First up I am very sorry if I offend people unduly with this post. What I post here are my opinions and are not representative of the University I teach at, nor the team I am faculty advisor for.
I was very disappointed in reading the latest "Pat's Corner". In it Pat bemoaned the fact that Formula Student / FSAE has become more about motorsport than engineering design education. Furthermore there was some indication that the points score in the competition reflects this. I have heard this view from a couple of people and I find it both frustrating and at times condescending.
To start off with I think it is a bit crazy to try and excite students about engineering using motorsports and then turn around and complain that students are excited about motorsports.
Secondly ALL of the points allocated in an event are allocated on the decisions made by the students:
- Engineering design tests the ability of students to present the reasoning of their DESIGN to experts
- Marketing tests the ability of the students to present a business case behind their DESIGN
- Cost measures the amount of resources required to manufacture the DESIGN and how well documented it is
- The dynamic events test the actual outcome (or success/failure) of the DESIGN and development process.
Particularly:
- Skidpan, acceleration, and autocross test the overall performance of the DESIGN
- Endurance tests the reliability of the DESIGN while operating at its expected limits
- Fuel efficiency / Economy measures the resources required during the operation of the DESIGNED vehicle
Most points are allocated to the performance of the designed vehicle. How can this be a bad thing? The real engineering world we are training students for is not a kind one. It is not a place where the consumers accept products that do not meet their design goals.
There appears to be a continuing misunderstanding that the teams that are doing well in this competition are somehow offering a substandard education to their students. Because they are targeted at maximising the points output of the vehicles that they are missing the subtleties of engineering design. This is utter crap!! Engineering is very simple. You have a problem and you need to solve it as effectively as you can within resource constraints. In FSAE that is attempting to get as many points out of 1000 as possible, with whatever money and time from team members that you can get together.
Some teams label themselves with a motorsport name, does that make it easier or harder to get the required resources?
Some teams focus on development at the expense design, which will yield the best success over time?
Some teams go the motorsport promotion route and drape women over cars, how does that work out for them?
Some teams do not try some of the innovative ideas for novel suspension or faster manufacturing, does this leave them open to lose in the future?
Numerous times I have seen involvement in FSAE transform students from uninterested students plodding along in their degrees into excited capable engineers that have been welcomed by industry. To suggest that this whole thing is now more of a motorsport competition (paid drivers/rides, big sponsorship, closed doors etc.) instead of a design education competition (students pushing themselves to be better, know more and develop as engineers) is ridiculous.
It appears that there is a growing desire amongst some people in decision making roles in the competition to fiddle with things. Hundreds of universities around the world have shown their support for the competition as it was formed. This would not happen if they felt that FSAE / FStudent was against the goals in providing high quality engineering education.
For those (few) growing increasingly vocal in their efforts to drastically change the outcomes of the competition I ask one thing:
Please Stop!
It is like a bad parody of Dr Frankenstein distraught at the fact that his experiment turned out to be a success.
Kev