2015 FSAE Michigan

[JSR]

Top 10 Overall
1 #016 Graz Technical Univ
2 #001 Oregon State Univ
3 #009 Univ of Florida
4 #053 Kookmin Univ
5 #008 Univ of Michigan - Ann Arbor
6 #110 Virginia Tech
7 #038 National Univ of Singapore
8 #072 Univ of Michigan - Dearborn
9 #101 Wroclaw University of Technology
10 #117 Western University

[Z]

Well, the Fat Lady sang about a day ago ... and still no full list of O/A results ... anywhere??? The supposed interweb-age of instant "live" coverage is sorely lacking here.

Nevertheless, the carrier-pigeons have reported some interesting results. Of the top 10 Teams overall, 4.5 are from outside USA (counting GFR as 0.5 US). Especially impressive results of 4th from Kookmin (S. Korea) and 7th from Singapore. But what happened to fast AutoX Teams such as Akron, San Jose, ETS, and others? And how did GFR manage to win AutoX, Endurance, AND Fuel-Efficiency, but NOT place in the top ten in Design?

Ahhh, yes..., the Design Event remains as mysterious as ever. Will there ever be some DE feedback given? Preferably in the public domain, such as here? And I recall an award for "Best 3-View Drawing", or some such. Any chance of such drawings being presented publicly, here? For the education of young Engineers...

Otherwise, any chance of Nice-Camera-Guy linking to one of those long photo-files? Preferably close-ups of the cars without their clothes on. Please... (it is getting cold here, down-under).

Z

[Kevin Hayward]

Unless I am mistaken only 4 of the 11 design finalists finished the endurance event (cant confirm Campinas). This is 36%. It also appears that of the design finalists the average score of those that didn't finish was higher than those that did.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that the majority of the teams who were deemed to be the best designers didn't meet the fundamental requirements of the competition?

Kev

[ChristianChalliner]

Kevin, I've always thought that but I suppose it is to be sympathetic to teams that have extremely good overall design but suffer a particularly unforseen failure, for example, that of a bought component. I know there's arguments against it and in extreme cases like this one it does seem a bit odd. A while ago i considered why it was that a team receive any design points if their car didn't finish endurance but i get the impression this would lead to some very heavy cars and extreme nursing to ensure the car finished the run which isn't really within the spirit of the event.

[Kevin Hayward]

Christian,

There used to be an unwritten rule that if you didn't complete endurance you couldn't win design. That was when final design was decided after the endurance event.

Given that there is no wheel to wheel racing there is very little beyond the control of the team. Unless it is something like a puncture a good designer should be able to cover all bases.

For example a failure in a composite joint indicates poor quality control, poor testing, poor initial design or something similar. Having this happen on a critical component indicates poor judgement of using unproven components in critical systems. Wrong in both lower and upper levels of the design process.

There should be very few unforeseen failures. A decent risk assessment should uncover just about anything.

...

I certainly don't expect these cars to be super reliable given the conditions they run in, but I have a big issue with this reliability not being appropriately reflected in the design event. If someone tried to sell me a music player that had top notch sound quality, was nice and cheap, durable finish, good looking, but only worked every third song I would call it shit design, and most importantly wouldn't buy it.

Since I have been lecturing there is a constant stream of people that want you to help them with their inventions. The normal line is:

"Its a great design, and once we solve this technical problem, it will be awesome"

Running this through the google translator to turn it into English you get the following:

"We have some fundamental design flaws, or made some big mistakes along the way. This was probably due to us not having a decent grasp of some basic concepts. The product wont work, but we are attached to the idea, so could you please help us with the problem so we can all be deluded."

A really simple fix rules wise would be design points capped at 110pts if all events are not completed. Just make sure the top designed cars are those that meet the design goals.

Kev

p.s. No attack meant for any individual team. I chose the composite example, because it is one that has happened a few times in recent years. Undoubtedly there were a few cars at comp with composite suspension failures, but I am not picking on any one of them in particular. If your particular bug bear is oil leaks then insert it in the above example and it all still holds true.

[RagingGrandpa]

Well, the Fat Lady sang about a day ago ... and still no full list of O/A results ... anywhere??? The supposed interweb-age of instant "live" coverage is sorely lacking here.

Nevertheless, the carrier-pigeons have reported some interesting results. Of the top 10 Teams overall, 4.5 are from outside USA (counting GFR as 0.5 US). Especially impressive results of 4th from Kookmin (S. Korea) and 7th from Singapore. But what happened to fast AutoX Teams such as Akron, San Jose, ETS, and others? And how did GFR manage to win AutoX, Endurance, AND Fuel-Efficiency, but NOT place in the top ten in Design?

Ahhh, yes..., the Design Event remains as mysterious as ever. Will there ever be some DE feedback given? Preferably in the public domain, such as here? And I recall an award for "Best 3-View Drawing", or some such. Any chance of such drawings being presented publicly, here? For the education of young Engineers...

Otherwise, any chance of Nice-Camera-Guy linking to one of those long photo-files? Preferably close-ups of the cars without their clothes on. Please... (it is getting cold here, down-under).

Z

Overall results: http://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfse...all_prelim.pdf

More at: http://www.sae.org/servlets/pressRoo...&EVENT=FORMULA

[Flight909]

What is the reason for GFRs penalty off -10 points? With out it they would beat Graz by 2 points.

[JSR]

Overall results are now up! (sorry, missed that they had been posted!)

https://www.sae.org/images/cds/selfs...all_prelim.pdf

But some pictures from the comp:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1...64625273710929

[bob.paasch]

What is the reason for GFRs penalty off -10 points? With out it they would beat Graz by 2 points.

We were 3 or 4 minutes late with our SES submission. Fair cop, late is late.

[JSR]

But what happened to fast AutoX Teams such as Akron, San Jose, ETS, and others? And how did GFR manage to win AutoX, Endurance, AND Fuel-Efficiency, but NOT place in the top ten in Design?

Z

What I find quite intriguing as well is that they weren't that fast in both acc or skidpad, but still manage to get top results in AutoX and Endurance. Anyone know if they had any problems during skidpad and acc?