Team members going to comp?

[IsheeM]

We are trying to develope a subjective method by which to decide who attends the FSAE competition. Have any other teams done this? Care to share any ideas?

Thanks,

[IsheeM]

We are trying to develope a subjective method by which to decide who attends the FSAE competition. Have any other teams done this? Care to share any ideas?

Thanks,

[Jonathan D]

Ask everyone (including advisors) on the team to rank each other in order of the value they add to the team. Take the top whatever people.

[Denny Trimble]

We ask everybody to come who can, even first-quarter team members. It costs us very little, because everybody pays their own way for flights and hotels. We do have to rent an extra van or two, but it's better to have more people there than less.

[osubeaver]

If the team is paying for it, then the most important members of the team should go, but I would strongly suggest you have as many people as possible go, especially underclassmen who are just getting into the program. Competition is a huge learning experience.

[IsheeM]

I realize I should clarify a little bit more. The team will be paying for the people to go. The team captains know who we want to go. However, we are just brainstorming to see if we can develop a system to judge who gets to go. That way it is not just a few of us saying who gets to go based on how we view the person has helped the team. It is not really fair that way, in some people's eyes. Hey, but what is fair? We would like some type of rating system, but nothing is really coming to mind.

Denny,
That is interesting that your team doesnt cover all the cost of travel.

I am not too sure how it would go over if we said,"We'll pay for 8 of you to go, but if others want to go, you have to pay for it." I think it is probably best to pay for everyone or non of them.

So how many people do you guys usually bring to competition?

[Denny Trimble]

Well, the way we work it, hotel room fees are the last item on the budget to be covered by fundraising. If we raise enough money, everybody's hotels are covered. But we haven't in the past few years. Hotel money is even after "next year money" which we leave to the next team, and we've been short on that recently too.

We usually show up with 20-25 people. About 7-10 will drive out (we cover the vans + gas), the rest will buy their own airplane tickets.

I think your method might be a disincentive towards fundraising for the non-core team members. Why spend lots of time fundraising for something you're not going to go see compete? And why work to pay expenses for those who will?

[James Waltman]

We take anyone that wants to go. It was about 15 people last year. Everyone paid for their own share of travel expenses. Most of the team drove out and shared fuel expenses. The few that flew paid for their own tickets and kicked in for fuel costs on the truck with the trailer. Everyone paid their share of hotel costs.
It's easy to get people to come up with money for fuel and hotels. It's difficult to get the team to pay for race rubber from their own pockets.

I think if we could come up with a huge budget we would still be better off spending it on stuff the team needs before travel expenses.

Michael,
Could your team just subsidize travel expenses? Maybe pay for all of the hotel rooms and some portion of everyone's ticket/travel. How many people are you paying for and how many would like to go? I wouldn't turn down anyone who doesn't get selected but is still willing to pay their own way.

[IsheeM]

We currently have budgeted for three hotel rooms. We are discussing giving our faculty advisor (we pay for his room) a room by himself, but I don't necessarily agree with that. So we could take from 8-11 students right now. I personally don't think there are many other people that deserve to go. However, I would like to take some of the younger guys. Since we have never been to the FSAE comp (to compete), I don't really know how many people to have on hand so we are not stretched thin. Also, I am not too sure many of the guys could afford to pay for the trip themselves.

On another note, when do you guys usually book hotel rooms in order to get a good location?

[Griff]

Our team operates the same as what James said. Any money we can get our hands on goes into the car and everyone pays for their own trip to the comp. All food, hotels and gas is paid for by team members. If there is any extra money in the team account it is used for subsidizing some of the fuel.

[Courtney Waters]

Michael,

Naturally, the more people who can go the better, but we all have to face our own challenges and the economics of running a team so maybe not everyone can go. Travel expenses were not insignificant when it came to getting our team across the country. If you're forced to pick & choose who should go, you might try starting with "which people will give our team the greatest chance of success?" The competition has quite a few aspects to it so pick the people who will do the best job.

Design - Though its point value isn't incredibly high, this is a major portion of the comp. The people who designed the various systems of the car should be there to present (and defend) said systems to the judges. If they can't be there, make sure they transfer that knowledge to someone else who will be there so you don't have to answer a question with "uh, the guy who designed that part isn't here."

Dynamic Events - you need your two best drivers, period (unless one of them was a major PITA all year or something). Preferrably four best drivers, but you can do reasonably well in Accel & Skidpad with less than the best, and it's Autox & Enduro that will get you the major points.

Mechanics - make sure you have a core crew of competent people to set up the car and perform any repairs/service if need be. Ideally, these would not be the guys driving the car. It might not be a bad idea to appoint mechanics anyway and keep the rest of the team away from the car. Competition is a stressful time and too many bodies crowding around the car doesn't help. Plus, I'm sure every team has at least one person who seems to break everything they touch http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

There may be more factors, but I think those are a pretty good place to start.

[Erich Ohlde]

If you have too many people wanting to go, why not have an interviewing process for selection. Have each member submit a resume/cover letter on why they would be essential at competition.

[Moody]

We took 10 to Detroit with us, and I had no idea how important it was to have (competent)team members on hand; people running in one direction for static events while we were trying to get back in line for tech, advisor's running for lunch ... having no clue what in the world was going on, we struggled a bit trying to make due with the guys that we had there, but we also had a steady stream of engine problems that usually soaked up 2-3 guys on a constant basis. If you've got a well-running car, competent team members, and a plan for attacking each event, I'd say you can survive fine with 6-8 guys, including yourself ... I wouldn't be comfortable with any less.

You should def. find a way to get younger guys to competition, too - they can be of some help there, but more importantly, you'll set them on fire for the next year; we came back with 6 guys ready for FSAE 2005, and 4 guys who didn't wanna graduate just quite yet. You need some younger guys to get stoked if you're (re)starting a program.

Good luck!

- matt

[Charlie]

Team Captain has made our decision. School had a seperate budget for travel so the money was there more or less, and couldn't be spent elsewhere. However going to competition was a priveledge on our team and not a right. Team members knew that they had to show that they were really part of the team to get the nod. This is a good motivating factor. I told our guys that I 'cut' that they could come talk to me if they thought I made a bad decision and I'd reconsider but it didn't happen.

I have mixed feelings about bringing people to competition that are young just in the hopes it will motivate them more. The competition is surely exciting and when you leave competition there are a lot of new ideas and always motivation to do well next year. But IMO that is a very temporary thing, and 99% of FSAE is not the excitement and competition in Detroit. If someone cannot contribute enough as new new member to be considered part of the team, competition will not make them a reliable teamer for the whole next year anyway.

The way I see it the team captain is in my opinion the best suited to this, and I don't think subjective methods work. If you set certain goals to be eligible for competition you will always have people doing just enough to go, or just playing the system you setup. Then there are co-op members who maybe didn't do so much on paper but you know they gave a lot of effort. I never had any doubt in my mind about who deserved to go in my year as captain.

[syoung]

We've found that taking newcomers to the competition is a massive benefit. They are not expected to do anything on the car and are not officially team members (i.e. we don't pay for them, they just show up as spectators).

Newcomers on this year's team who hadn't been to the competition tended to base most of their initial design ideas on Formula 1 rather than the demands of FS/FSAE. It's amazing how much a little observation of the competition can improve thinking about designs and practicalities such as maintenance.

[RagingGrandpa]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by osubeaver:
.but I would strongly suggest you have as many people as possible go, especially underclassmen who are just getting into the program. Competition is a huge learning experience. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>DITTO

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by jayhawk_electrical:
If you have too many people wanting to go, why not have an interviewing process for selection. Have each member submit a resume/cover letter on why they would be essential at competition. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>That's what another student project team here does for their biannual competition.... I think it's the most BS ever since they barely have anyone around for a race that's attended the previous race.