive it still comes down to the car for this competition and that is the way it should be!

Congrats, UWA for the win in difficult conditions!

Cheers all

Frank "Ruska" Roeske

12-16-2007, 11:25 AM

Once again i agree, design is unequal to fast, as long as you have not the same driver.

So we need to have a standard driver.... ME! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

But FS(AE)(G) is a design event. So i talk design and a lot project management. And the european teams pushing hard on that. My personal design highlight this year: The Braunschweig ABS system. That feature makes you really faster. I was able to drive their car after the Hockenheim event. When normal FSAE cars starts to break, this team shift up once more.

But the topic was: FSAE-A

Any final Scores, pictures and stories?

Frank

screwdriver

12-16-2007, 01:28 PM

While the teams are probably getting spent on the party, I'm looking forward to the official result posting.

Frank: There are much easier ways to get a carbon-fiber coffin. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

benny41

12-16-2007, 02:03 PM

hey guys
just recovering from the after party. a top night all round and all i can say is those kiwis are as loose as the come and a bunch of top blokes.
now for some results (or the ones i can remember)
endevour award ADFA

fuel economy 1st rmit 2nd deakin ( cant believe it we were a bit worried about our fuel consumption and didnt figure we would be any where near it) 3 Uwa

Acceleration 1st munich

presentation 1st swinburne 2nd auckland

autocross 1st uwa 2nd rmit ( i think that is right)

unfortunatley i didnt here the skidpan or enduro results because of the noise.

just a quick question to Pat why did us and auckland get marked down so bad in design?
I know that we didnt fit percy in the car. ( even though he didnt sit in our seat correctly)
so we lost points there. I know that i will be a bit biased but surely our car was one of the better designed cars there and the kiwis car was also a great design.

finally congratulaions to UWA. there car was amazing to watch on the road.also congartulations to monash on third (even though 1/2 way through the enduro they were able to cut there drag co-efficent lol). apparently the rest of the order wont be released till tuesday. surely the result are known allready and what harm would there be in releasing them on the night.
i hope that fills in some info for those waiting

Big Bird

12-16-2007, 03:51 PM

Just for anyone who may be in town and looking for something to do:

Tomorrow (Tues) night, we are arranging with the lads from Tokyo Denki Uni to go minimoto riding and / or karting at a track up here near RMIT (Bundoora). We'll be following that up with a barbeque at RMIT for the TDU lads, and the crew who are here for the Claude Rouelle course. If any of you are interested in either, drop me a line at geoff.pearson_at_rmit.edu.au.

We'll need to know numbers by mid tomorrow morning.

Arrive at RMIT Bundoora by:
5:00pm for karting &/or minimoto (around $50-$60 per head depending on numbers - minimoto for experienced bike riders only)
7:30pm for barbeque (BYO meat and drinks - alcohol a bit of a no-no on campus unfortunately)

Cheers all,

AndyTTR

12-16-2007, 04:09 PM

Hi everyone, long time listener first time poster. Just thought I'd throw in my 2c.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by benny41:
...also congartulations to monash on third (even though 1/2 way through the enduro they were able to cut there drag co-efficent lol)... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, the lap times went up 2-4 seconds after the wing self-destructed. The car was tuned with the wings and didn't drive so well without them. The completely trashed set of brand new avons we fitted for the enduro is testament to this.

Congratulations to all the teams that competed - even showing up with a car at all is no mean feat!

benjo

12-16-2007, 05:29 PM

Congrats to UWA, RMIT & Monash for their performances. Commiserations to Swinburne who were looking really good all weekend but were unable to finish the endurance. Also would of liked to see the Auckland boys do a bit better, they had a great car and were a great bunch of guys.

At VU we were pretty happy with the weekend, finished all events including both endurance runs. Second run was looking a lot quicker then first, then lost shifting and was stuck in third so times were down a fair bit. Managed to finish 12th overall, best performance for us. Overall happy with everything and had a great weekend.

Heres a pic of one our guys getting a bit loose out of a corner.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y112/serka/corey2.jpg

Also for those interested links to the other results of design and endurance.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y112/serka/DSC01479.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y112/serka/DSC01478.jpg

--------------
VU Motorsports

Mike Claffey

12-16-2007, 07:42 PM

Congratulations to all the teams involved!

I have to agree with Frank about management.. but a discussion for another thread perhaps.

I would really like to read some blog like posts of the weekend from all the teams involved. Your experiences, what went wrong etc. If someone could put down a bit of a play by play of the enduro would be great as well. Don't be afraid to say what went wrong either... getting a few different teams perspectives on the event would be really interesting - don't hold back.

PatClarke

12-16-2007, 08:00 PM

Hi again,
The comment edited was on the forum for just minutes. I was hopping mad at being misquoted and having words put in my mouth. Two separate Swinburne members confronted me with "You said the only reason we performed was because Tim Blanchard was driving" I never stated that!! And I loathe when people put words in my mouth.
I edited and withdrew some of the ripe language when I realised the poster wasn't a current team member.

As for why teams did poorly in Design despite having supposedly a 'Good Design'.
In the preliminary competition where I was only involved on the periphery, a team may not score well if they cannot successfully defend their design. The judges don't want to know WHAT you have done, they can see that. They want to know WHY you did it and what other options you canvassed. Statements like 'It worked last year so we did it again' don't cut it!

Incidentally, I do not disagree that the Deakin and Auckland cars were well designed cars. But that's only half the battle in Design. If you think the Design Judges might be getting a bit tougher, especially with cars that do not meet both the letter of the rules as well as the intent of the rules, then you might well be right! There was a significant faction in the Judging group that wanted to DQ cars that didn't fit Percy. Beware next year!

The decision by the judges this year to put only 4 teams in the finals left everyone else stranded somewhere below 100 points. When a 10 point Percy penalty is applied, then it hurts doubly bad. A car can never reach the Design Finals if it does not comply with the rules!

It is not the job of the Judges to smile and pat you on the back and say what a wonderful job you have done. It is their job to probe your defense of your design decisions. You may not like it, but thats how it is in real life (only worse!)

Anyway, I have spoken enough on this thread. I might get labelled a 'Keyboard Warrior' ..Oops, too late!

Pat

Charger

12-16-2007, 08:19 PM

Congrats to WA and RMIT for strong results again. However i feel that the final order of these two teams may have been different if WA were not allowed access to skidpad event 25mins after the official closing of the event. Everyone could see that they had the superior vehicle but a competition is a competition and deadlines should apply to all teams no matter what color shirt they are wearing. Cost event still baffels me and should be dumped all together. It seems that every year the honest teams are made to suffer.

external_charger

12-16-2007, 08:44 PM

I agree with charger... some things were baffling. I watched RMIT start there car on an external battery inside an event - yet no official complaints were made. Perhaps the points penalty on a failed complaint should be dropped to remove the fear associated with calling someone out.

Chris Lane

12-16-2007, 10:06 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Charger:
Cost event still baffels me and should be dumped all together. It seems that every year the honest teams are made to suffer. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I half agree with you there...

The SAE car is meant to be a budget weekend car for a recreational driver. It therefore follows that the car made for the lowest cost should get some merit in the form of points. Dumping the cost event will reduce the 'accessibility' of the event to teams on a tighter budget, and allow the richer teams to splurge cash on everything.

That said, there is no way in hell some of these cars could be made for their claimed cost. Something HAS to be done to bring everyone back in line.

SE7EN

12-16-2007, 10:30 PM

As with any kind of competition, there will always be conflicts, debates and ppl who simply wanted to sulk.

I have been there and done my fair share of FSAE and I know the feeling to walk away disappointed, sulking at the team who won the event.

However, as with any motorsport, luck plays a huge part! How many teams have came so close but no cigar? Acknowledge you've done your abs best and try harder next year!

Marwan

12-16-2007, 11:54 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mike Claffey:
I would really like to read some blog like posts of the weekend from all the teams involved. Your experiences, what went wrong etc. If someone could put down a bit of a play by play of the enduro would be great as well. Don't be afraid to say what went wrong either... getting a few different teams perspectives on the event would be really interesting - don't hold back. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here's my $0.02...

MUR had a pretty eventful weekend. Static events went ok but we had the scare of our lives when we were almost not allowed to compete. A few team members got about an hour (or none at all!) of sleep and sorted it out for the following morning... along with a spaceframe that was ready to be slapped on for Sunday. Even after fixing the problem the delays threw off all of our preparation for accel and skid pad.

Then we had a "freak valve incident" while in line for the autocross, which forced us to run our wets on a very drying track. That slowed us down a lot I believe. But again, that was sorted out on Saturday night thanks to some kind help and we were back on drys for enduro.

Given the dramas we're all pretty happy with our results. Big congrats to the top 3, well deserved. The UWA car was jaw dropping as always http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Strange weekend though. Very small field with some strong teams running very late cars as well as unfortunate issues attacking those that were capable of a very strong showing.

Ah well, c'est la FSAE.

ben

12-16-2007, 11:55 PM

Pat's articulated the biggest thing people miss when assessing design event scores - the performance of the team under questioning from the judges - you can't tell this by looking at the car.

UWA fell foul of this in the States I believe last year and even in the design final at FSG there was a reasonable spread of knowledge within what everyone would call "good teams" purely by looking at the car.

To reiterate Pat's point - you need to tell us WHY you did what you did and if you can't, you won't score well.

BTW, having the template fit is like being able to write you name on an exam paper. If you can't do that what do you expect?

Ben

benny41

12-17-2007, 12:09 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
[QUOTE]Originally posted by benny41:
...also congartulations to monash on third (even though 1/2 way through the enduro they were able to cut there drag co-efficent lol)... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, the lap times went up 2-4 seconds after the wing self-destructed. The car was tuned with the wings and didn't drive so well without them. The completely trashed set of brand new avons we fitted for the enduro is testament to this.
[QUOTE]

Sorry mate it wasnt a dig at the wings or the fact they came off just a bit of a joke.
point taken about the design we will ensure we prepare better next year.

Brett Neale

12-17-2007, 05:14 AM

Hi all! Huge congrats to UWA, RMIT and Monash, all three were well deserved and either one deserved the win, no matter how close it was. A very mixed event from the Adelaide side of the fence, at one stage it was looking very bleak... It just goes to show that no matter how much testing you have, things can still go horribly wrong.

Anyways, I spose best place to start is Thursday. We were quite lucky being in the 4 or so teams selected for Thursday scrutineering, and getting through with only minor issues was a great relief. A few niggling problems that we found hard to diagnose and fix (rain didn't help) kept us in the pits for all of Friday and Saturday.

Since we missed Autocross with problems, Sunday morning was spent on the practice track to scrub tyres and check everything. The bad luck continued however, with the clutch cable breaking on the practice track (my bad this time). We managed to get a new one soldered together and in the car, pushing the limits of enduro closing time to get out in heat 1. Timmy and Samoo were in for the first heat, and they both pulled off a bloody awesome drive, at the massive relief to not only myself but the whole team. Both the boys were lapping 47's in a slower field, which was quite a joy to watch. There were a few little splutters at the end of the run which we still have no answer for, but we made it!

Back to the Fuel queue, we were hit with another awesome piece of news - 5th in design! Bit unlucky not to make the finals, but we were absolutely ecstatic. You couldn't wipe the smile off my face! Filling up with much less fuel than we ever used in testing was also a great surprise.

We chucked young Luke Betros on the practice track after lunch. After poor Danny dislocated his shoulder last weekend, Betty was a last minute replacement for the final enduro with myself. After never completing an enduro before, he drove to the letter and racked up almost no cones (1 or 2 at the most!). After the driver change I got to see what this thing could do, and it was such an experience driving this thing around this year's track (which was a great layout, I might add). Similar spluttering as the first enduro saw the car die with 2 or 3 laps to go, we still have no idea of the cause.

So anyways, that's our story. We'd like to heartily thank Bill Rakis, Bill West, Geoff Pearson and all the crew at RMIT for their awesome hospitality and generosity. At one stage late Saturday arvo, Geoff offered to camp out at Bundoora all night if he had to so we could get our problems sorted - thanks heaps mate. Also big thanks go out to Deakin for their epoxy tips, UQ for filter oil, the welding tent for the clutch cable and UTS for their cool little wheelie bin boom box to keep us entertained next door (nice work boys!).

Finally, a few other observations:
- A surprising amount of so-called "legacy" cars at this year's comp, some performing VERY well but getting hampered in design. I won't mention names to prevent being flamed, but there were some cars that looked very similar to 2006 (forgive me if I'm misunderstood, I didn't have time to look at them closely).
- RMIT were on the back foot after the intake clearance in Tech and a brake problem on Friday, but damn you guys bounced back hard winning Design and Enduro! Well done gents!
- Drivers play a huge part in this game. Unfortunately all of our drivers were brand new to either FSAE or racing in general, we really wonder how our car would perform on that track in the hands of a Formula Ford driver or Karting champion... That being said, Timmy, Samoo and Betty were awesome this weekend!
- Management is also a huge factor in being competitive. We were lucky in getting the car out on track early thanks to the huge amount of work from our MD, Costa (thanks heaps buddy!). Each comp I've witnessed shows just how organised and well managed winning teams like UWA, RMIT and Wollongong are over the rest of the field.
- I was surprised that parts flying off cars didn't result in DQ's, it's quite dangerous should another car be hit with flying car parts.

Anyways, that's all from me for now. Even though we had our problems over the weekend, it was still such an amazing experience. Well done to all the teams who competed (we know just how hard this stuff can be) and we'll see you all again next year!

flavorPacket

12-17-2007, 10:42 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">That said, there is no way in hell some of these cars could be made for their claimed cost. Something HAS to be done to bring everyone back in line. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why? Formula SAE is no different from any other motorsport in this respect. It prepares us for the real world.

The job of a racing team is to gain every possible competitive advantage without getting caught breaking any rules. Teams with 'expensive' cars just happen to do this better than others.

LU-Bolton

12-17-2007, 12:09 PM

There's never going to be an answer to the Cost Report feud. The only thing you can do is put a team together to attack the Cost Report, just like you do to attack every other part of your car design and build.

It always made me cringe to hear what some teams were able to cost their car at. We all know that to make a custom cast diff housing, uprights, or rear-end it could cost $5,000-20,000 just for tooling.(assuming non-sand cast) For composite teams... we don't have to cost the hundreds of inches of welds that are on a tube frame OR the expensive tooling that we need in order to make our monocoques. As flavorPacket says, it's about finding an advantage anywhere you can. I guarantee you teams like UWA and TU Graz have small teams dedicated to owning the cost report. It's free points up for grabs, it's just that most of us don't put in the time to actually try and score there. Then afterwards we all complain because a smart and well managed team beat our cost report score with a car that probably would have cost "the average weekend autocrosser" upwards of $50,000 or more.

It's all about management. If you want to win, you will take on the Cost Report just like any other aspect of your car.

Aaron Cassebeer

js10coastr

12-17-2007, 01:22 PM

My econ professor had a really good saying that really sums up most of this thread... "wa wa wa wa"

Little T

12-17-2007, 01:50 PM

Hello everyone,

I would like to extend my congratulations to UWA and RMIT for placing first and second respectively. Both teams demonstrated the professionalism required to win an SAE event.

I would also like to thank the tractor man for un-bogging our tow truck; RMIT and the Sydney blokes for un-bogging our truck again; Tokyo Denki for kindly donating their fire extinguishers; Auckland for lending us a TPS (I hope you guys enjoyed the beer) and to any of the other teams that helped Monash without my knowledge.

Also thanks to all the organisers and volunteers for running another successful Australian FSAE Competition.

For me the best part about competition is each team's willingness to help each other out, as I would rather loose to a better car on the track then beat it while it remained in the pits.

Sadly this is my last year in Formula SAE so I would like to wish all the teams well for the 2008 competition.

Regards,

Tristan

Monash Formula SAE Team Leader

Moke

12-17-2007, 02:30 PM

Well have just gotten home I guess I'll run down our week and a little before.

About a week before we were to ship our supercharger decides to die at testing, so we pop in our '06 car's one and within 24 hours we have made 2 very expensive paper weights. So we called the supplier but he had none, we called the manufacturer and they had none but if we send our rooted ones back they could fix them. So we super shipped our charger from NZ to Sweden and then to our motel in Oz and continued to test unrestricted NA.

We pack up and rock over to Melbourne, and down to the lovely boys at Deakin. Where thinking we needed more fun, we pushed the diff hangers into our monocouque, crushing the core and skins. So out comes the engine and the grinder and we repair the area good as new.

Car all back together and the supercharger back, we head off to test we got a few days in before a new problem creeps in, a crank angle sensor missing pulses. We swap it with a new one, moved it, strengthened the mounting, but no love.

Now it's Thursday, up bright and early we head for tech at 1pm, yay 1st in line. But we are then told that 4 teams (UWA or UOW, RMIT, Swinburne, Adelaide) have been 'randomly' selected to go first but we could wait and maybe go later. So we pack up and head off to test.

Friday sees us again 1st in line for tech negations, to which we are bumped back to 4th to let teams from the night before go. After being in tech for nearly 2 hours, we fix the problems in 30min. Head to design and cost then the tilt table where we found a leak. Turns out it was a loose return line. As a high we got 2nd in business and as a low 12= in design

On a rainy Saturday, off to noise. But due to our crank angle sensor limiting the engine to 8000rpm we couldn't get to the right rev range. With some much loved help from a Newcastle chap and a borrowed scope from Wollongong, we got on track for the second autocross heat, where we showed some promising pace.

Sunday saw the 1st endro. With no proper setup we dominated this years more open course finishing 2nd (1st including fuel). However the 2nd endro was not so good. With another sensor, this time one of the intake ones fucking out, causing us to use more fuel and hence we ran out. But overall in endro we finished 4th so I guess thats something to be proud of.

Overall for us it was a mixed bag. It would appear that we had a fast car, but we were plagued by problems all weekend and were never able to really prove it.

I must say big love to Deakin, Wollongong, Newcastle and Greg at Kangan Batman. Also to the organizers and volunteers a big thanks.

Chris Lane

12-17-2007, 03:15 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:
Why? Formula SAE is no different from any other motorsport in this respect. It prepares us for the real world.

The job of a racing team is to gain every possible competitive advantage without getting caught breaking any rules. Teams with 'expensive' cars just happen to do this better than others. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mmmm, I don't know about that. You don't cost a part or car, 'adjust' the prices and then give it to your boss.

The second bit I agree with, and that is what needs to change. But as some people point out, how can this be done?

Charger

12-17-2007, 04:02 PM

The problem with the cost event is that it is difficult for the judges with limited manufacturing experience to call out a team on fudged figures. For example we were asked if our uprights (quoted at 90mins machine time) were accurate because the previous teams had qouted between 15mins and 30mins. Did we need to include set up time, programming, moving the part for a second operation and then dialing it in again. the judges didnt even know. This is not the judges fault it is simply to vague and to much to ask of them to understand the processes involved in every part, this is why teams continue to produce $12,000 world beaters.

I think it is time to move towards the german model and look more at the students understanding of the manufacturing processes rather than the cost. Run it like a design event specifically dedicated to manufacturing knowledge. Maybe even provide evidence of parts manufactured in house by students to reward those who do it themselves rather than soley relying on sponsors.

Marwan

12-17-2007, 04:39 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Charger:
I think it is time to move towards the german model and look more at the students understanding of the manufacturing processes rather than the cost. Run it like a design event specifically dedicated to manufacturing knowledge. Maybe even provide evidence of parts manufactured in house by students to reward those who do it themselves rather than soley relying on sponsors. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like the manufacturing knowledge idea but rewarding those that do more in house would really hurt some teams. I know that we get around 95% of our CNC machining sponsored.

flavorPacket

12-17-2007, 04:40 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Chris Lane:

Mmmm, I don't know about that. You don't cost a part or car, 'adjust' the prices and then give it to your boss.

The second bit I agree with, and that is what needs to change. But as some people point out, how can this be done? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Chris, you took my first point a bit too literally. I didn't mean that engineers misrepresent costs in real life, but rather that different organizations have varying amounts of resources.

And, are you asking us to tell you how we score points in the cost event? If so, are you aware that this is a competition?

Charger

12-17-2007, 04:52 PM

Marwan

I understand that not all universities have the capabilities to manufacture on premises, but that should not stop students getting involved on a manufacturing level. This year 5 off our final year students and about 10 2008 members enrolled in a tafe CNC g-code course so that we could program our own parts, learn how to set them up in a machine and clamp the parts and dial them in. The team then used sponsors facilities to make the parts thenselves and we found that the sponsors really respected the fact that we wanted to have a crack ourselves. Currently there is no reward in place for this kind of activity other than the knowlege gained from it (which is most important anyway).

Marwan

12-17-2007, 05:09 PM

Fair point Charger. I suppose if all team members are willing and your sponsors are happy for you to use their machines then go for it. I know I certainly would!

But still, I think that if two teams have equal knowledge of CNC machining and one actually got the opportunity to get some hands on experience it would be unfair to reward them just for that. It might simply be unfeasible for the other team to gain that experience.

Anyway, I'm sure most readers want to see more about the comp rather than our opinions on the cost event http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Charger

12-17-2007, 06:02 PM

Well as a Swinburne student i can say that we got through scrutineering without to many problems, couldnt fit percy in due to the fact that our chassis was manufactured before the addendum was made as to how he would be placed in the seat, lost 10 points in design because of that (was happy just to be racing with all drivers passing 50mm clearance test). Was stoked with 4th in acceleration as i had never driven the car before and we had no wet weather testing. Dissapointed with skid-pad result, again no wet testing. 2nd in Autocross result was probably the best part of weekend (Yes we had Tim blanchard in the car and it helped) but still thought we had a great car. Presentation win was also a great result after 3rd last year. Design was dissapointing, found judges would cut you off before giving a complete answer, also had judges answering mobile phones during event, probably ended up about where we should have though. Sunday was the biggest dissapointment after simulating 8 enduros the week before had the steering bind up in session1 (think lockstops were hitting body but still not 100% sure) and shift regulator rattled loose in session2 and lost gears (Johhny completed about 8 laps in 3rd, great effort). 17th in cost, had a beautifully presented report, nailed manufacturing feasability so obviously had the second most expensive car behind germany (find that hard to believe). Overall a great experience and a top effort by all the boys and girl.

Tim and Pat

As the 2007 dynamics leader i wish to make it clear that Tims comments do not reflect that of the 2007 and 2008 teams. All the shit does not help the 2008 team which is where we should be concentrating our efforts. Tims effort in 2006 made the way for an extremely competitive car in 2007 but the frustrations should not be directed at those who are trying to help the event. We all know the event has problems and should work together to find solutions to those. I would ask Pat and others not to write off the Swinburne ts_08 team based on the comments of one person but to help the 08 team compete with the best where i think we should be.

andrew_ts_08

12-17-2007, 08:22 PM

As a 2008 Swinburne SAE Team Member who was at the 07 event on the weekend, I would like to say;

1. 2007 Swinburne Team; Congratulations on your superb effort. It was great to see Swinburne in such a commanding position on Saturday night and although Sunday was dissapointing, everyone put in a huge effort and i applaud you for that. The car looked fantastic, and i think we saw it's true capabilities in the Autocross and beginning of the Enduro events. A really good car, fantastic group of guys and well done to all of you.

2. To the 2007 Event Winners; Congratulations, there were some ultra competitive cars, particularly UWA and RMIT but also Monash, Munich and Auckland, all of whom impressed me greatly, well done on your success!

3. In response to Charger (Re Pat and Tim); I agree with you fully. Whilst Tim is a respected member of Swinburne FSAE Alumni, his opinions are his own, and do not reflect my, or to my knowledge anyone else's opinions on the 2008 team. I believe we need to evolve, learn from and improve on past success and failure to advance our goal of presenting an excellent car next year.

Cheers

Moke

12-17-2007, 10:10 PM

Results are now up at :

http://www.sae-a.com.au/fsae/results.htm

screwdriver

12-18-2007, 03:07 AM

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone evolved for the great competition.

andrew_ts_08: Thanks

Charger:
Welcome to the club, I'd say. We were stone dead last in cost and I couldn't care less anymore. If scoring in cost means that we'll have to bend the rules, we'll do so.

JaredC

12-18-2007, 03:23 AM

A brief post after a long (24+ hour) drive back home.

Congrats to UWA and RMIT for once again filling the top two spots. Well done to Monash for the third.

Thanks must go out to the event organisers, officials, scruitineers, marshalls, etc, without whom we would not have had a fantastic event.

Thanks also to all the competitors, especially those who helped QUT out in our times of need (UQ, UWA, UNSW, Auckland and anyone who donated any M6 bolts for our sump!)

Once again poor preparation cost QUT. We had our ups and downs during the year (as I'm sure everyone else did), and due to a series of unfortunate events we were forced to rebuild last years car in 2 weeks, transplanting over as much as we could. We made it to comp with very little testing of the final product, but with 2 quick and confident drivers. We were determined to do well through scruitineering, and we did (we may or may not have totally fluked 109.9dBA though). Cost and presentation were also much better for us this year. We had a number of people dedicated to these tasks throughout the year, who were able to deal with the major changes required when we were forced back to last years chassis. The rain caused a couple of minor problems with our clutch control system, while a lack of testing with the new launch/traction and semi-auto gearbox functions cost us in acceleration and skid pan.

Once the sun came out, we were able to show off our speed around a track. Despite having a fairly heavy car (246kg officially), we managed 3rd in autocross and were starting to feel better. 5th place at the end of Saturday (and only 12 points off a podium position!) sure felt good....

...and then it all went horribly wrong...

Myself and another team member were double checking our dashboard and tacho setup and running the car in the pits when it started making some funny noises. To cut a long story short, one of our big end bearings decided it wasn't up to finishing it's 4th year of competition and the abuse that results. It ran on 3 cylinders last year for endurance. And 2 for a few events in 05.

Thankfully, we had decided to bring along a spare engine we had brought in case we needed to strip spares off it. We never thought it would actually be used. It had never been run and had sat in our workshop covered in various dusts, residues and filings for 18 months. Earlier this year the head was taken off and put back on, but we had still never actually run it.

Fast forward 12 hours and our engine was in, but we were missing ~10 M6 bolts for the sump (as well as oil and filter - note to self, pack spares next year...). Some scavenging around the pits Sunday morning helped us get back on the road, and we just made 1st endurance with a semi-bled cooling system and a whole lot of questions. We sent out our slower driver pairing to make sure the engine was ok, keep an eye on its vitals and just generally take it easy. We were slow, but we finished.

We were all pretty quietly confident of a good showing in endurance 2 with our fast drivers, especially after autocross. Our first driver finished his laps, but then the fatigue took its toll and the 2 cent part failure occurred. The locking nut for the throttle idle screw wasn't fully tightened. It vibrated loose and we eventually ended up idling with 25% throttle. We ran off the track and out of endurance. It made for a nice dirt burnout and a very interesting graph in the data logging too.

We ended up with 0 points for endurance, 13th place overall, but a 3rd place in autocross that we're very proud of.

We made vast improvements over last year with respect to static events, but car preparation and bad luck killed us in endurance, acceleration and skid pan.

There's always next year...

(and that didn't turn out to be as brief as i planned!)

Kai69i

12-18-2007, 05:35 AM

Congratulations to all teams who competed at FSAE-Australasia in 2007, and particularly well done to UWA for achieving the outright win.

Thanks to all for making the last few days since the competition great fun; it has been great to see most of you at RMIT over the last two days. The spirit among teams this year is the best I can ever recall in my years in FSAE thus far; so well done to everyone.

We again look forward to hosting many of the teams again in 2008, and another wonderful year of competition.

Cheers,

Kai

Ashley Denmead

12-18-2007, 04:44 PM

Hi all,

Firstly congrats to UWA and RMIT and especially Monash for another quality performance and once again showing what is required to do well.....we'll get there eventually! The Deakin Boys are pretty happy with the way the weekend worked for us, a top 5 finish was what we aimed for at the start of the year so very happy with the result even if the Gong only beat us by 0.3 of a point for 4th hahahaha...well done to them as well.

Turns out we just blew a lip seal out of the KTM gear selector shaft in the second enduro maybe as a result of another blown head gasket and the engine overheating. This resulted in Mark having quite a hot oily ass! not sure how he is going sitting down at work but someones gotta take one for the team http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif apart from that an enjoyable weekend all round and looking for bigger and better things in 2008!

Thanks to Auckland and Monash for the good times!

Cheers

Ash Denmead

Deakin Race Technologies (team plexus)

Biggy72

12-18-2007, 05:48 PM

Does anyone have any pictures???

PatClarke

12-18-2007, 06:17 PM

Derek, I have 337 pix on a thumb drive plugged into this computer. I need someone to host them
Pat

Pete Marsh

12-18-2007, 08:38 PM

Wow what a week! Its all a bit of a blur but it went something like this for me....

Most of us got cheap flights on the new Tiger Air and sampled the cheapest seating option on Air Bus's catalog. Brand new plane but very hard to sleep on, except for Adam Mason who reckons the flight was about 10 mins long.

On sunday we get the word our car has been mistakenly off loaded in SA and won't be arriving until Tuesday or maybe even Wensday! After giving up trying to arange a truck to get it Gurks (Team Leader) sent two of the guys to go and get it and drive it to Melb.

We take the time to get some statics practice in and set up our work area while waiting for the car. I score night shift for the week with a swap back to days on Friday, yay, NOT.

Never did get the car out on time all week, seemed to always be something else go wrong that nobody noticed. Same in most teams I suspect. Most of our dramas where electrical with CAN problems and silly mechanic errors wrecking parts. We canceled a test to put on a proper base line set up on Wensday night, turned out to be a good move as we never got another chance and it greatly improved the car.

On Thursday night the decision had been made to abandon the servo clutch so we could at least start and stop for events. We fitted a cable hand clutch (with awfull ergo). This should have given us shifting but with dogey down shifts. But didn't.

I finished early on Thursday night so I could get up early for cost and swap back to day shift. Arrived at the track to find presentation went well and only a small rework list for scute, awsome! and Percy passed easy(first time ever) AWSOME!
Fuel tilt brake and noise (106 something) all first time. More Awsome! Things were finally starting to come our way.
Into design event at 200kg, cross weight really good and all three stickers on the car. This was a good day, at last!

Friday night one last go at getting gears working and had to make a seat for Courtney. Ayrton decided EE can't be that hard and had a go at hard wiring the gear actuator. Idea worked but still no upshift cut and hense no gear shifting on track. They did get the data and beacon up so at least we have that. Final check over and guess some damper settings ready to hit the track.

Fully back on day shift now, re scrute is easy and they do the template thing which we fail.
Hit the practice track and all seems good in my first drive of the car since shake down in Perth, straight on to skid pan to put something on the score board with Aryton in the car, first car out on track. Round to accel and Ayrton stays in the car for a banker there to, but.... What happened to traction control?? its gone! Got our best time with all third gear and Ayrton in the car. Ran Courtney in second gear both runs because we thought we had fixed traction each time, but no. Courtney was fantasic in the car, never driven it before, wet road, and told "you should know if traction works or not by about 15m out"! She said it was easy, tank slapper was no drama! I was scared!

Had given up on getting back to skid pan in time but they were still running cars through accel so we bolted around to have a go at getting our last runs. Made it in the que right behind RMIT who had dramas of thier own. They waved us around them and we got our last run whith Stu getting second for us on his first lap before missing the exit gate on his last lap.

Autcross 1 was a bit of a test session, I drove when it was quite wet and traction still didn't work. Car felt quite good chassis wise but I was in struggle town with the engine coming onto its torque curve hard exiting corners and lighting the tyres in a big way. I was going to need a drier track or traction control or gears to do well in the event. Wes had his first event and first ever drive of the car. He said he felt good after his first lap and went in for the second only for the electrics to fail and he couldn't re start.
Autocross 2 we sent Paul out first to have a go and traction control actually worked, yay! Paul did OK in his first go and beat my time from the earlier run. I ran late and the car was good bar a deflating front right tyre. My runs were good, hard and both clean. Autocross is my favorite event, I love the intensity and now or never nature of it. I'm pretty pleased to win it again and to have pushed Lee to a (very rare) error.

Design final format is different and you get way less time with the judges. 9 judges smashing 4 of you for 30 min can be pretty intense, especially if you get Claude! When you see the teams come out of the building you can tell who was with Claude easy, its quite funny really, they really do look like they have have a pineapple applied. Event went sort of ok, got smashed for poor finish and workmanship on some small parts and of course no gear shift but otherwise I thought we went really well. I thought Tokyo looked the goods but RMIT got it. Well done guys on your first design win, well deserved and well overdue IMO. Remember this is the only team ever to score 400 in enduro/fuel and they have done it more than once! (How DO they do that???). 4th is a little disapointing for us as we obviously are proud of our creation, but feedback was simply you can't bring an unfinshed car to design and expect to do well and we did do well to get where we did.(does that make sense?) Point taken and very valid, I can only hope team '08 takes it on board. Part of good engineering is being finished on time, no excuses, awsome but imaginary doesn't cut it.

On to Enduro day. Unduro 1 was a bit of a disaster. Wes caught some cones if front of the pods on lap one and managed to unseat the tyre with cone against the chassis in the tight left hander. We slowed him down as much as possible so the floor didn't scrape and get us DQ. It did scape a little anyway but they let us stay out and finish the stint. We asked if the flat could be changed and got permision to do so but after we did it Steve pointed out it was against the rules. We were touching the road with the flat anyway so I guess we were destined to DQ no matter what. At least both guys had a go and took the start. Thats valuable experience for them to take OS with them so the run was not a total loss.
Unduro 2 had to be good, or all was lost. We went out on the practice track and scrubbed a set of sticker tyres and fueled it up for my most stressfull event. I was determined not to repeat my mistake last year that pretty much cost us the event win. I started in second with the plan to go to third once the tyre were up to temp and corner speed was up. On lap 2 the throtle stuck and I ran wide and hit some cones. I managed to get it into 3rd on lap three after 1/2 lap trying and looked to put a couple of quick ones in while the tyres were at thier peak. The throtle stuck a couple more times and was getting worse so I backed of and had to coast the end of all the straights to see if the throtle had closed or not. Not fun but we where alive and times were still ok. I tried to get back to second at the end of my run but no joy, so Stu would have to start in third on cool and dirty front tyres. Not easy. One the change over I told him that and then "the throtle sticks intermitantly and the car wont stop or turn properly when it happens". He didn't look very happy and said something I didn't hear with my helmet on, probably for the best. Anyway he did ok with it and brought it home for a good finish. Have to be pleased with that as I see other teams where taken out by similar gremlins, It could so easily have been the same for us. After I got out and watched RMIT put Lee in for the last stint and he was flying. The car looked great. I thought they were on for another 400 point result, and with design win as well it was going to be really close.

We got the win in the end and it more than makes up for all the hard work and grief. The close result and intense competition makes it all the more rewarding, and that most of us can be rivals on the track but friends in the pits makes it all the better.

I would love to have seen all the teams but I never get to see as much of the other cars as I would like. I really wish I could have spent some time just looking at some the cool cars that are there every year. But how about Auklands low key aero package, does it work? little or no drag increase? Thier car looked fast when it was parked, as always.
QUT and Swiny, are they best results for autocross? Quick cars breed quicker cars, if these teams are out early next year look out!
Monash finishing everthing as if thats what they have always done and getting a good result as just reward.
A little stumble from RMIT shows they are human after all, but what a comeback.
How about The Germans accel winning run, you could see that was a winner right there. Is it true they weigh 260kg?
What about UNSW last on track and busting out some 45's!

When is Pat going to put his pics up? Can't wait to see them, and hear the stories that go with them. Does anyone know TD's story?

Anyway, flew home last night, Tigers seats haven't improved but the trick is to get a window seat so you can lean on the wall.

Thanks to everyone who makes FAE-A possible, it is a fantastic opertunity for all of us students and your efforts are very much appreciated

Pete

Joel Miller

12-18-2007, 10:38 PM

You can still talk the tail off a brass monkey, eh Pete? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
(Thank you)

Joel
UWA Motorsport Alumni (2002-05)

Welfares

12-19-2007, 12:46 AM

Thanks for noticing us Pete. Sorry i didn't see you at the afterparty, but with organisation typical of this year, we arrived at the afterparty about 30min before it shut.

I was disapointed, but not suprised we weren't allowed out for the second half of the enduro. There was a leak in the sump and all the seals on the engine were gone, so we were dropping alot of oil. I encased the bottom half of the engine in 0.3 ally sheet, silastic and racetape, but it was not enough.

Big thanks to the monash guys for lending us their hallway, where most of the car was built on wednesday and thursday, and congratulations on third.

And thanks to everyone who lent us spark plugs, which turned out to be our problem in getting the car started (stupid stupid stupid).

Good luck next year everyone.

Ross

screwdriver

12-19-2007, 02:31 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Pete Marsh:
How about The Germans accel winning run, you could see that was a winner right there. Is it true they weigh 260kg?
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks. I can't give you the official number for the Australian Event yet but in FS Germany we were weighed at 245kg. We like to call that natural traction control. For a giggle our first ever car weighed in at 330kg and scored a 3.86 in the German 06 Event taking 2nd place.
But don't mind our victory in accel. I think I'm going to bury my self now because if you did that to us without proper testing and an unfinished car, I think we have a looooooong way to go before we can keep up with guys like you.

Congratulations!

Davo

12-19-2007, 09:18 PM

Another event over and 2007 unfortunately wasn't our year at UTS.

Throughout the weekend we had all sorts of problems which were mostly due to a lack of testing time. Even so we left knowing a hell of a lot more than when we came, especially for the static events.

We'd like to thank all of the judges, officials and volunteers at they event. They did an awesome job, especially the guys at the tilt table and brake/noise test on the Sunday who were really helpful.

A big thanks to the guys at RMIT for letting us use their workshop on the Friday night. Not only were they a huge help and let us get a lot done but it also meant we didn't get kicked out of our campsite for making noise all through the night so cheers guys.

Also a big thank you to QUT for helping us with our engine on the Sunday.

Another thanks goes out to ADFA for lending us some sandbags on a rainy Saturday morning.

Congratulations to UWA, RMIT, Monash and everyone else who competed for a job well done.

And finally congratulations to all the guys and gals at UTS Motorsports for their work throughout the year. For a team that is almost entirely first year students to get a running car to the event is a huge achievement and next year is going to be a big step forward.

Davo

12-19-2007, 09:31 PM

And another thing.

Wheelie Tunes will return.

Frank

12-19-2007, 11:09 PM

Hi,

I spent another FSAE "on the dark side", and felt mixed emotions about what I saw last weekend.

It seems to me that the major AUS teams are starting to plateau, a few of them are going backward at a rate of knots, UQ and UNSW especially.

Whilst scrutineering I enjoyed seeing the "concept" that Newcastle presented, a FSAE car that you actually would "buy at the shops", and was impressed by 95% of what Auckland had. Sorry about the 2 hours in scrutineering NZ guys, but it's both our fault hey?

I heard the story about NZ coming to scrutineering on Thursday and being turned away. That sounds like poor form to me. If I had my way I would hold a mandatory scrutineering session on Thursday arvo to inspect the validity of the structural equivalency variations (mono's and ally cars) only. I mean ONLY the structural aspects, not checking for brakes, catch cans, 2 threads protruding, etc. I would write it into the FSAE-A addendum too. Big thanks to Steve and Michael for their guidance, and especially Ahn, Evan, Mick, and John for their help (these folks are all ex FSAE'ers, and make for excellent scrutineers).

Saturday morning was a bastardly time for me, setting up marquees in the rain. I've got to mention all the hard work that James puts into this event, and I was very glad for receiving some praise from James for helping with the marquees.

On Sunday I marshalled the slow section in front of the main grandstand. What I've noticed is that very few teams found 4 ringer drivers, and it's hard to get a grip on what car is fastest until the best driver takes the wheel.

The reliability of this year's cars was poor. Lot's of failures and some petty one's too. The ˜Gong were lucky to get enduro points after the bodywork incident.

RMIT's throttle response (too big a throttle, too big a plenum, or crappy map?) was awful, and tainted the performance of a slightly too stable, but otherwise great chassis.

When Auckland engine was running well the car was blisteringly fast, they're my pick for 08. I hope Auckland head overseas with that car.

The gong was quick, but I can't help but think they were quicker before the turbo's started.

WA had a better engine package this year, and it seemed lighter. Again it dominates in the bumpy sections. Well done WA!

It was the first time I really gave credit to the Monash areo platform, even in the slower sections. I'm guessing you need a heroic driver to display what that car can do. Monash seemed more serious this year. They're my other pick for 08. A bit lighter, bit narrower, more horsepower and BANG, Monash will punish.

It was frustrating to see Swiny run out of CO2. A sweet little car, that was certainly mixing it with the big names.

QUT, after an overnight engine change, had a stupid failure which cost them a certain top 5 placing. One interesting thing was that QUT effectively did a "back to back" test on a slipper-clutch (one engine had it, the other didn't). Spool disciples take note! Use a slipper-clutch, the braking is fantastic, no more ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

FSAE is a endlessly fascinating event where the rules and specifications meen you can witness 8 totally different design architectures compete with similar results. I love it. It was great to see the "old-boys" again too. Only 355 more sleeps till FSAE-A 08.

12-19-2007, 11:24 PM

I think this was another good event at AUS.

Although i must admit my (and alot of others) dissatisfaction at the "staging" of the acceleration event. For a second year in a row it was bullshit. While a little more consistant, cars were not being lined up "30cm" behind the line as told in driver briefing. And when asked about staging the officials replied "What???"

That being said UWA had a pure sounding 4, and Wollongong's launch settings set my pants on fire; think of a WRC cracking away at the gate! WOW

I have videos of both these two, anyone know where i can host them??

I also have a funny picture of all of the major officials resting in RMIT's tent for lunch http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Pete M

12-20-2007, 12:53 AM

A bit of a disappointing comp for us. We had a couple of fairly lame issues that i don't particularly want to make excuses for. A real shame because the car showed a lot of promise in testing and was believed by most who saw it and all who drove it to be one of the fastest cars we've made thus far. Disappointing that we couldn't mount a more respectable challenge on the day.

Speaking of which, I think people perhaps need to be careful about judging cars based on one weekend's performance. Race cars are fickle creatures and even top formula one teams occasionally DNF. As Geoff mentioned, a team like Adelaide can do everything right all year and not have it all come together on the day. Oh well, that's racing. It's also why overseas competitions exist. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

See some of you in May.

93360

12-20-2007, 02:19 AM

This year was perhaps a bit of a disappointment for UNSW Redback Racing as all the effort the team put in to finish our completely new car during the last few months in the lead up to the competition almost counted for nothing when we experienced difficulty firing up the engine.

Although mechanically finished for the start of the second day of competition we were dogged by tiny gremlins all over the system which added up, making it extremely difficult and frustrating to start the engine and then keep it going. Nonetheless we persisted (and called in some experience in the form of Whitey) and finally got the car going around midday on the last day of competition.

Just to see the car running at last was a great relief for the whole team but the surprise of being able to clock in very competitive times (consistent 45ers matching UWA's autocross times ) during the final enduro which was essentially our shakedown run really showed the potential of our 2007 competitor.Unfortunately we were also dogged by some dodgy welding in the sump and a radiator that was far from being in perfect condition resulting in the car's retirement during the driver change due to massive ammounts of fluids being left on the track.

Nevertheless this glimpse of potential has no doubt motivated our team and we will certainly be addressing the issue of faulty components as soon as possible so that we can actually begin to improve the car's performance with further testing and design and implement new components.

Congratulations to UWA and RMIT for their excellent results and especially to Monash for helping our team out with some lab space as well as their great performance in taking out 3rd place overall! Also special thanks to Tim White who came all the way down from Sydney to help us out with our engine problems and make our trip totally worth it.

Cheers,
Guang.

P.S. Regarding the hosting of photos, why not just create a Flikr or Photobucket account for FSAE-A and upload it all there?

chavez

12-20-2007, 05:04 PM

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncalaskan/sets/72157603513126873/

Courtesy of Pat Clarke

93360

12-20-2007, 06:55 PM

wooo been looking for those thanks!

James Waltman

12-20-2007, 11:05 PM

Thanks for the pictures Pat. Thanks to whoever set up the account to host them (ncalaskan/seth/chavez?).

Pat, there seems to be a defect in your camera. It appears to have trouble with focus and composure on shots of the Swinburn car. You should have it looked at.

The Auckland car makes a strong case for aero/underbody. I mean, look at the number of cones that thing sucked up!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2262/2126051148_83bf23b89c_o.jpg

Did the Monash guys mount the wings upside down after they fell off? It looks like they're not providing the desired effect on the rear tires:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2296/2125277133_60c739c9e2_o.jpg

<span class="ev_code_GREY">For those lacking a sense of humor - those were jokes above. Don't get all worked up.</span>

Congratulations to everyone that even tried to field a car. It's no small task.

Kirby

12-21-2007, 12:34 AM

First, Congratulations to UWA, RMIT and Monash.
It is teams like this that send out the message to the world, letting them know the level of FSAE in Australia!

I almost didn't make it this year, I was not officially registered as a QUT team member and was on the other side of the country, however after some calls from my old team mates I decided (on Thursday) that I had to go.

I arrived on Saturday morning and after a quick look around the pits I wandered into the Volunteers tent and signed up to see if there was anything I could help with. As it turns out I would be marshaling for the Autocross.

At this point I would like to say after "being on the other side of the fence" how appreciative I am of the organisers and volunteers that work very hard for this competition to occur. I have a new level of respect for the hard work of these people in making sure the competition goes as smoothly as possible. Some of these people work as hard as the teams to make this competition occur and yet, some teams or members still give them grief.

Marshalling for autocross was a great experience (albeit wet, windy and freezing) seeing the cars go around the track at close-range was, for lack of a better word, awesome!

The rest of my time was spent helping struggling teams as much as possible.

Sunday I helped Marshal for Enduro. But also helped teams with track-side recovery of cars (or taking the Monash bloke across infield to retrieve their wings from turn 6). As well as running around the pits trying to get teams to the start line in order.

It was a great experience and hope that I can do it again next time!

As for my general opinion of the competition, 2007 was a year of lack of preparation and 5c failures, even for the elite teams. I agree with what what others have said, the overall quality of cars at this years competition was down. This certainly echoes in the results.

I had kept a close eye on a few struggling teams thoughout the weekend; UNSW, UTS and UQ. What I saw impressed me, that these teams will fight right to the bitter end and to that I tip my hat to them.

I was particularly dissapointed that UNSW didn't run with that unfortunate leak, they are a great teamm have a great morale and I spent alot of my free time with them! I hope next year turns out better for you guys!

Finally for my old home team, QUT, it was sad to see the trottle failure in the last enduro cause the spin. It could have been a excellent result this year otherwise. The overnight engine change was an impressive feat, especially seeing it start first crank after 18-months of sitting on a shelf.

I'm off to University of Waterloo and their team for Michigan in 2008, see you there RMIT (and others?).

This is already too much, but
To all the teams, the volunteers, organisers, Frank, Mick and QUT,
Thanks for the great time!

Kirby

12-21-2007, 01:31 AM

Also, from the QUT team photographers: (around 3000 shots from the WE)

UQ, so close, yet so very very far.

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4999/uqwj4.jpg

PatClarke

12-21-2007, 02:49 AM

Quote James Waltman..."Pat, there seems to be a defect in your camera. It appears to have trouble with focus"

Quote Muffrx4 from the first page of this thread..........."And Pat if you think that having a good driver is why Swinny is doing ok I suggest you really consider taking photos for the rest of the w/e as some might even turn out focussed and worthy of this forum".

Seeing as muffboy has an association with Swinburne, a total lack of ability to read what has been written, presumes to put words in my mouth and not to mention a sh!tty attitude that is having a negative affect on the Swinburne team..Maybe you are right ;-)

Cheers to all

BTW if anyone wants the full size, uncropped originals, the just PM me. Use them as you wish.
Oh, that doesn't include Swinburne!

Pat

eonn

12-21-2007, 04:11 AM

Piccies from the comp are up at the Wollongong website:

http://130.130.24.178/

I've added around 1900 images of Wollongong and most of the other teams ... images have been resized only.

If any teams are interested in image pls email me and I'll throw them on a disc for you and drop them in the mail :-)

Cheers and a Merry Christmas to all!!

Steev S, UoW

Austin

12-21-2007, 04:52 AM

Congrats to all that came down this year and particularly UWA, RMIT and Monash.

Big thanks to all the people that made the event happen. We at Sydney were fairly happy with this years run although we still have some areas to improve on for 2008. Particular thanks to the Army boys who let us use their design boards, and the Gong and RMIT who gave us a hand after our rear left suspension decided to die after 10 hours of testing in first enduro :P. Should have tested with more right hand corners!!!

For interested people it was a small manufacturing error on the bellcrank pivot which then decided to shear that caused our problems

Special mention should also go to Pat and Ron for their time earlier in the year when they kindly payed us a visit.

And of course a big thanks to Claude for his wise words at the comp and the long but very very good seminar, hope you can make it back down in 08.

Good luck to all in the new year, cant wait for 08

Adam

2008 USYD Racing Leader

Matt N

12-21-2007, 12:03 PM

Anybody else notice that RMIT was picking up inside front wheels?

Matt

Brett Neale

12-21-2007, 09:31 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by eonn:
Piccies from the comp are up at the Wollongong website: </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wow you guys took heaps of nice photos! Nice work. Might take a few hours to look through em all...

eonn

12-21-2007, 10:34 PM

hehe.. thanks I can't wait to get the shot's off the rest of the team ;-)

The site http://130.130etc .. run's off'a my desktop so if things are a lil slow sometimes pls be patient? :-)

Steev S, UoW

TimCz

12-22-2007, 03:15 AM

Hey everyone - thanks to all teams for a great show. This was my first year at competition (im a 1st year from QUT) and was great to meet so many people from each of the teams who was willing to chat about their cars and give me some really great advice and information.

Cant wait till next year!

I took a stack of photos over the weekend of most of the cars - tried to get a few closer shots of the drivers etc. too so we'll see how they all turn out. Would have liked them to be a bit sharper but you get that.

Here are a few shots - will get around to processing some and uploading somewhere.

Tim Cz

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o93/timcz/tc_MG_7434.jpg

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o93/timcz/tc_MG_7738.jpg

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o93/timcz/tc_MG_7792.jpg

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o93/timcz/tc_MG_7846.jpg

MalcolmG

12-22-2007, 06:46 AM

Unfortunately, because of the problems we had leading up to, and during the event, I hardly even got to have a look at any of the other cars. I didn't even see a single acceleration or skidpad run! Luckily it seems there's enough pics around to get me up to speed.

A month out from the competition, things were looking pretty good for us, but then the supercharger, monocoque, then crank angle sensor problems did a pretty good job of turning things around for us, halting a lot of work on finishing the car, and hampering our preparations for the design event. In the end I was happy just to get through an endurance (with some very promising lap times too).

Frank - thanks for your kind words about our car - we'll be looking at whether or not to go overseas next year with it, but I think it's going to be a struggle to both finish that car to a standard that will ensure a worthy performance while also building a new car for Aus 08. That was my first time under the scrutineering tent (I was the beared guy w/ pierced face) and I think we both learned quite a bit. I'm going to be making some suggestions to the rules committee to try and get some things clarified for future years.

James W - We certainly did have a cone-fest in the second enduro. We didn't get a chance to check out what the issue was, before having to pack the car up, but something we did between the two runs turned the car into a much different beast, and made it reportedly very difficult to drive. Unfortunately our undertray/sidepod design seems to do a great job of holding cones in, and once they get lodged in there they can be hard to lose, and make driving difficult! As you can see from the picture, our driver did a few hundred metres with the front right wheel off the ground because the cones were wedging the lower wishbone up!

Finally, it was great to get to meet so many new folks while over there, look forward to seeing you all next year.

JRod

12-24-2007, 02:19 AM

That was the first comp for me. Big props to UNSW for their Never-Say-Die attitude at comp. It was impressive. It was, of course, a pleasure to see all the other teams' cars.

Big thanks to the other teams and the organizer's patience with us and our loud, profane language, unwashed appearance, trigger happy cameramen, exploding wings, juggling people, immature innuendo and our bogging our truck... Twice.

Look forward to seeing you all next year.

JaredC

12-25-2007, 04:39 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Davo:
Some things Davo said.. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am forced to ask Davo....Is the pianist from Thirsy Merc part of the UTS FSAE Team? If not, can you at least confirm the uncanny resemblance (the bad hair and facial hair mainly)? Did you at least come away from competition this year thinking "someday, someday..."?

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Protaeus

12-27-2007, 05:01 PM

hahaha, Jared I believe you are referring to Jon our Technical Director. He definately has the whole Thirsty Merc thing going on...... its too bad he absolutely hates them http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

But definately next year, especially after hearing what Claude had to say about car design.....

Hope everyone has a happy new year !

PS: As Davo said......wheelie tunes will be back....

Marwan

01-11-2008, 04:45 PM

Did anyone else notice something fishy on the back of the shirts you got from the comp?

On the left column it reads 'University of Technology, Queensland' and on the right it reads 'Queensland University of Technology' ...

Hmmm http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

screwdriver

01-13-2008, 05:22 AM

That's not the only issue with them.
After all we are the UAS of Munich, not the TU.

rjwoods77

01-14-2008, 11:12 AM

I was wondering if any of the AUS teams light be able to help me verify Erik Zapletals fax number in NSW. I looked on the AUS White Pages and it lists three numbers of which each wouldnt take a fax I was trying to send him. I have his home number. Any chance one of you can give him a shout for me to verify his fax number?

rjwoods77

01-14-2008, 11:15 AM

I am pretty sure I am not screwing up the 02 or 04 prefix when calling using 2 or 4 instead. Internet says if outside of AUS then drop the zero.

Kirby

01-14-2008, 12:57 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Marwan:
Did anyone else notice something fishy on the back of the shirts you got from the comp?

On the left column it reads 'University of Technology, Queensland' and on the right it reads 'Queensland University of Technology' ...

Hmmm http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Should read
University of Technology, Sydney
and
Queensland University of Technology

We noticed that at comp, because we thought they got our name wrong. Instead they put us on it twice.

Chris Lane

01-14-2008, 05:13 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Rob Woods:
I am pretty sure I am not screwing up the 02 or 04 prefix when calling using 2 or 4 instead. Internet says if outside of AUS then drop the zero. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's right.

If you're outside Australia, then you should be dialling something like this:

+61 8 9472....

I'm just using my phone number as an example. My area code is 08, so it becomes +6189472....

rjwoods77

01-14-2008, 07:01 PM

Chris,

Check your PM's

Fil

02-04-2008, 03:56 AM

hey guys,

i know this is a bit of a late response, ive just been lazy. it was a great comp, id like to thank everyone involved, organizers and officials. Auckland, deakin and unsw thanks for helping us out and making it a great comp. 3rd place was just amazing and cheers to the guys on the team who forgot to sleep and sacrificed a lot to get us into 3rd.

its been a hard slog, we are stoked, we weren't expecting much this year, we were struggling the whole weekend with engine problems. We didn't do so well in design, but this is the first year we got some proper feedback on our design. im still unsure why we got 4th last but it just give us incentive to do better.

Also id like to say thank you to Scott Wordley for all his hard work and dedication for the last 8 years. Scott has been a very big help and mentor to a lot of the people past and present on our team and has been the driving force and the old wise man to set us straight when we do stupid stuff. 2007 was his final year on our team and im sure it will be a different comp without him. Cheers scotty.

We have also gotten some footage of comp and we also have a movie of the wing falling off. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMBZW9ODnwE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Y0FZAakgE

If any of the Victorian teams here are interested the 2nd round of the Victorian hill climb championships are being held on the 23-24th of feb at the Rob Roy track, supp regs can be found here http://www.hillclimbracing.com/supregs/Rob_Roy/SUPP_REGS_VHC_rnd2.pdf

We were at the first round this weekend at Morewell and we were giving strict instructions to get as many FSAE teams down as possible. Everyone at hill climbs loves fsae and it is a good weekend of racing. for more vic hill climb info check out http://www.hillclimbracing.com/

to the interstate and international teams see you in December
to the Victorian teams hopefully we will see you at a hill climb or we need to organize a social night of hard drinking http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

cheers guys,
fil juric
monash motorsport