I have seen FSAE posts in the past, wondering if any of you guys are still around.

I am happy to say that I am on the suspension and controls team this year for Bradley University FSAE team. I was seeing if any of you guys have any words of wisdom, so that I do not waste time doing something that is not important. The overall team looks pretty good and we are looking to be fairly competitive this year (last years team finished 67th). Our team is only 10 people for the whole car so time will be an issue to get everything done and be tested properly. I am pumped for this awesome experience!

-Nate

 

uiuc fsae here

im *sort of* on the suspension team in that im helping with the design. officially im not though, since im not in the senior design class.

things that i think are important are:
tire data
milliken
tire data
good suspension software
tire data
fsae specific design philosophy
and tire data

and if you decide to do anything, you better damn well be able to explain WHY

 

you i am running with the FSAE crew up here in canada. At Concordia University.

 

anohter one here
ryerson university.

and we don't have tire data.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hondan00b &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">uiuc fsae here

things that i think are important are:
tire data
milliken
tire data
good suspension software
tire data
fsae specific design philosophy
and tire data
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hate to say it, but this is way too much "engineering" if you want to build a competitive car.

Forget ideals, and put something together that WORKS. Get it built and running before Christmas, and start testing drivers. Get the best driver and give him AS MUCH SEAT TIME as possible in the car. From there, do all your testing and get data from there, but KEEP IT FOR NEXT YEAR! Do not go about redesigning stuff mid-year.

Testing and tuning is what will win in FSAE.


Oh, and with the courses actually being "real" autocross courses now, have an AERO team, and have them working with the suspension team from the beginning.

 

I like what I hear guys, and I have heard most of it before all good advise. We have lots of good tire data for the tires we use and are looking to make a reliable car with nothing too fancy. April 1st is when the car will be built and running! I am the one with the most driving experience, luckily we have last years car at our disposal so lots of seat time hopefully will not be a problem... Our weight goal this year is 480lbs lets see if we can do it!

Good luck to all the teams out there, hopefully I will keep everyone updated with progress with the car.

-Nate

 

recent years have shown that not only do you need a car that works, but you need a car that is fast. as was said, testing is very important. it has been said that ones testing budget should be equal to, if not greater than, the build budget.

fsae is getting much much much more competetive than it was just 4-5 years ago. hell, things changed A LOT just from the '03 competition to the '04 one.

the engineering side is more for the design competition than the dynamic events. its the event that most of the people looking to hire engineers seem to be interested in

...
some of the current rumors for the '05 competition are that the courses are going back down in size and that minimum wieght for design semi-finals is now more like 450.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PseudoRealityX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Forget ideals, and put something together that WORKS. Get it built and running before Christmas, and start testing drivers. Get the best driver and give him AS MUCH SEAT TIME as possible in the car. From there, do all your testing and get data from there, but KEEP IT FOR NEXT YEAR! Do not go about redesigning stuff mid-year.

Testing and tuning is what will win in FSAE.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Pretty much what he said.

Just get the thing build then go out and beat the **** out of it. If you dont allow anytime to test you will want to shoot your self. We had about 2 hours of testing the morning of the compitition last year, and yes I thought about shooting myself. Keep notes on everything you do, it sucks going back and wondering why you did something. Also have reason's (why) you did what you did, for everything.

Ryan-Whos suspension design is waaaaaay behind schedule

 

FSAE here at Iowa State, im on the controls team since im just a freshman ME. Were using some pretty nice suspension software and a shock dyno.

 

IF you think out of the box chances are it will fail, but i'm not one to thing inside the box too much...........there is already enought people doing that.

 

I was involved with FSAE for 7 years (undergrad and grad) at two different schools. My advice, KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Really though, get the car done as quickly as you can and simply drive it. If you look at the point spread you will see that the dynamic points are a huge percentage of the total. You can take a decent car and finish very very well with it.

Data, you simply must have data for every decision you make. Even if the data is a bit of a stretch if you can show the design judges (which I have been doing for the past 2 years, suspension design and frame judge) why you made a decision based on something rather than just because we will be much happier. There is no magic formula for doing well, its very easy.

show us the data that caused you to make the design decisions, articulate your responses when we ask you questions about things and don't try to bullshit us. If you don't know the answer tell us, if you think that someone else on your team knows bring them into the conversation.

Driving the car well will give you the biggest edge. That ties in with getting the car done early. Set up is key to the skidpad, acceleration test is having enough test time to figure how to launch the car so that it hooks up, the autocross is very tight and technical so your drivers have know what the car is capable of doing (test/seat time). The endurance is a matter of having lots and lots of hours on your car so that everything that may break has had the opportunity of breaking causing you to either redesign or put new components in prior to the event. You don't have to be the fastest so long as you finish you are pretty much ensured a to 30 finish, not bad out of 145 entries.

No more writing for me, this has turned into a novel. if you want to know more email me questions/comments with a phone number.

Don't forget, enjoy the experience.

BPT

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hondan00b &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">recent years have shown that not only do you need a car that works, but you need a car that is fast. as was said, testing is very important. it has been said that ones testing budget should be equal to, if not greater than, the build budget. </TD></TR></TABLE>

The Wallagong team from Austrailia (hope i spelled that right) sure didn't seem to have an "ideal" suspension, but they'd had that car built and tuning for close to a year when they showed up and won.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the engineering side is more for the design competition than the dynamic events. its the event that most of the people looking to hire engineers seem to be interested in </TD></TR></TABLE>

If you can win the competition every year with a medicore design, companies will look for you, because more than likely, you can build something better, cheap.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
some of the current rumors for the '05 competition are that the courses are going back down in size and that minimum wieght for design semi-finals is now more like 450. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Courses will be the larger courses that you saw in '04. Heard that from the Chief of Course for FSAE for the last few years. However, the rules about going up on 2 wheels and stuff will be enforced strongly.

 

I appreciate all the replies guys, lots of excellent information!

The only team that is looking into something a little crazy would be the engine team, but who knows how it will all pan out. With our tight budget and small team, it should be an interesting year!

And remember 229 days until competition!!

-nate

 

Cornell Engineers every part that goes on the car and tests every part thats on the car and drives a lot

You cant win FSAE these days without engineering the car. The days of getting something together to run are long over.

With that said off I go to Toronto to the shootout. See a few of you there hopefully. I wear all red race gear.

 

Scaled down go cart!. ....Race Car Engineering Loved it!...so did I.

Won the cost report 2 years in a row.

I'm the stud in the red had!!!!

 

unique design, are you guys useing a CVT??

-nate

 

we were. I desgined the cams for the CVT (and some other parts). It was a MONO cylinder, bad mistake. We got a dual cylinder after, it was much better. but the decision was bad to go trubo......which is what did not allow it to do the dynamic events last year.

We were 35th fastest in the autocross ago with 26whp!!!! (momo cylinder chokes out) I thought that was a very very good finish.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Audipwr1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Cornell Engineers every part that goes on the car and tests every part thats on the car and drives a lot

You cant win FSAE these days without engineering the car. The days of getting something together to run are long over.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Cornell has enough money and manpower to do that. It's good that you guys actually win or do VERY well every year. The rest of the world doesn't have the resources you do, and have still done VERY well.

My point goes something like this...

"Don't worry about getting the last 5 lbs off the chassis. Get it done, and start testing."

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PseudoRealityX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
If you can win the competition every year with a medicore design, companies will look for you, because more than likely, you can build something better, cheap.
</TD></TR></TABLE>
how many winners in recent years have had 'mediocre' designs? the only team i can think of with repeated recent wins is cornell. they're design is far from mediocre simple? yes. crappy? no.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Courses will be the larger courses that you saw in '04. Heard that from the Chief of Course for FSAE for the last few years. However, the rules about going up on 2 wheels and stuff will be enforced strongly.</TD></TR></TABLE>
SWEET!!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PseudoRealityX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Cornell has enough money and manpower to do that. It's good that you guys actually win or do VERY well every year. The rest of the world doesn't have the resources you do, and have still done VERY well.

My point goes something like this...

"Don't worry about getting the last 5 lbs off the chassis. Get it done, and start testing."</TD></TR></TABLE>

ha! that is exactly what I was going to say. I can only image the resources and man power they have. My team has a budget of 10k for everything and only 10 people for the whole car!! I am rooting for the small teams! w00t!

-nate

 

FYI: The university gives us exactly zero dollars. Everything we spend we raise. Which is quite an accomplishment if you ask me.
We share our lab space, arent allowed to use the machine shop unless its during regular hours.

Its more about determination than anything else. Having a larger team certainly does help though.

Your original point was to win, you dont need to engineer, just build a car and test. I was merely stating that is most certainly not true. New teams should obviously just build a design and start testing, but older teams should spend time on their design.

 

University of Michigan Data Acquisition group leader here. Was on Suspension last year. We finished 4th in design last year with what was descirbed as a very "solid" car. Didn't have too many cool tricks (Western Austrailia's rear suspension is an example), but everything worked together for a fast car (16th with AutoX and Endurance in the rain).

About "engineering vs. testing", the only truly correct answer is to have a hell of a lot of both. You make a lot of changes during the testing process, and it is essential to having a winning car. Not every team has the resources to be innovative with every system on the car, but you should be able to answer the most random, obscure questions since the judges will expect you to know it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Audipwr1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">FYI: The university gives us exactly zero dollars. Everything we spend we raise. Which is quite an accomplishment if you ask me.
We share our lab space, arent allowed to use the machine shop unless its during regular hours.

Its more about determination than anything else. Having a larger team certainly does help though.

Your original point was to win, you dont need to engineer, just build a car and test. I was merely stating that is most certainly not true. New teams should obviously just build a design and start testing, but older teams should spend time on their design.

</TD></TR></TABLE>


Same here on the money, machining time and how we share our lab space to build the car. University gives us a pat on the back no cash at all, all raised by ourselves. And the engineering part is for our grade for Senior project. The Budget is more imposed by our advisors to have the real world experience of being understaffed, underfunded, and not given enough time. So we get a taste of real a real design environment. Our main problem is finding a place to run the old car, new insurance policies have screwed all of our old sights... oh well, just another challenge to over come. Think I will take some pics of the old car in a hour and share last years car with you guys,

-nate

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Audipwr1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">FYI: The university gives us exactly zero dollars. Everything we spend we raise. Which is quite an accomplishment if you ask me.</TD></TR></TABLE>

And which team is going to get more and better sponsors?

a) team with multiple wins?

b) team who has just started, has limited faculty (if any) involvement, etc.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Your original point was to win, you dont need to engineer, just build a car and test. I was merely stating that is most certainly not true. New teams should obviously just build a design and start testing, but older teams should spend time on their design.</TD></TR></TABLE>

As I recall, the rules state that you should build a *NEW* car every year. Some would say that means not sharing the same chassis as the last decade or wherever you are.

Although, that philosophy itself is more along the lines of what I'm talking about. Don't waste time re-engineering everything every year. Tweak some major parts, and then again.... get it built and start testing again.

 

well it seems whatever we do works.