Formula Student -All a bit "samey"?

[Machin]

OK, here's another area for interesting discussion:

We keep getting articles on Formula Student in Race Car Engineering magazine, and interesting reading the articles make... but one complaint seems prevalent and that is the fact that many cars now show very little innovation... so how do you stop this and make the car's interesing, for the participants, the judges, and the spectator/reader, how about this:-

Each team is given a very tight specification to build the basic car.... i.e. right down to the construction methods, dimensions etc for all the basic components... like wishbones, etc... you could even have a basic kit which the teams could buy if they wanted.

Then each year (or three year cycle, or whatever) a specific area for development is highlighted... the teams then have to come up with the best design they can to improve that area... the difference between one car and the rest is thus determined by this one area.... once you've been through the three year cycle the car that showed the best performance is used as the "standard".... its solution is standardised for all teams, and another area for development is highlighted....

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Machin

OK, here's another area for interesting discussion:

We keep getting articles on Formula Student in Race Car Engineering magazine, and interesting reading the articles make... but one complaint seems prevalent and that is the fact that many cars now show very little innovation... so how do you stop this and make the car's interesing, for the participants, the judges, and the spectator/reader, how about this:-

Each team is given a very tight specification to build the basic car.... i.e. right down to the construction methods, dimensions etc for all the basic components... like wishbones, etc... you could even have a basic kit which the teams could buy if they wanted.

Then each year (or three year cycle, or whatever) a specific area for development is highlighted... the teams then have to come up with the best design they can to improve that area... the difference between one car and the rest is thus determined by this one area.... once you've been through the three year cycle the car that showed the best performance is used as the "standard".... its solution is standardised for all teams, and another area for development is highlighted....

Terrible idea - sorry.

Background: I was part of the design team for two Formula Student cars (did the suspension on both cars and was also tech director on the second) I'm now a professional motorsport engineer (involved in the Le Mans Series actually :-) ) and Formula Student design judge. I'm also developing FS specific products for the company I work for.

Like I said to you on the Le Mans thread, it's actually being quite narrow minded to look just at the car. Formula Student isn't about developing innovative vehicles, it's about training engineers.

Sam Collins' at RE infuriates me by demanding innovation from FS teams rather than looking at who did the best all round job as engineers - because often that requires not innovating because to do so would be profligate in the context of the budgets and other constraints on the team.

If you proscribe the vast majority of the car then you remove the project planning and systems engineering aspects of the compeition. The beauty of the competition as it stands is that a 600cc 4-cylinder machine can be beaten by a 450cc single cylinder machine and vice versa because the teams involved developed a vehicle appropriate to the choice of engine. Those vehicles will be very different, which is why your spec car is a bad idea.

Real engineering problems are poorly defined relative to a textbook problem - i.e. you never have all the data you want. If you restrict development to one area of the car you turn that area into a textbook problem that will have little relevance to real world engineering.

Ben

[Machin]

Yeah, you're right it is ********!!! Part of the engineering task is deciding whether to compromise part of the design to enable another part of the design to be improved.. (example being the fact that current F1 cars have some pretty dodgy suspension geometries because that means the aero can be improved)... you couldn't do that if the other parts of the car were fixed.

Also, all the cars would look the same... and what's the fun in that?!

[Machin]

How about changing the tests involved each year (or three year cycle, etc) then?... so in the endurance race you're given a fuel limit as well as a time limit?

Or making the slalom course tighter or more open?

The cars still need to be fully designed, but you couldn't just improve the car here and there each year... you'd have to change the philosophy so that it best matches the trials involved... that would keep things spiced up....

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Machin

How about changing the tests involved each year (or three year cycle, etc) then?... so in the endurance race you're given a fuel limit as well as a time limit?

Or making the slalom course tighter or more open?

The cars still need to be fully designed, but you couldn't just improve the car here and there each year... you'd have to change the philosophy so that it best matches the trials involved... that would keep things spiced up....

Not a bad idea - indeed the SAE aero challenges use a different "mission profile" each year to force clean-sheet design. But they're model plans and therefore it's many orders of magnitude easier than building a functioning full size race car.

Something I would like to see is a disclosure of the autocross and endurance course geometry a year in advance (not difficult provided the venue's fixed) so that teams with simulation capability can run a genuinely relevant programme of work.

Trust me as a design judge I can see up close how few teams actually engineer the cars well at the moment - don't underestimate how hard it is before complaining that they're samey or derivative.

Ben

[Machin]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Something I would like to see is a disclosure of the autocross and endurance course geometry a year in advance (not difficult provided the venue's fixed) so that teams with simulation capability can run a genuinely relevant programme of work.

Exactly.... release the course a year earlier and every year, couple of years or whatever, change the philosophy.... tight and twisty, long straights and fast corners or even an Oval (i.e. corners in one direction only)... would mix things up a bit....