Formula Student....wrong again?

[vinHonda]

Those RMIT guys were REALLY FAST, especially Mark. Geoff was a real nice guy too. I was really happy to finish 2nd to them.

.... and I hate to stirr crap up again (like we did last year!..really! I hate doing this!) but look at the Endurance Results:

http://www.imeche.org.uk/formulastudent/pdf/FS2004%20Class%201_1_200.pdf

And sit there for a moment to try to find out how they calculated the "Total Time"

From what I can see, they took the "Time" and subtracted the "Change Time" to get "Track Time". From there, they added the penalties.

This makes no sense at all..... so say you took REALLY REALLY REALLY long to change.....your "Change Time" would be huge and subracted from your "Time" would mean that your "Track Time" is tiny......so you could win the Enduro!!!

The correct way should be to take the "time" and subract 180 seconds from it (3 minutes). Now RMIT shows that they took 224 seconds....but in reality didn't, because they were held up so traffic could go by and they could be let in without an accident. So to make it fair....subract 180 seconds from the "time" to get the "track time". And the results should be:
RMIT 1691.71 seconds (includes 10 sec penalty)
UofT 1665.88 seconds (includes 6 sec penalty)

Ya? Or has all the deep fried bread gotten to me?

Cheers!

Vinh Pham

[vinHonda]

Those RMIT guys were REALLY FAST, especially Mark. Geoff was a real nice guy too. I was really happy to finish 2nd to them.

.... and I hate to stirr crap up again (like we did last year!..really! I hate doing this!) but look at the Endurance Results:

http://www.imeche.org.uk/formulastudent/pdf/FS2004%20Class%201_1_200.pdf

And sit there for a moment to try to find out how they calculated the "Total Time"

From what I can see, they took the "Time" and subtracted the "Change Time" to get "Track Time". From there, they added the penalties.

This makes no sense at all..... so say you took REALLY REALLY REALLY long to change.....your "Change Time" would be huge and subracted from your "Time" would mean that your "Track Time" is tiny......so you could win the Enduro!!!

The correct way should be to take the "time" and subract 180 seconds from it (3 minutes). Now RMIT shows that they took 224 seconds....but in reality didn't, because they were held up so traffic could go by and they could be let in without an accident. So to make it fair....subract 180 seconds from the "time" to get the "track time". And the results should be:
RMIT 1691.71 seconds (includes 10 sec penalty)
UofT 1665.88 seconds (includes 6 sec penalty)

Ya? Or has all the deep fried bread gotten to me?

Cheers!

Vinh Pham

[Denny Trimble]

If it's run the same way as the US event, here's how they do it:

-Record every lap time
-The driver change is timed as an extra long lap
-If they decide you've taken too long, that time is not removed from your total time.
-Otherwise, they subtract the length of the "driver change lap" or "Change Time", and you end up with your "Track Time" which you are scored on.

If they were to score based on your method Vinh, with a fixed 180s deduction, then you'd be encouraged to do a very fast driver change, which is against the intentions of the endurance event organizers (or so I've heard).

I believe it was scored correctly.

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Denny Trimble:
-If they decide you've taken too long, that time is not removed from your total time.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's not true Denny, the organizers will add a penalty if they feel that you have taken longer than the 3 minutes. That's what the stopwatch is there for. In your method a 20 second too long driver's change would result in something like a 400 second penalty.

The way it is scored is any time over the 3 minutes is added to your overall time at the judges discretion, just like a cone penalty. If you are over 3 minutes because of track entry, no penalties are incurred.

I believe the column 'change penalty' is for the extra drive change penalty if applicable.

The 'long lap' is always discarded.

Vin I would agree with Denny in saying that the 'change time' listed is the long lap that was discarded. In that case I would say that the event was scored correctly.

I would hope that you brought this up to the FS committee before here!

[Clay Corbett]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>This makes no sense at all..... so say you took REALLY REALLY REALLY long to change.....your "Change Time" would be huge and subracted from your "Time" would mean that your "Track Time" is tiny......so you could win the Enduro!!!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How does your track time change if your change time is really big? If your change time were to increase somehow, your total time would also increase. As change time increased track time would become a smaller portion of total time, but the actual number wouldn't change. Thats the way it looks to me, anyway.

[vinHonda]

MY MISTAKE. VINH IS STOOPID.

I made a mistake in my understanding of how they calculated.

IGNORE. Formula Student is right.

Vinh

[Sam Zimmerman]

After looking at those results, how does one go about hitting 99 cones in a single race? I would be interested in hearing from someone who watched it.

[RichE]

Hello to everyone, especially those at this years FS event.
Our team had a great first event with our car completing every event which is exactly what we had set out to do. However we got a zero score for endurance because we were 50 seconds outside the Tmax time.
Obviously we were all very dissapointed.
My question is how many laps are counted for the endurance event, it seemed teams were doing a different number of laps 31, 32, 33?
Does anyone know how this was taken account for??
What would teams think of requesting a rule change so that the Endurance finish score (50points) is awarded to all teams that finish in the future. It is quite gutting to make it to the finish line (a big achievment) and to not score any endurance points.

[formula_geek]

RichE

I heartily agree with your suggestion of a rule change! In addition, I believe that the fuel economy rule (stipulating that if you use too much fuel, all endurance points are forfeit) should be nixed. In 2003 we managed to finish the US endurance with the transmission stuck in first gear after a shifter cable failure on the 6th lap. I ran all my laps with the poor engine at the ragged edge of the rev limiter, thinking that even if I wasted an engine, we would score some additional points. However, due to the fuel economy rule, our few points were null and void. To add insult to injury, at the award ceremony we were not recognized as having finished the endurance!

Travis Slagle
Kettering University FSAE Alumni

[V2 - Italy]

The different number of laps was caused by some misunderstanding between the marshals and the drivers.
The electronic laps number is "virtual" because if a car went into the driver change area more than once, the lap number increased every time she went out again.
This is reason why there were cars with different laps number.

V2

[V2 - Italy]

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
Visit our website (Events 04)

the complete results Class 1 + Class 1-200 are available. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif

V2

[Greg H]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by formula_geek:
RichE

I heartily agree with your suggestion of a rule change! In addition, I believe that the fuel economy rule (stipulating that if you use too much fuel, all endurance points are forfeit) should be nixed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

5.7.20 Fuel Economy Scoring Formula
Vehicles which consume more than 5.72 liters of fuel during the course of the endurance heat or whose corrected time exceeds 1.333 times the corrected time of the fastest team, will receive 0 pts. for fuel economy.

It is my understanding that you only lose the fifty points for fuel economy if you consume too much. You will only lose the endurance points if your time is too high, but you will also lose the fuel points too. I noticed that in 2003, the team who was used for Vmin actually recieved no points for the fuel economy event because they did not get a fast enough time.

[formula_geek]

No argument there. I think that, regardless of which rule(s) is/are altered, a team should be awarded points for finishing the endurance. It is a major accomplishment to make it that far.