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How do you replace Carroll Smith? It's a serious problem. At the time, my memory is that a number of the "racing industry judges" discussed this but we didn't get very far. Others may chime in, but as I understand it, Carroll really elevated the stature of design judging.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
Yep, Doug, he was a one-off, and I don't think we would ever find another with all those qualities rolled into one package. I had only one encounter with him, in Oz 2002, and he was already quite ill then. He knew his engineering, but he also had a great empathy for the students, and that is what set him apart. It seemed he was there because he sincerely wanted to help the students - not because he wanted the students to know he was helping them.Quote:
Originally Posted by DougMilliken
Dunno, has anyone approached Ross Brawn?? That was just an idea off the top of my head. Are there others around that people know of who might have similar qualities??
This is a good idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
It'd be excellent to add a rubric or template requiring students to demonstrate a PDCA cycle against any set of the competition objectives for whatever their "something special" is. It'd be great; would be good to install a culture away from 'we were creative but we're not too sure why, we didn't invest in a design process covering why and how we best needed to do this' and 'we built this really cool thing but never got around to validating it, because we thought it'd show in lap times and therefore never did any system performance checking along the way, and then the car was completely unexpectedly first-time-ever-in-FSAE late and we didn't get to test pre comp'.
I'm absolutely not advocating that it has to be all-new. I'm simply pointing out that what you've highlighted of your own history -Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
- does not happen much at all. If this is what GFR DE does, great. That's proper grounding for industry work and very much in tune with what the competition hopes to instil in students that partake. This is quite far from what happens often, however. I'd be keen to see the difference appraised formally. A change log, have students justify the difference, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
We have a few other issues with some teams of 60+ people with a barely-changed package (I don't mean barely-changed concept - I mean a barely-changed design) competing with teams with <10 students and a larger work effort to deliver. Nothing's perfect however we should strive to make the playing field a little more level.
To this end, I'm going to suggest something very contentious: the competition needs a maximum term rule for students. Two years, three years maximum. You register with the SAE and your university, you can only enter a number of times then you're ineligible. This would have good implications through design documentation management, fit within many faculties' learning initiatives, etc. The competition was never intended - and should never be a place for - perpetual students. You know who you are.
I agree, through judges aren't supposed to be casual observers: as an entrant, you're meant to talk though the 80%. We need to find some ways of making this easier to communicate. I really did like the videos and think a better done version of as much could be super useful, with an eye to capping resources going into it and ensuring that teams can use it for other means too (advertising, sponsorship, university presentations, etc).Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
I'm not disinterested in the cars getting faster year-on-year; I hope they do in the sense that between (1) the design criteria required to meet the competition objectives, (2) the knowledge freely available to students to deduce what competitive performance figures are, and (3) the wealth of knowledge and example in prior art in the competition, there is no reason that students should not be able to aim for and realise cars that are reasonably quicker year-on-year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
I am completely against, however, the competition being interpreted as being solely about building a quick car, because (1) that's very explicitly not what the competition is about and (2) paying attention to the rest of what it's about lends to an inherently better design, which in turn can allow a greater and more accessible performance envelope and a design process more reflective of the careers students should aspire to. (As in, the people that wrote the rules had a few clues worth following).
This is exactly the point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
I'm not dissuading those that prefer to kaizen the windshield or those hoping to replace it with a force field or a beam axle, simply that you'd better have a solid understanding from a decent design process either way.
I'd simply suggest that being hellbent on viewing human nature as a problem best replaced with quantitative metrics won't broadly make for successful or otherwise happy individuals in a professional or personal sense. There are very few roles in life that can equitably be undertaken with complete disengagement from subjective factors - certainly not in engineering and not even in racing (which this isn't).Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
(That's the argument that goes a bit like 'write me an equation for the best way to put that bike around that corner. Excellent. Now go speak to Garry McCoy.')
The best way to decrease variance is to increase sample size; more opinions need to be considered in a structured manner. In short some better process on what goes on behind closed doors post-judging could help. I would stress that for the two competitions I've been involved in, the conversations are very positive and couched in terms of the competitor's best interests.
Let's not be too quick to confuse presentation with communication. Communication is something engineers need to deal with every day, and something we should not have students shy away from. Engineering is, in part, an exercise in communication: to take qualitative wants and needs, to abstract and delivery a quantitatively-specified solution, and to use both domains to communicate it's competitive worth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
That's part and parcel of engineering. If you don't like it, you're in the wrong industry.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by DougMilliken
It is judged but this is not structured (FSAE-A) in a manner where judgements from other design areas are considered in context with respect to integration.
We can't replace Carroll Smith and shouldn't seek to. We need a better process.
OK, here I go on another philosophical bent.
My "Reasoning..." thread is all about taking a concept (the FSAE project) and breaking it down into its parts. It is about the design process. The core argument is that you do NOT start with the parts and work backwards.
The FSAE Design Event is about assessing the teams' understandings of design process.
So why do we base our judging process on car parts? We have a composites judge, chassis judge, suspension judge, etc etc
Why not step further back up the process and have judging teams based on the design process:
Problem framing
Concept development and selection
Analysis and validation
Manufacturing and delivery
Performance
It just seems a bit ridiculous to say that this event is so much more than making car parts, but we then judge and allocate scores in categories defined by car parts...
All bents welcome, BB. We are a modern society here at FSAE.com...Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
I'd suggest we judge by system (in aero we certainly do) not by parts alone, and check/judge for a solid design cycle. Effectively we do as you suggest.
FSAE has always been an exercise in giving rope - some student groups will hang themselves with it, some learn how to fish with it, some build Egyptian pyramids. To this end we give a lot of rope in how students go about design management. It similarly amuses me that some students through faculty in the competition put significant effort in sharing CAD for complete system designs with a view to implementation (and some actual implementation - we used to call this "plagiarism")... when what they should be more interested in is in understanding design management processes that lead to what answer they're seeking. Fishing: not fish.
We could specify, for the sake of clarity, some further parameters to this end in the rubric. I've sated above that PDCA cycle evidence should be shown throughout.
I would be a little wary of seeing 'best answers' copied team-to-team. I'm all for information sharing, less for the process becoming formulaic to the point of being a formality. Thoughts?
DESIGN EVENT - WORTH IT, OR NOT?
=================================
I posted some of my views on this in the Oz-14 Competition thread. I expand on this same theme here.
So far there has been some discussion about the "big-picture" of DE and how to improve it, which is good. But the biggest-picture issue to be discussed when trying to improve anything is "Do we need it AT ALL?". This has been barely touched upon. It needs serious consideration.
~o0o~
To start with an analogy, consider the much beloved Push/PullRods&Rockers of FSAE suspensions. For 25+ years FSAE students have started their year with the question "How are we going to improve our PPR&Rs?". It is only recently that significant numbers of Teams have realised that the best way to make such an improvement is to ... TOSS THEM! For example, at Oz-14 five out of twenty+ Teams did just that, switching to Direct-Acting-Spring-Dampers. They placed 1, 2, 3, ... 5, 6 overall.
Note that DASDs are NOT a big advantage in FSAE, nor are PPR&Rs a big disadvantage (eg. 4th place in Oz-14 went to a Team with virtually NO suspension movement at all, so NO need for either type of spring actuation). Rather, the big advantage of abandoning PPR&Rs most probably came from the LESS TIME WASTED on something that has negligible influence on the car's performance.
Specifically, the quantifiable influence of PPR&Rs on competition points is mostly many small negatives, such as a bit more unwanted mass, compliance, friction, cost, time-to-make, etc., together with no real positives that make the car "faster". But the really BIG NEGATIVE is the amount of TIME that Suspension-Guy wastes designing the PPR&Rs so as to optimise MRs, optimise rising-or-falling-rates, optimise load-paths-to-yet-another-frame-node, and so on.
All this wasted time is a BIG DISTRACTION from building a better car.
~o0o~
Similarly, since shortly after I became aware of this competition (ie. late 1990s) I have been convinced that Design Event is a big distraction to any Team trying to build a better car. It is also a distraction to the education of the students.
DE is undoubtedly a huge distraction to the students, as is evident simply by reading these Forums. Too many students see "winning on the track" as rather hard, so instead they aim to do well in DE. They do so because DE is undoubtedly seen as the MOST PRESTIGIOUS of the Events. The students see DE as the epitome of what "real" Engineers do. By comparison, they see "winning on the track" as too dependent on "chance", or "driver skill", or "having better spanner-monkeys". Which, most students think, is NOT real Engineering.
The overarching goal of most FSAE students is to come out of it with something impressive on their Curricula Vitae. To them "Design Finalist" screams "I am a genius, hire me!" On the other hand, "1st in Enduro, 2nd in Fuel, etc.", just mumbles "I are a good spanner-monkey...".
So, sometime during beginning-of-year Concept Meetings, the students decide to build a "mini-F1" car ... with pure carbotanium PPR&Rs! "Ahhh, yes! The DJs WILL ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT!!!"
Or, perhaps because their Supervisor keeps stressing KISS, they decide to only build a "mini-F3" car ... with merely billet-machined 6061 Rockers. "Err, well, the DJs will LOVE HOW PRACTICAL we are!"
And, yes indeed, the DJs do love that sort of thing, as has been shown historically ... even though such PPR&Rs are UTTERLY USELESS! Some DJs may claim to encourage KISS, but there have certainly been enough DJs encouraging the above sort of bling over the last 25+ years that the majority of Teams have gone that way. Just look at the cars.
In short, the negative "COST" of DE is that it locks the competition into a loop of "build a mini-F1/F3 car, but try to give it a bit more bling than last year". I am sure that many DJs reading this will disagree. But the historical record shows that the above is, in fact, true. Just look at the cars.
IMPORTANTLY, note that it is possible to build a VERY SIMPLE CAR that is MUCH, MUCH FASTER than anything currently out there. But no sign of this car yet. And certainly NO indication, whatsoever, that DE will lead the students to this car.
~o0o~
The above are the negative "COSTS", but what are the positive "BENEFITS" of DE, if any?
1. One main claimed benefit is that the "design-review feedback of your car" helps produce better educated students. As covered at length elsewhere, this feedback mostly DOES NOT HAPPEN AT ALL, or at most is of a very feeble nature. When good feedback of a Team's efforts is given, it is very often OUTSIDE of the DE proper. And often completely outside of any competition, such as the feedback given to questions and build-blogs on this Forum.
DE is NOT necessary for educational feedback.
2. Another possible benefit is that the DE gives the students an opportunity to practice their "job interview" skills. Or, turning the same thing around, it gives the "Industry Experts", who have "volunteered their valuable time to be DJs", an opportunity to spot talented students who they can employ. Either way, exactly the same results can be had by holding a "Careers Fair" alongside the competition.
DE is NOT necessary for "talent spotting".
3. The only real benefit I see (which makes it a bit left-field) is that the "distraction of DE" teaches the students THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT BEING EASILY DISTRACTED! The students who learn this lesson realise that to do well in the competition overall, they must FOCUS ON FAST CAR, and BLOCK-OUT DE DISTRACTIONS. (As an example, when coaching young Rugby League players I used to make sure they were under maximum distractive pressure when executing critical plays. Things like name-calling, shouting, throwing balls at their heads, etc., worked well... :))
Following this line of thinking, DE could be improved by adding more cunningly deceitful distractions. Perhaps a shiny DE trophy for "Most Spectacular CF Wishbone Failure During Brake-Test". "Yeayyy!!! We've won it three years running!"
This sort of change to DE might be fun, but is NOT necessary.
Much more that can be said, but in summary I see NO GOOD REASONS for having DE. The negative costs outweigh any positive benefits.
~o0o~
What might a competition look like without Design Event?
Let's start with,
"A1.1 Formula SAE Competition Objective
... to conceive, design, fabricate, develop and compete with small, formula style, vehicles...
... [that] should have very high performance in terms of acceleration, braking and handling...
... [and also have good] cost, ergonomics, maintainability, manufacturability, and reliability..."
This was put much more succinctly in past versions of the Rules, but the gist is that the car should be,
1. Cheap to build,
2. Cheap to run,
3. Be very fast on track.
All these objectives are easily measured objectively. Namely, with a stop-watch for the main performance factors, with a calender for reliability, and with a competent beancounter for cost, manufacturability, etc. A specific "Design Event" is not required to evaluate any of these.
So, one option is to simply roll DE into the Cost Event. Currently, the "real cost" of the car is only worth something like 40 points (out of 1,000). Make "real cost" (independently audited, if necessary) worth 200 points, with the other current Cost song-and-dances worth 50 points. Presentation can stay as the main "subjectively judged" event at 75 points.
Or maybe,
Presentation = 100 points, which includes a "The Design of Our Car" song-and-dance,
Cost = 200 points, with "real cost" worth at least 150 points,
Dynamic Events = 700 points, with Fuel ECONOMY worth a full 100 points rather than the currently devalued 40 points.
What would students who want a killer-CV do now?
I see broadly three options.
1. First year, low-budget Team. - Build a really cheap car with super-thrifty engine. That wins 300 points for a start, then right-foot-flat-to-the-floor in Dynamic Events.
2. Established, big-budget Team. - Use mega-power-engine, mega-tyres, and mega-aero, to win ALL those 600 "speed" points, plus slick Presentation for another 100, and be "creative" in Cost.
3. Clever Team. - Build "brown-go-kart-with-aero-undertray" and clean up 900 points (ie. Cost + ALL Dynamic Events). Get "Weird-Guy" to do Presentation.
~o0o~
Summing up, a competition with NO Design Event is ALL about meeting the stated objectives of the competition (ie. A1.1). Any students wanting good CVs have to build a car that is CHEAPER & FASTER THAN EVER. And this is possible for a long time to come yet!
In contrast, for the last ~25 years the students have been trying to "impress the DJs" with their bling PPR&Rs, with their MRs that are spot-on 1:1, with their RCs that "don't migrate hardly at all", and with countless other meaningless drivel. The end result is the same-old EXPENSIVE & SLOW cars, year after year after year...
Oh, and we now have a generation of students who, in too many cases, can't solve simple FBDs or make neat little brackets, so are unlikely to make worthwhile contributions to society in the future.
Z
No disagreement on cheaper and faster (I'd add there's more to it than that); DE is simply about explaining how and why it was done. If your design is solid, the event should be a breeze.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
The competition is not a race competition, it is (not the first time this has been explained to you) about students best delivering a complex project in a group environment.
I'll limit observations to the last 15 years which cover the FSAE-A competitions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Most students I interact with - including my own experiences as a FSAE student - certainly didn't involve trying to break our backs and the university's patience for a year to impress a few people we'd never met with something that vaguely resembled a race car. The vast majority start out with exactly what you hope for in mind, Z - to build it fast - and go from there.
You seem to underestimate the ability of students given responsibility, build resources, money and the like - but very little accountability - to commit to some fairly ill-thought-out choices in design. Many come to remark ruefully on this in later years. The gap between what was and what could have been... has bugger all to do with design event. Very few teams turned up this year at all prepared for it. Same as last year. Same as every year.
Those that asked for a run through prior to comp didn't stuff up because they hadn't put effort into DE preparation, they stuffed up because they'd made some questionable design decisions that was shown up in their design. They didn't trip up on whims, they tripped up on crap decisions that were reflected in the project. Same as last year, same as every year. I've heard some brilliantly comical design decisions; I was even party to a few myself. The student that massively simplified his engine simulations by assuming air to be incompressible - thus indirectly intending the competition's first three-stroke engine - takes some particular beating. I'm sure everyone's got stories to share.
DE exists to examine the thought. Dynamic events exist to examine the result. It's a not correct to suggest the most brilliant designs are immediately the fastest; this cannot be completely judged on track.
None of this has anything to do with any time spent preparing for Design Event. If the event runs to its' intent and the students to theirs, then good work comes through.
I appreciate that you'd prefer good work to show up on track, but again you overstate the ability of students and underestimate the scope of the work they have to do: there are always gaps because putting together a project capable of being reliably judged in a qualitative environment is intentionally beyond project resources. The cars are never perfect or bulletproof reliable. It'd be wonderful if they were and they're not supposed to be. DE offers another chance to shine.
This is a significant reason to need DE.
I'm sure you'd build a highly-competitive FSAE car, however you're not a student.
Not the fault of the DE.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
I'd disagree completely - your contention doesn't explain why entrants that do well on dynamic events to compete well in DE too. Many students sadly see DE as 'something they have to do'. Which is often reflected in any critical rigour applied to their actual designs; it's easy to get excited about building something, it's hard work to be critical about doing it well. Students entering the competition to do poorly in dynamic events do not meet the competition objectives, and accordingly do poorly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
You seem particularly hung up on it being a battle between one or the other. It's completely possible to have good DE and dynamic event performance. Many manage it.
You've a particularly low opinion of DE judges. If you think you can do better, volunteer. That's suggested openly/proactively.
I'd love to have a careers fair at the event, though it's not what DE is for. It's a nice bit to network through.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Agreed wholeheartedly - however you're misplaced in suggesting it's for the DE's to lead it there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
You've been posting for years at significant detail - it'd take people taking what you suggest that seriously to do it.
Not a new problem in education.
Could part of the answer be as simple as releasing a marking schedule (with comments from section leaders) now-ish, then after the DJ's have a GoToMeeting in October-ish release any changes? This would give students time to see how they will be assessed and prepare for the event.
Judging based on the design processes and systems is a good idea but it is possible to know the process and still have sucky designs. There still needs to be an amount of component level evaluation to assess the successful application of the processes. I like to think of FSAE as a design assignment with a built in bullshit filter that weeds out poor design. We have all seen the great A+ assignment handed in and gone "there is no way that would ever work" but the had a great project log book so here is an A+.
My favourite questions I was asked in design were: "What were your biggest compromises?", "What do you hate, why and how would you change it?", the filpside "What do you love and why?" and "Why is your car better - and not in numbers?". I asked the Auckland guys these each year at their design event practices, and the results are interesting as they often aren't aware of their compromises.
If you dump the design event what checks are there to prevent blind copying of wining designs? A team could see that 5 out of the top 6 teams ran direct acting shocks and decide to just use them since team x does. There would be no need for the team to understand why they might be a better choice or even worse, why they might not be better.
Over a short time innovation will suffer, a few teams will develop a wining design and everyone else will just copy it. Before you know it there will be a paddock of cookie cutter brown go carts and the event will become only a build quality and driver event. The notion of a simple car in the real world has changed and there are a lot of people holding onto the idea that a simple car has no technology from the last 15 years. A basic Hyundai/Mazda/Toyota/etc now comes with ASB, ESP, Air Con, bluetooth, power windows, 50 air bags, keyless entry, etc, so why should FSAE cars not have composite parts, traction control, trick 3d printed parts and the rest. If there is no real points reward for trying something risky or new why bother, just improve what team x uses? FSAE will just become another motorsport event.
Z, you might see being able to justify your design decisions as a distraction from turning a spanner but it is something that will be a distraction throughout their working lives when getting funding or a design approved. Being able to clearly get your ideas across is a very important skill to have and is used in personal and professional life. Being able to make what they design is the difference between a FSAE grad and just another engineering grad. But given less FSAE grads end in up in jobs where they will be making their own design vs jobs where they must get someone else to make it, communication is a part of the job like a doctor needs a good bedside manner.
IMO the DE is a way to explain your top-level decisions and the work done to get into detailed component design and integration into a competitive car. It is therefore (to me at least), something like the engineering discussions we all enjoy so much within these forums. Z, when you are describing your "soft-twist" concept or any other concept for that matter, you are basically presenting in a "DE", with people asking questions and arguing being the DJ's. IMO this is really valuable; do not forget that usually there's a strong correlation between DE points and dynamic performance, at least at European competitions. One main flaw I have noted though, is sometimes the background and knowledge field of the DJ's. If you have an e-powertrain DJ that designs electric motors and you have just picked one off-the-shelf, in my experience you are pretty much screwed; you have nothing to present on his field of interest and he might not be that interested on the rest of the powertrain. Another huge problem is lack of understanding/knowledge of the competition rules, limitations and objectives; to add on that, some of the most reasonable DJs we had (and the ones that usually spend lots of time giving feedback) are ex-fsae team members.
Yup. And it ain't motorsport. Never should be, never will be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moke
Correct. Check that earlier word: communication. And it gets far more complex than getting someone to build your vision.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moke
Yes, yes, yes, and yes, a strong correlation in FSAE-A too.Quote:
Originally Posted by mech5496
I'd not recommend thinking professional life should be any different - don't ever bet on a perfect audience. Communicate.Quote:
Originally Posted by mech5496
A quick point. FSAE is a uni competition. The types of people who run unis tend to not like motorsport. Would we have a choc wedge's chance in hell of getting uni support for this thing if we got rid of static stuff? It is the DE etc that helps us maintain we are an educational event.
To the University of Auckland and the School of Engineering the design event is the main event they want to win. It is pretty much is the only event that the facility can be a part of it's development, through design event practise and review. Auckland has always seen the Uni as a sponsor, who provides resources such as dynos, machinists, tow car and last year a brand new workshop fit out to the teams requirements (honestly I'm thinking of post grad so I can use it). Right or wrong, universities are ranked worldwide on the basis of their research, so they see the design event as the research part of the comp thus it is important to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
I used to work for a composite manufacturing company and we would receive at least 2 or 3 sponsorship proposals a month from motorsport teams, they all go straight in the bin. However the company sponsored the Auckland FSAE team, when I asked the owner why he did the reply was "they are not just another racecar, they are an educational project". We also sponsored/helped out a couple of local high schools with projects, but racers always paid full price. I know for a fact this was the case with a large number of other sponsors of the team and why we never had the word 'motorsport' in our sponsorship proposal or even the team name.
(Unsurprisingly Auckland's design efforts tend to end up with a good car).
Frankly guys this is where the conversation needs to start for FSAE-A. DE as a tool for universities.
There is less automotive relevance for graduates than there ever has been in the region, and competition for the project-based learning / research dollars in various faculties that currently fund FSAE in part are under threat.
Some universities have made a great effort to integrate various parts of FSAE involvement into their curriculum, some have had it as a sort of indirect benefit and there's a spectrum in between and asides, but we need to have an honest chat about how to make it more relevant for universities.
I don't for a second suggest that FSAE is just about automotive grads (though it we treat it as motorsport it's going to have a fairly limited scope). The design project delivery theme is valid in many disciplines as discussed, though a renewed focus how to make it even more relevant to universities would be great.
I've heard suggestions as interesting as adding carbon accounting and requiring the teams have mock ISO 14001 accreditation (just an example - FSAE doesn't deal with any environmental engineering presently, however it's a growing field, and even in automotive a very prescient one). Some have suggested a careers and postgrad fair with the competition.
I know of two universities that very nearly folded their teams this year; the threat is quite real.
Shortish responses, because I am currently in deep PMing with some Teams trying to build CHEAPER & FASTER cars.
~~~o0o~~~
GTS,
This is intended in a positive way, for the betterment of society in general.
You have several times suggested that DE should be worth MORE points than its current 150. How many? 200? 300? More?
You have also given many long posts explaining your views as to the direction that DE could go, or should go.
But, quite honestly, and despite all your words, I have absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER of what students would be expected to say or do in your DE to get a good score out of the now 200, or 300, or more (?) points on offer. I genuinely doubt that most students would know the answer to this either.
More on this below, but I see this increasingly subjective direction of the competition that you are suggesting as a huge obstacle to producing better young Engineers.
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Brent (Moke),
(My emphasis.)Quote:
If you dump the design event what checks are there to prevent blind copying of winning designs?
Same as now. NONE!
In Canterbury's first year, 2013, they came with a mini-F3 car, a fairly "blind copying" of what they initially thought FSAE was all about. In their second year, 2014, they came with a copy of Monash's 2013 car. For an even better example of "copying", look at Monash's last six (+?) cars... Or GFR's recent cars, and Swiftus's comments on them (page 4)...
COPYING IS FINE, as long as you are clever enough to know WHAT to copy, and how to do it, and when to leave bits out, and when to make tiny changes... But, if you are NOT clever enough to do these things, then you fail on track. (See Canterbury's results...)
~o0o~
NO, NO, no, no, no!!! Completely back-to-front!Quote:
Over a short time innovation will suffer, a few teams will develop a wining design and everyone else will just copy it. Before you know it there will be a paddock of cookie cutter brown go carts and the event will become only a build quality and driver event.
...
FSAE will just become another motorsport event.
Sadly, Brent, you are showing your youthful ignorance. Yes, modern motorsport is all about "cookie cutter", boring, spec-cars. But that is only because some witless drones from several generations ago discovered that it is easier to make mega-bucks out of motorsport as (dull) "entertainment" by STAMPING OUT ALL INNOVATION, and instead focussing on the soap-opera techniques of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", the "Bold and Beautiful", and so on.
But back when "real men" :) designed and drove racecars, there was ALWAYS NON-STOP PROGRESS. This happened because there was nothing like DE acting as an anchor (more below). Read the history books. Or use that google thingy. Try "Can-Am" for some relatively recent history...
~o0o~
Piffle! Give me Dr Gregory House anyday! (More below. :))Quote:
... communication is a part of the job ... a doctor needs a good bedside manner.
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Harry,
And therein lies the HUGE OBSTACLE that is DE. As I have said many times before, "EXPERTS" PREVENT PROGRESS.Quote:
...the DE ... is therefore (to me at least), something like the engineering discussions we all enjoy so much within these forums...
... One main flaw I have noted though, is sometimes the background and knowledge field of the DJ's.
It is the nature of "progress", or that nowadays overused word "innovation", that only very few people can see the "right direction to go". Quite obviously, if everyone sees it, then it is simply "the standard way of doing things".
It follows that out of any big group of DJs there will only be a tiny minority (possibly none at all) who will recognise that a Team is "heading in the right (but very UNUSUAL) direction", and give them a good score. The majority of other DJs will give that Team a low score "because they couldn't explain themselves". That is, most DJs are stuck in their narrow and deep little ruts and are unable to see out of them, no matter how well things are explained.
This is a very common situation throughout society. In FSAE it currently puts a 150 point hurdle in front of any Teams trying to push the envelope. Maybe a 200, or 300 (?) point high hurdle in future.
DESIGN EVENT IS AN ANCHOR, preventing progress.
~o0o~
It was only a few pages ago that Bob was pointing out the exact opposite! Namely, GFR's low DE scores at FSG.Quote:
... usually there's a strong correlation between DE points and dynamic performance, at least at European competitions.
But aside from the GFR/FSG anomalies, a ten year old could look at the Teams and their cars pre-event, pick the ones that are likely to do well in Dynamic Events, and then give a similar DE ranking.
Any "correlation" means squat, IMO.
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Moke (2),
I rest my case on that one (ie. hope everyone agrees that DE is a huge "distraction" to many Teams).Quote:
To the University of Auckland and the School of Engineering the design event is the main event they want to win.
I also wonder if the above focus on DE explains Auckland's poor reliability in recent years?
~o0o~
So, hypothetically, if Auckland built a car that metaphorically "smashed the Sound-Barrier" out on track, but if they also did poorly in DE in that comp, then would, or should, the University shut them down because "they have done NO REAL RESEARCH"?Quote:
Right or wrong, universities are ranked worldwide on the basis of their research, so they see the design event as the research part of the comp thus it is important to them.
Put another way, who thinks you can build a world-beating FSAE car ... accidentally?
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Repeating one of the above points for emphasis...
COMMUNICATION - The idea that good Engineers must NECESSARILY be good communicators is a load of codswallop.
(And this idea is only gaining traction these days because there is so little need for good Engineering. Because ... TOO MUCH FOOD! :))
EG 1. The only footie on telly these days is soccer (Asian Cup). So, imagine you are one of the Coaches and you have to pick between two possible wingers. One is a wonderful guy, a really great communicator who tells cracking good jokes, but he is a little fat and slow. The other guy can run like the wind, when he strikes the ball it comes of his foot like a rifle bullet, but his "communication skills" amount to almost indecipherable grunting, which only two other players can understand.
The Team has been doing poorly, and you get sacked if they lose again. Who do you pick?
~o0o~
EG 2. You have major health problems. A very nice doctor with wonderful bedside manner has been treating you, but you are rapidly getting worse. A Dr G. House (from the TV show) says "... that nice doctor of yours is an IDIOT, you are a STUPID JERK for listening to him, and ..." he recommends a different treatment.
You hear that Dr H has a very good track record at fixing people, and you cough up your left lung. Who do you pick?
~o0o~
EG 3. Your country is at WAR and it needs better machinery. Or ... "The End". The HR Department has scoured the country for clever Young Engineers. Many of these YEs are exceptionally good communicators, but unfortunately their designs don't work too well, and keep breaking. However, another of these YEs, a rather odd young man, has already produced some exceptionally good, "neverfail", machines, but his explanations of how they work amount to indecipherable grunting.
The enemy is storming the north-wall. You, and the whole country, desperately need a "Machine To Defend North-Wall". Who do you pick?
I could go on (oops, too long already!), but I hope the message is clear.
Z
A bunch of young engineers enrol at university and join their FSAE team. The design task is a difficult one, and everyone comes into the event full of ideas about their own favourite vehicle bits. For the sake of finishing the car, compromises must be made. It can be a frustrating process – but the participants learn valuable lessons about teamwork, communication, and compromise. Some do it well, some don’t. As long as they are willing to put their differences aside for the better good of the team project, they will be better engineers for working through the process.
A bunch of university engineering teams sign up to compete enrol at the annual FSAE event. The competition task is a difficult one, and everyone comes into the event full of ideas about their own favourite vehicle and how they will be competitive at the event. For the sake of finishing the event, compromises must be made. It can be a frustrating process – but the participants learn valuable lessons about teamwork, communication, and compromise. Some do it well, some don’t. As long as they are willing to put their differences aside for the better good of finishing the event, they will be better engineers for working through the process.
A bunch of experienced engineers join an online forum to discuss how to improve the FSAE Design Event. The design task is a difficult one, and everyone comes into the forum full of ideas about their own favourite event improvements. For the sake of delivering the event, compromises must be made. It can be a frustrating process – but the participants learn valuable lessons about teamwork, communication, and compromise. Some do it well, some don’t. As long as they are willing to put their differences aside for the better good of the FSAE project, they will be better engineers for working through the process.
Personally, I like the Design Event. It needs improvement, but we can all learn something from doing it, and we can all learn something by trying to improve it. Just because we haven’t found the right answer yet, doesn’t mean we should just give up on it.
I see design in itself as the key area in which Australia needs to focus. We are good at it. But we don’t communicate this well to the outside world. Redesigning the design event might just be a good little project for our nation – it will help us find the words to describe and identify what good design is…
Please do let us know who so we can track their rise to the top or will we just know when they blow off design?Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
What part of FSAE is not motorsport can you just not grasp? Please can you point me to where the word motorsport is in the rules? I did a word search and found '0' results. However if you would kindly read Article 10: Rules of Conduct below:Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Quote:
ARTICLE 10:RULES OF CONDUCT
D10.1 Competition Objective – A Reminder
The Formula SAE® event is a design engineering competition that requires performance demonstration of vehicles and is NOT a race. Engineering ethics will apply. It is recognized that hundreds of hours of labor have gone into fielding an entry into Formula SAE. It is also recognized that this event is an “engineering educational experience” but that it often times becomes confused with a high stakes race. In the heat of competition, emotions peak and disputes arise. Our officials are trained volunteers and maximum human effort will be made to settle problems in an equitable, professional manner.
I really can't see how having to justify and prove design decisions prevents progress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Pretty sure most would not agree that the design event is a distraction. It would only be a problem to teams that don't understand their design ie: one that copies blindly or uses options on an internet forum to build a car.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
And I am 100% sure that a few hours a month spent on design event practice has nothing to do with reliability. If that was the case then we could equally say that team members should be prevented from having friends, family time, root with the mrs/mr or more likely rubbing one out as these are only a distraction from "building a fast racecar". Hey lets get rid of all static events, skid pan, acceleration, autocross and fuel as these are a distraction from all the motorsporting we could be doing, then we will be "real men".
Ok, so if you can communicate you ideas effectively you are therefore a shit engineer? If you can show your boss why your bridge won't fall down and another design will, you must be wrong as you must be shit engineer and should not have been distracted by presenting your concept and just built it? You can have both communication skills and good engineering skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Your wife just had an emergency C-section when giving birth to your first child which meant a spinal block and thus no working legs after. Middle of the night, the baby is awake and hungry in the bassinet which is out of reach. Buzz the nurse, ask for the baby and get told "no you need to do it yourself", exit nurse, baby still screaming, wife in tears until the room mate gets up and passes over the baby. Next day stitches are bleeding and dressing needs changing same nurse says "so, what do you want me to do, I have other more important things to do."Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
At the time we thought she was a shit nurse, and so did others that had the same lady. But now I know that she must have been the best nurse in the place since her bedside manner was so ratshit. You do know that House is a TV show right? And if he was a real dr he would have been struck off.
Brent,
I get PMs from many students asking many questions. Some are indeed climbing the ladder. Others are held back by their Team-mates and Supervisors.Quote:
... let us know who so we can track their rise to the top...
But what they all have in common is that they have reached a state of desperation where they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel and ask Grumpy-Old-Fart for help. They do so firstly because their teachers are NOT teaching them (Classical Mechanics is so easy, but no school teaches it anymore!!!). And secondly because very little education comes out of DE, or from the DJs (as GTS has said many times, in his opinion "DE is NOT about education").
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Three points worth covering here.Quote:
What part of FSAE is not motorsport can you just not grasp?
1. Back on page 5 you put the argument;
My argument is that FSAE is ALREADY JUST LIKE Modern Motorsport.Quote:
If you dump the design event...
[then] ... innovation will suffer ...
[and] ... FSAE will just become another motorsport event.
Both have self-imposed obstacles to progress, or to "innovation" if you prefer that word. The obstacles in MM are the "spec" Rules, and in FSAE they are DE. Which, amongst other hurdles, demands a Design Report that still asks for nonsensical numbers such as the car's "Front and Rear Ride Frequencies" (<- in there last time I looked). These F&RRFs are 19th century nonsense! Keep up with the times FSAE! :(
I then pointed out that whenever there is a TRUE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION, such as the old-time "real racing" I mentioned (with a :)), then there is ALWAYS PROGRESS. Note that in FSAE this "competition" is rightly restricted to being against a stopwatch, not "wheel-to-wheel racing". Interestingly, there are still some preserves of MM where there is still steady progress. Most of these compete against a stopwatch (eg. drag-racing and hill-climb).
I guess I should ask you;
What part of progress do you NOT like?
~o0o~
2. If you took the "... and you get to drive really fast around a racetrack in little "formula" cars, and do other cool "racing" stuff..." OUT of FS/FSAE competitions, then they would ALL crash-and-burn faster than a CF-wishboned FS-car in Brake-Test.
The big attraction of FS/FSAE, over "... you build a toy robot that must escape from a maze", is the "Because Racecar" aura that surrounds it (<- it even has a catchy catchphrase!).
MESS WITH THIS AT YOUR PERIL!
EG. New student, "Oh..., so you don't ACTUALLY get to drive those little racecars anymore? You say it's now all about "communicating" your ideas to some old geezers? Right.....
Now how big and scary are we allowed to make those robot maze-escaper thingies...?"
~o0o~
3. The above EG brings up some interesting questions.
When trying to "improve something" a good tactic is to "extrapolate to extremes". I have extrapolated DE to zero and found that, IMO, it would work very well there.
What about the other direction?
Would a competition with DE worth 1000/1000 points be an "improvement"?
(See above "new student" comment for a hint of my view.)
If DE is considered somehow beneficial to the whole competition, maybe like some herbs and spices in your stew, then what is the "optimal" amount of it? Just a pinch? A bucket full? Add to taste? Whose taste???
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Ever tried putting brains into statues? I've been there, tried it. IT DOESN'T WORK!Quote:
I really can't see how having to [verbally] justify and prove design decisions prevents progress.
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
Your logical skills are very poor. I suggest googling "Venn diagrams". I will try to explain again in those terms.Quote:
Ok, so if you can communicate you ideas effectively you are therefore a shit engineer?
Earlier I said,
"The idea that good Engineers must NECESSARILY be good communicators is a load of codswallop."
IMO, the CORE skills required of "good Engineers" are ones that, in FSAE terms, help the students build an objectively "Cheap and Fast car". Namely, skills that help build a car that is very low in real cost, and wins all the Dynamic Events. Pulling words from Rule A1.1, I reckon some of these CORE skills are "an ability to ingeniously ... conceive, design, fabricate, develop and compete ... etc.".
These skills go in the central "good Engineers" area of the Venn diagram.
Now, there are certainly many other Venn diagram areas covering skills that the students may, or may not, have. For example, there are peripheral areas such as "good communicator", "gives great after-dinner speeches", "has an awesome golf-swing", "can whistle all national anthems while juggling AND riding a uni-cycle", and so on.
The important point is that these peripheral skills are NOT NECESSARY to being a "good Engineer". These peripheral Venn areas might be entertaining "added bonuses" to have in Young Engineer, but THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY!!! (<- Do I have to stress this even more?)
~o0o~
The really troubling part of DE is that it nowadays suggests that "good communicator" is a SUFFICIENT condition for "good Engineer". <- NONSENSE!!!
Note that there are precise logical meanings to "necessary" and "sufficient conditions", and they are diffferent. "Necessary" means that YE MUST be a "good communicator" but ALSO MIGHT NEED other skills to qualify as "good Engineer" (and I reckon "gc" is NOT a necessary condition). "Sufficient" is a stronger condition in that it means that YE ONLY needs to be "good communicator" to qualify as a "guaranteed-good Engineer". This, regardless of how crap their car might be!
If you don't believe that DE is like that, then think about how many times you have heard DJs say "We don't care what sort of car the students bring, just that they can DEFEND THEIR DECISIONS in the Design tent."
In other words, these DJs consider "good communicator" to be a "sufficient condition" for "good Engineer".
~~~~~o0o~~~~~
To be very blunt about this, would you rather that the doctors and nurses were very pleasant and friendly, and offered to give a very nice speech about "The Importance of Good Communication and Bedside Manner" AT THE FUNERAL!?Quote:
... wife just had an emergency C-section ...
The doctor's job is to fix you on the operating table. Your job, post-op, is to GET OUT OF THERE as soon as possible! I hope you realise that the longer you hang around hospitals, the sooner that you are the central player AT THE FUNERAL!
Coincidentally there was a doco on telly last night about a medical supply company whose artificial hips where falling apart, releasing cobalt, and generally killing their customers. After the product was banned in several countries the company kept selling it as fast as possible in the other countries, but with a policy of "managing perceptions" so as to give a "soft landing".
Clearly, this is the "good communications first, and bugger the core values" attitude that is spreading throughout our societies, and is now well entrenched in DE.
You reap what you sow.
Z
Saying the design event is an obstacle to progress is incorrect. If a team designs solely for the design event they are making a grave mistake, it is only one part of the overall event. Just like if they designed a car solely for the acceleration event. If there is any part of FSAE that is an obstacle it is the outdated rules as you touch on with the requirements for ride freqs numbers. For example composites are largely misunderstood and have unfair rules against it, such as the side impact testing rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Getting the design report up to date and relevant will be a good start towards improving the design event.
None, I work with some of the most disruptive technologies and companies in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
I don't think anyone is suggesting making design 1000 points and you could bet the house it will never be scraped. It is a part of the overall event, which at the moment everyone agrees needs improvement. That is what the point of this discussion isQuote:
Originally Posted by Z
Nope, they are pretty good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
Here is a Venn diagram as I see it:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...7/Untitled.png
The overall goal of FSAE should be to create better engineers and prepare them for life after FSAE. If they are happy to be just another engineer in the engineering dept then fine but I'm sure most would rather be the lead of that group and to do this you will need to have communication skills along with engineering knowledge.
When I'm hiring engineers I go for the ones in the middle, but that's just me.
I would rather they were good at their job and part of that is dealing with people. The nurse had a shit bedside manner and was also shit at her job - newborns need feeding and bleeding stitches are a bad thing. The next nurse was nice, helpful, explained what was going on and could do the basics of her job - she was a good nurse. We had a doctor who also explained what was going on and got the baby out alive - he was a good doctor. It is not a case of one or the other, you can have the technical skills and communication skills. And as soon as we could we got out of there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Z
I think this discussion is far away from any "real" impact on the competition.
Even if "the old boys club of FSAE forums" would agree to get rid of the DE, this never going to happen.
Geoff et al. gave the most important aspect: universities will never support the competition without the Design Event / Statics.
So the discussion has to be: How can we improve the statics of FSAE?
In my opinion ALL statics have a lot of flaws:
Business is a big problem: You win with a nice presentation. Content is not really important. Yes, I know the scoring sheet says something different. But judges are flashed by nice presentations. At FSG 2013, Zwickau won with a concept of "Speed Dating". So you meet you partner for life, drive the car and fall in love.. I mean, that's creative yes and the presentation was perfect, so they won those areas. But that's so far away from "real life" and even from "real life FSAE" that I think it does not help anyone.
Cost is a big problem: You don't win with the cheapest car, you win with a neat report (and to know how to cheat)... At FSG 2014, two of the most expensive FSAE cars of all time (Zurich's and Stuttgart's electric cars) placed 4th and 2nd.
Problem is, if you give like 200 points for "real cost", the incentive to cheat is incredibly high! The work load for Cost judges is immense. So you cheat like 50 times and get caught 3-4 times -> Great reduction in price and only a few penalty points.
So yes, Z is right: We need a measure to make sure that the cars are cheap. But the Cost tables and the cost report at the moment are not able to estimate the REAL cost of a car.
At the moment, at least in Europe, the top teams say "screw it, we will make the fastest car possible, we don't care about Cost". YES, this is against the famous A1.2(?) rule of a cheap weekend racer car. But this design choice gets the most points. So of course everybody is doing it if they plan to compete for Top3.
And yes, we covered the problems in Design...
Geoff, I like your attitude. The Design Event needs some fresh thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
The students teams design and build a new car every year. The better teams also apply continuous improvement practices to their design, manufacturing, testing and business processes. Why would the competition organizers not do the same? IMHO, FSAE here in the US got complacent, with an attitude "it's not broke, so don't fix it". There's new leadership now, and that attitude is slowly changing. Like it or not, the competitions have competition. The teams can vote with their feet and their money, attending the competitions that are well run, and shunning those that are not.
I have to say that I am getting pretty bloody tired of the tit-for-tat arguments that are degrading this forum. I repeat. We are all fighting for the same cause. I know each of the protagonists in the above arguments, and you ARE all in agreement about the intent of the comp, the quality of engineering education in this part of the world, and even many of your ideas of how to improve FSAE. FFS, stop this bullshit arguing and poring over points of order and stand above this destructive nonsense. In particular, those engaged in these silly "Z vs the world" arguments, your antagonism is doing more harm than good. We have reduced a much needed discussion to a name-calling exercise.
GTS, I have full respect for what you are trying to do by giving a judges point of view. It is well needed given the lack of real feedback we have been getting from event judges. But your headline about paranoia is plain offensive and low, and has dragged this debate into the gutter. Take it down.
I am not interested in who said what to who, I am not interested in picking apart someone’s post and quoting the words used in the fourth line of the third paragraph of someone’s post from two pages back. I could not give a fat rat's clacker how you justify your latest minor revision of your argument, or how desperately important it is that we all know that the answer is "red" whilst that other fool is arguing it is "crimson". No matter who you are, what your history is, whether you are a competitor or alumnus or a judge or an official or a marshal or a spectator or an F1 designer or a former competitor's uncle's greengrocer - if you feel the need to post out of spite or to defend your honour or to set someone straight - then you should probably take a Bex and lie down for a while.
No-one wins when we start getting personal.
I am here because I know the FSAE program is the best damn thing that happened to me during university, and was the only bloody thing I did at university that taught me anything about engineering. In my country the event is so close to imploding it is not funny, and it pains me greatly that future engineering students will not get the opportunity I did. And yet in the face of such crisis, we are playing silly little power games, and attacking personalities rather than discussing ideas.
And that is the point. This forum, when it works, is a competition of ideas. As is FSAE. It is a meritocracy. But I have seen both these forum boards and the event itself degrade into ego driven political bun-fighting. It is childish, it is petulant, and it is killing our event.
If you have an idea, offer it. If it is good, it will float. If it is not, it will sink. Your idea does not become better by restating it over and over, and it does not become a better idea by belittling people who have an alternative idea. It is time to stand above the petty name-calling and spitefulness. It is time to stop the silly arguing and tantrums and carefully worded slights undermining your perceived foes. If you can’t bring a bit of goodwill, humility and collaboration to the table – then FFS please inflict your harm elsewhere.
And no, I do NOT accept bullshit cop out arguments that this is the way things are done in industry. If industry is as unprofessional as this, then we will just do better.
My respect will go to those who can stand above the bickering and redirect their energies to something constructive
My respect will go to those who can recognize where they have erred, and are not too precious to apologize
My respect will go to those who can find the ways in which we agree, rather than disagree
My respect will go to those who can prove to us they are here for the betterment of the FSAE experience
My comments on static event improvements will follow.
Julian, thanks for your considered thoughts on the Static Events. Fully, fully agreed. Whilst the concept of the Static Event program is generally good, I think the application in flawed.
The concept of FSAE is to expose students to all aspects of an engineering project – it is meant to be an experience in rounding out an engineer’s education. However in practice we find the following issues:
- Inequitable distribution of tasks. In most teams, the preparation of the Cost Report and the Business presentation are left to a few overdedicated souls while the bulk of the team focus on building racing cars. (I know this as I was the poor sucker at RMIT who did Cost Report and Business presentation for about 4 years). Thus the learnings are not distributed throughout the team.
- Similarly in the Design Event, the best students are picked out to present the car and the team’s design knowledge, while a lot of the team are left in the background.
- Unwieldy reports – we make the teams prepare these enormous Cost reports, and then they are too big to accurately assess. What’s more, the cost reports tend to be done by maybe 2-3 team members. Thus, we have 2-3 people repeating the same process over and over and over – for hundreds of parts on the car. They learn about the process of costing, but then they do it again and again and again. The students don’t get any value out of doing it for more than say, 5-10 parts. But by extending it to the whole car, they just get sick and bored with it, and the end result is a report too big for the cost judges to accurately assess.
- Inequitable vehicle costs – as per Julian’s comment above. Cost report cheating / manipulation. Who really benefits from that?
So my ideas:
Vehicle Cost:
Up-front concept based vehicle costing. The SAE publishes a set of vehicle costs based on vehicle sub-systems. If your chassis is steel, its cost report cost is $X. If a carbon tub, it is worth $Y. A double wishbone suspension system is worth $A per corner. A beam axle is worth $B an end. If you have an electric car with 4 hub motors, your cost is $D per driving motor. Each brake system is costed per caliper/disc set. We allocate costs for all major vehicle systems (engine, diff/driveline, suspension, braking, chassis, etc), and once you have picked your vehicle concept (eg carbon tub with wings, a-arms, 4 cyl 600 and 13” wheels), your cost is known. None of this bollocksing around hiding costs of bolts and rod ends and stuff. If your car has an A-arm corner, then that corner is worth, say, $500 - bolts and nuts and rod ends and a-arms and all. The idea of this is that you can work through your design tradeoffs up front as your vehicle competition cost will be known as soon as the concept is proposed.
The difference to what we have now is that we have costing based on components. Thus the competition cost is calculated and assessed over hundreds of items. Far too much scope for cheating. If we base the competition cost on say, 10-15 major components or systems of known published costings, policing of competition cost becomes much simpler and more transparent.
As for costing the individual components, (still a valuable professional skill), we seperate that from the competition cost of the whole car. A good outcome for a team is that a number of students are engaged in the process, and that they do it well. So we reward teams that have programmes that engage a good number of students, and who all have knowledge of costing of manufacture.
So we break the car into nominated systems, with say 5-10 connected parts per system. 15-20 students are nominated as the team’s cost report competitors and each of them has to complete a roughly 5 page costing report on one of the nominated systems. Maybe 2-3 are picked out at random, and these students are then interviewed and assessed at the event.
The cost report score is the number of reports submitted (say, up to 20), multiplied by a quality factor determined by assessment of the 2-3 randomly picked out reports.
Justifications:
- We want more than 2-3 students learning from the exercise. A good outcome is that we have say 20 students per team benefitting from the event. The score linked to number of reports submitted encourages more involvement
- We want to encourage collaboration and mentoring within the teams. Picking reports at random puts teams at risk of losing points if not everyone is up to the same standard. Thus, it is not in the teams best interests to submit any sub standard reports
- Cost judges no longer have 200 page reports to scan over – they have maybe 10-20 pages per team, which enables tighter scrutiny and more accurate scoring.
I’ll get onto the Presentation Event later. I’ve written enough for now…
GTS, firstly, if there was any implication that anything more than the second paragraph was specifically aimed at you, then I apologize. I changed the order of some of the paragraphs and can see that you might have thought the third one was directly targeted at you as well. It was not.
If there was some belief that I am defending Z, I am not. My post was aimed at ALL involved in this tit for tat. I have written to Z privately on this issue, and am considering how I might proceed further. Yes, I recognize that you had offered to meet to resolve this, I was pleased to see the olive branch offered and I was considering how we might arrange this.
My point is that we must STOP THE BICKERING. We are ALL engaged in this. It is damaging to us all.
As someone who is battling a neurological condition, I know the damage that can be caused when mental instability is insinuated. That sort of stuff sticks. I do not care if it is Z, or whether it was aimed at you, or me. That sort of stuff does not belong on this forum.
Most of your argument is exactly my argument, and it is quite odd that the whole point of my argument is being used against me. Yes, it is a volunteer run event. I know that as well as anyone. And I am giving as much time and energy as anyone volunteering and mentoring teams and the like. But crying self-righteousness about all we are giving will not mean a jot if the core product is flawed. And, speaking of our Australian event, it is. And we ain’t going to find a solution if we sit around arguing who is a fool and who is a sacred cow.
Our country is becoming increasingly irrelevant because we are too bloody precious. Our culture is increasingly focussing on pointing out others flaws, and protecting our own little piece of turf by pointing to the faults of others. We have an ineffectual government that spends its time opposing its opposition. And here on these boards, we are doing no better.
So, resolution. Wangaratta. I nominate Labour Day weekend. I will supply venue, food, and accommodation. Agenda – resolution of these arguments, and building collaboration. GTS, Z, I expect you both there. Complaints about the date can be appended with a better alternative.
Thank you Geoff. Comment removed.
I posted what I did because I think it fair to note when a contribution is so OT that it can't represent the best interests of anyone directly involved. It's a thread on improving design event, not on debating the merits of having it at all. It's about how to make it better whilst acknowledging what resources and constraints there reasonably are, not about deriding volunteer efforts at large. There is very little time to gather low-hanging fruit for 2015 FSAE-A, wrap it into a rule addendum and pack it on it's way. There is a short amount of time beyond this to find relevance for an industry outlook that'll change irreversibly in 2018, for parity efforts with overseas competitions, for sponsorship, for making life easier for EV entrants, for a lot of necessary things.
It breaks my heart to speak with faculty and hear 'this is probably the last year we'll be supporting Formula SAE'. From teams that won competitions, or were even instrumental in getting the event back to Australia way back when. Remember when Australian industry made, dollar-for-dollar, the best cars in the world? (Sorry rest of world but we'll insist it's true.) Times are changing and the competition must adapt. DE is the most transferable element of the entire competition. Some universities like cheap and fast racing, and do Formula Vee/Ford/E30 racing/time trials/etc. The majority do FSAE, precisely because it offers what it does. Making the static events better is important, and I'm all for robust discussion here. Let's be honest though - the disucssion needs to stay here. Not on getting rid of things. Let's just keep it OT without indiscrminately slagging off those that volunteer time and skill to make the event possible. It's not hard.
Probably a good opportunity to stress, again, that not all the change needs to come from the organisers either. Sharing of resources, open sourcing of various project elements, organising open mic nights, document repositories, you name it... there's so much you can all organise among each other to help this much, there are very many alumni that can help with resources to make it easier to get more out of, and put more into, your design management, FSAE experience and legacy. Please don't leave it all up to us (where 'us' is 'not the students'). There is only so much we can do, and this is your time. Be creative in making the most of it.
To Wangaratta.
I am sure there would be a few teams, both local and interstate, that would be willing to send representatives if this were to become an event. I imagine a "Design Design Event to Win". Add some structure and aim to have a draft proposal organised?Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
I'm with Jay here.
Counting bolts and "number of steps to mount part A to part B" are quite useless points.
Maybe we can go to a concept like the "old" sustainability report at FS UK:
You insert the weight, the material and the manufacturing process (casting, milling 3-axis, milling 5-axis, laser cutting, prepreg, vacuum infusion...) of the most important parts and it gives you a number -rounded to the nearest dollar- for this part. I don't care about "what 1000 cars would cost". Nobody is building 1000 race cars a year...
If this process can be monitored, the cheating could be reduced. It could be difficult if a team is stating "our uprights way 150g" but then they probably have to weigh in this part after the competition and get a substantial penalty if the weight is outside a +- x% zone.
I think we have to reduce Cost to a top-level approach and then we can start "awarding" teams that are trying to build a cheap car.
I've never liked the idea that cost and design are assessed independently...
In the real world assessing the quality of an "engineering" job is the simultaneous assessment of design, cost, materials and processing. Design features such as rod ends in bending, single shear upright mounts, control arms loaded in bending, trade-off in suspension kinematics can ALL be validly justified when you take cost, materials and processing into account. They might be bad/inefficient designs, but if they make a significant cost saving, then they are solid "engineering" choices.
Conversely, I think that "engineering" points should be subtracted where designs are unnecessarily expensive or where an extra cost has been incurred, but no performance advantage demonstrated. An example could be a complicated rapid prototyped upright which is not lighter, or stiffer than a machined alternative. It should be marked down in design for obvious reasons, but I think it deserves a double hit for not properly considering the cost and processing.
In the end though, the overall assessment still needs to be performance biased. A flawlessly executed 120kg full composite machine with a 75kW custom drive train which can pull 2G in cornering should rightly be assessed as better than a well designed 150kg steel brown go-kart making 70kw from a well sourced commercial motor that can corner at 1.8g even if the performance/cost is much lower on the first example.
One problem with Cost is Sponsoring in my opinion:
Sponsoring screws up the typical "Cost vs. Performance Tradeoff" of a typical engineering decision.
Two examples: The motors that are developed by Zurich are incredibly expensive. But we got them for free. Nobody would pass on the best motors in the competition just because you "normally" would not use them.
Another one is Selective Laser Melting... some teams have an institute or a sponsor doing those things to get maybe an upright or what ever at some less weight. For free obviously. If you don't have access to such things, you would use another method / other materials because it would be a better trade-off for Cost/Performance.
To exaggerate: It could be possible that a team can use SLM uprights for free but would have to pay for milling/welding. What now?
I think it would be difficult to assess those areas in a "combined Cost&Design" event.
Julian
It should be costed as the Design Brief: a car for a small production run. Let's not confuse production intent and prototype costs here.
It should also be designed as per the brief - if you're running unobtanium that has no place on a production example, you're doing it wrong. Unless you can prove that it can be produced readily and meet the design brief.
Teams should happily pass on anything not meeting design intent, as it's irrelevant to the design brief. This should be better policed. Similarly, if a team can prove something new and relevant can actually be made on cost for quantity, so be it.
What a team pays or doesn't to make prototypes is exclusive of the Cost Event. You don't cost a production BoM on what your first prototype actually cost.
There are competitions that allow complete freedom in cost-no-object prototyping (e.g. solar car racing); FSAE isn't and shouldn't be one of them.
In a way, the same can be said for "Education". GFR uses a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis for our cars for several reasons, but the most important reason is our students want to learn carbon-fiber monocoque design and manufacturing techniques, and companies want to hire these students because of their knowledge. The decision process is customer driven, our customers (the students and companies that hire them) want this (customer needs) and we give it to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
To be honest I think this is one of the key areas where our choice of static event judges needs to be very carefully monitored. And it is one of the main reasons I push for alumni to take up judging roles in this event. It is with the informed alumni that I have the most sophisticated discussions about the merit of a particular design with respect to:
- the resources available to the team
- the goals and objectives of the team
I am not one who believes that if the team has limited resources, then it needs to go out and get more resources. Good design can occur within the confines of limited resources, just as much as poor design can be found in teams with extensive resources.
The merit of design is in delivery of functional requirements within the bounds of the resources available. Sure, there is some scope to trade/invest some resources (e.g. project time) for others (e.g. sponsorship dollars), but in the end you have to put a cap on it somewhere. And to this point in time I have had more rounded discussions with alumni on this matter than outside industry professionals.
I don't believe that a solely alumni based judging crew is the answer - we need balance and outside perspective. But an industry monoculture is just as bad as an alumni monoculture. As is an incumbent monoculture, where the existing crew assume that outsiders are less informed than they are - is less desirable again.
And before I offend anybody again - I am not taking pot shots at anyone here!
And sorry, I missed the main point I intended to make.
FSAE is great because it offers the scope to cater to the top end of town (e.g. composites training and research) right through to the lowbudget end of the scale. We DO NOT want to lose this.
We don't have to within reason (RMIT was in a similar position in 2004 - have autoclave and great aerospace project, an olympic project win, want composites in car).Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Bird
The nice thing about FSAE is that you can run some stuff that's relatively more expensive within the intent of the rules, you simply need to compromise elsewhere. Pick your compromises and move forwards. It's policed poorly, though the intent of the competition was setup to very broadly decouple resource constraints from performance envelopes. We have too many entrants and alumni confusing what it cost to build a prototype with what it costs to build a production example in series.
I would prefer to expand the remit of the cost event slightly to allow teams to explain with substantiation - where they believe it appropriate - what they'd have done with more resources in prototype, and what this would have meant in performance. Designing better is free.
If a university wants, for instance, a project that runs best composites, electric motors and energy storage... it looks more like a recipe for a solar car entry.
FSAE doesn't need to be, and shouldn't be, all things to all schools.
Swiftus, no issues with anything you've written. Most universities have core research and commercialisation competencies they'd like reflected in various programs. That's totally OK.
Just do it within the confines of the competition intent. Having limits to execution is not a limitation to what's developed. If AMZ wants to run a batshit EV power train, that's fine, as long as they're competing fairly on cost and design intent. There's no limitation in the rules on how many ways you can skin a cat.
Just respect what's there for parity. Show you batshit crazy electric motors can be made in series and at a cost that keeps your car viable, or show that you made compromises elsewhere or both. It's about choosing poisons/compromises/integration/etc.
FSAE shouldn't become a place where biggest spend dictates. This is different. If universities really want that, there really is solar racing and a bunch of other exercises.
Just a quick comment on the composites is expensive topic, I just got a price for work from a Chinese carbon fibre producer - US$15/m2 for 200gsm cloth, US$8 for 200gsm Uni and that is just for one roll, there are discounts for more than 2 rolls. At my old job our moulds could produce about 600 parts before they needed replacing, so the cost of moulds per part worked out to be about $10 per part.
This is an area where the competition/marking/cost is lagging behind the realities of modern manufacturing.
This is my ideas for improvements:
Design -
First up, keep it. Then release the marking schedule early. Have a Goto meeting of the judges and re-release the updated schedule afterwards. This would show the teams the areas that they will be assessed on and thus they can prepare accordingly. And teams need to prepare for the event.
It sounds like the at comp event is about right except maybe, if time allows, space out the 'appointments' to give the judges time to write up their notes. It is after the event that improvements are needed. Release the judges notes at the same time as the results. If a judge is able to spare the time they could host a short (15-30min) review, not debate, at the teams request. Those Dj's that can't hang around could offer up an email or goto time to have a review with teams at a later time.
GTS,Quote:
Originally Posted by GTS
what I meant is exactly contrary. It is NOT a big amount spent. It is none spent. It's free. But still expensive for the sponsor.
The university is as far away from FSAE as a university can be. They put a nice picture of the car on their homepage if we won or when we set the World Record, but that's it.
They don't say "Oh you have to use the expensive stuff, to make it look cool". They simply don't care at all - as long as the project is run safe and educates the students.
What my point was:
Yes, it is a prototype and all those cars probably need some tweaks for mass production.
Our motors were too expensive for selling the car - yes. But we paid 0$ for them. Getting the AMKs (argueably the best "buy option" for electric drivetrain) would have costed us a 5-figure Euro amount (and that was back in the day when the Euro was 1,5 times the Swiss Franc/Dollar...). They could be mass produced but seriously, why would you pay a significant amount of your total budget for that if you get it for free.
In my opinion, this is project managing as well and therefore part of the competition.
You are right that the students should be able to justify their choice.
Maybe we have to introduce a category: "What would you change from prototype (which is a showcase of your "company" and what you are capable of doing) to the mass product? And what would be the influence in "real" cost and "real" performance?"
In the end, there are always going to be teams going for the fastest car.. The question is, if we can make the penalty in such a Cost&Design event so harsh that "really" the best compromise is going to win.
If GFR/Zurich/Delft/Stuttgart give you 5-6 seconds on a one minute lap, you have to make up a lot of static points to beat them.
Not an ideal situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
Then you're operating outside the spirit of the competition, and you shouldn't be using them. Teams are to build a production prototype. If you're motors are too expensive, you're using the wrong motors, period.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
We're confusing production BoM costs - what teams are judged on - with project build costs.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
Teams are not assessed on internal finances.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
I think this would be a great approach.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
Sure, but if this is all they're going for then they're in the wrong competition - they're going to be disappointed.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
I would suggest that (at least in Australia) that none among the fastest are perfect cars.
That's the idea of the competition, however there's sufficient space to improve cars at less cost yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
Possibly so.Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianH
Swiftus the key words are design decisions.
Team can decide to do whatever they wish to do within the rules set. They simply decide what goes in, why, and why the consequences of their decisions are better than what they didn't decide to do. This is done from a number of perspectives: cost, performance, you name it.
If there are parts in the car that cannot be replicated on cost in a production context, you're outside the rules - simple. Had this very dilemma way back when it was my FSAE year too. Not a new problem.
Maybe we are talking the same argument.
Maybe we have to introduce a category: "What would you change from prototype (which is a showcase of your "company" and what you are capable of doing) to the mass product? And what would be the influence in "real" cost and "real" performance?"
Julian, as you know, this is partially implemented on EU competitions (or at least some of them) as part of the "real case scenario" in the cost event.
Regarding cost of e-motors, currently is per kW, but there isn't any guidelines whether this is per nominal or max values. I bet you that all e-teams cost their motors per nominal values, which for FSAE are pretty irrelevant. Moreover, with the current rule set, 4x20kW motors would cost the same with 1x80kW; this is simply not realistic. Actually the single motor team might come up more expensive due to the (needed) differential.
You're picking at two issues here. I've addressed both.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
1
Teams can truly use what they want. Everything bears a compromise on something else.
2
This needs to be practically limited by the notion that the metrics we use for assessing these tradeoffs can't be a full-on pisstake.
I really don't care what students are offered by sponsors. Students could be offered cells with thirteen times the density of the best Saft can offer made from laser-sintered titanium-infused ostrich scrotum with dilithium electrodes for all I care. Read S4.1 and S4.7 very carefully. Unless sponsors plan on giving 1,000 units a year at a production price reflecting the competition intent, a team so affected is outside the spirit of the rules. There's not much else to it.
That is not 'forcing students not to have that design option', that's asking competitors to set themselves reasonable design challenges that are fair to all competitors. If students can demonstrate, working with their sponsors, that e.g. the aforementioned laser-sintered titanium-infused ostrich scrotum parts could actually be costed reasonably within the scope of the rules, great. Demonstrate it.
33% doesn't make for a fallacy, Jay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
Teams without access to similar resources might think your assertion differently, particularly when the end of their year at competition ends with the rules not capturing resource differences equitably. This is an area the event can improve in.
All the event needs to ask is that people can prove it beyond anecdotal statements. We have real issues in the EV section presently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
Within reason, sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
Sorry mate, can't agree with you there. Many of us have zero preconceptions about what the car should be. Appreciably it's not replicated by everyone still on these forums, however many alumni do actually move on with life. We're more interested in students' thoughts and processes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
It's best said here http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/about.htmQuote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
Who said it's further constraint? Or any addition to the rules? Nothing of the sort, Jay. Simply suggesting students not take the piss on it, that's all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
A month of RTFM before being let loose with other people's money with so little experience on so little accountability isn't time lost, I'd argue it's quite quick.
Jay, you've said nothing here that many haven't said before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiftus
You mentioned your team ran motors beyond the scope of the competition. This sort of stuff can hurt the competition, and we're in a place with EV particularly where cost structures don't fully capture performance differentials in components used. That's no surprise, the field is moving quickly. It it gets away from the organisers, we can end up with performance differences not able to be met readily or fairly in better design. The rules exist to provide a template for compromise; it simply needs to be fair and relevant in doing so.
In my year it was a steering rack, believe it or not.