David S. Wallens said:and I have a feeling you’ll see more FSAE content from us in the future. :)
I know that just about every year I was on the team there was talk of a Florida shootout. Get all the Florida teams together and have a weekend playing cars.
It always fell through due to a lack of a sponsor...
David S. Wallens said:The FSAE car that I saw was Georgia Tech’s at an Atlanta autocross. This had to be 1992 or so. If I had known that FSAE was an option, perhaps I would have gone to a different school....
FSAE didn't exist yet back when I was in college. Had it been there, I'd have probably been tossed out of college due to ignoring all other classes.
I volunteered for the FSAE West event back when they ran it at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA. What I remember was seeing an awful lot of driving where it appeared that it was the first time the driver had ever been in the car - or worse, any sports car. Many (most?) of the cars were capable of far better results had they done testing and given the driver time to acclimate to it. Wings and carbon fiber don't mean much when the driver brakes waaaay too early, or is so unfamiliar with the very fast steering, that the car is in a constant PIO down the straights.
I instead became an EE, then software engineer, then Field Support, with zero regrets, and did car stuff on the side, as a fun and enjoyable hobby, one not threatened by management whims and endless crisis deadlines. The automotive employment world (or worse, motorsports) was way too unstable and cutthroat for me.
OK Kiddies, listen up. Prior to Formula SAE and Baja there was a competition known as the Recreational-Ecological-Vehicle . It was for amphibious two passenger (or more) vehicles. It ran for three years from 1973-1975. Most of the vehicles the first couple of years were modified commercially available units, but by 1975 purpose built vehicles were in vogue. In my senior year (1975/76) I was a member of a team that scratch built a 4WD, skid steer vehicle that could transport four people across muskeg and open water while towing a floating toboggan , full of supplies, including 8 cases of beer. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot of neat stuff designing and building it. Unfortunately, the competition wasn't run that spring, instead it changed to the Baja style vehicles. Someplace in the basement, I have a complete set of drawings I drew so our sponsor could put the thing into production. He never did due to high start up costs. Notice I said "drawings"....no computers with CAD in 1975, it was all done on a drafting board.....Yes, I'm that old!
kb58 said:I volunteered for the FSAE West event back when they ran it at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA. What I remember was seeing an awful lot of driving where it appeared that it was the first time the driver had ever been in the car - or worse, any sports car. Many (most?) of the cars were capable of far better results had they done testing and given the driver time to acclimate to it. Wings and carbon fiber don't mean much when the driver brakes waaaay too early, or is so unfamiliar with the very fast steering, that the car is in a constant PIO down the straights.
Yeah. That's normal, unfortunately. A lot of teams first run their cars the week before competition. They often have the prior year car to play with and train drivers, but getting the car running the very first time one week beforehand means you don't get time to setup suspension, aero, or any of that.
Because of this, West/Lincoln/Whichever it is now is usually the better option. Not all the time though.
In reply to Mr_Asa :
Testing is so key. The best GMI did (while I was there) was when we ran an old car because our new one wasn't going to be done (Baja cars could run for 2 years) we had done a lot of testing on that car, it wasn't the fastest but it ran all day and we ended up 5th overall. There were a lot of "nicer" cars broken on the side of the track.
I know it's routine to put things off in college, studying for exams the entire night beforehand, but for FSAE it's different. All teams have to do is to look at prior videos and see if a better driver would have been a prime benefit. Unfortunately, it's easier to come up with new and wonderful suspension and downforce methods, only to once again find it doesn't matter due to driver inexperience. I remember someone bringing a bone-stock rental car to an autocross, and the driver being the pro that he was, produced a very impressive time. Same thing at FSAE, that watching the cars on-course, it was clear who had prior experience and/or sufficient practice time. I realize this rant is pointless because, well, kids be kids, and pulling all nighters to prep the car for competition that morning will continue.
In reply to NY Nick :
Completely.
Something like 50% of all the cars in the field DNF the endurance event and that's only 22km.
In reply to NY Nick :
Paris can tell us more about it, but I have seen our area FSAE teams at our local autocrosses–usually Daytona.
kb58 said:I know it's routine to put things off in college, studying for exams the entire night beforehand, but for FSAE it's different. All teams have to do is to look at prior videos and see if a better driver would have been a prime benefit. Unfortunately, it's easier to come up with new and wonderful suspension and downforce methods, only to once again find it doesn't matter due to driver inexperience. I remember someone bringing a bone-stock rental car to an autocross, and the driver being the pro that he was, produced a very impressive time. Same thing at FSAE, that watching the cars on-course, it was clear who had prior experience and/or sufficient practice time. I realize this rant is pointless because, well, kids be kids, and pulling all nighters to prep the car for competition that morning will continue.
Your are 1000% right. As someone who just graduated from my masters program in May, all nighters made up alot of my time in FSAE. Testing is a massive thing that teams aim to do between competitions but sometimes there are alot of factors in play and a big one is resources/space.
Some teams may have amazing ideas but lack funds, in-house equipment or members to bring them to life. Another big thing can just be leadership/team size.
Something alot of teams do to work around these issues is cannibalize cars. If resources are limited– something can't be machined in time, a part that worked in theory doesn't work in real life, or a part breaks– teams will take parts off the pervious years cars and put them on their current car. If you go through most teams shops you will probably find parts from cars years prior to the current built.
No team really likes doing this because a big goal is having two running cars, one for testing and one for perfecting, but sometimes it can't be helped.
Driver selection is also a massive part of teams process. They look at not just prior experience, but also work done within the team. A majority of teams want drivers that know how to drive the car but also understand the car so that its easier to figure out whats off and how to fix it.
Some teams also dont care as much about the actual driving events. They are focused on the design portion. Thats usually driven by the faculty and the school itself, though.
In those cases they take the view that it is an engineering competition, not a driving competition.
kb58 said:I know it's routine to put things off in college, studying for exams the entire night beforehand, but for FSAE it's different. All teams have to do is to look at prior videos and see if a better driver would have been a prime benefit. Unfortunately, it's easier to come up with new and wonderful suspension and downforce methods, only to once again find it doesn't matter due to driver inexperience. I remember someone bringing a bone-stock rental car to an autocross, and the driver being the pro that he was, produced a very impressive time. Same thing at FSAE, that watching the cars on-course, it was clear who had prior experience and/or sufficient practice time. I realize this rant is pointless because, well, kids be kids, and pulling all nighters to prep the car for competition that morning will continue.
That's all working under the assumption that a better driver is available. With smaller teams/schools you've kind of got what you've got, and unless you commit to the two (or more) year build cycle there's usually not much time for driver training along the way. And even so that would require having a whole running car while building a new car, which for a lot of teams isn't really feasible.
If you look at the scoring breakdown it's basically 40% design/business, 40% performance, and 20% endurance, of which the scoring is essentially 50% completing the event and 50% performance (assuming you finish). So a terribly engineered car driven by pro drivers could pretty easily be outscored by an amazing car driven by idiots. And for better or worse, at the end of the day it's an engineering competition not a driving competition.
Mr_Asa said:In reply to RacetruckRon :
There was a 2-3 year time frame where USF used the same chassis to compete in both Baja and FSAE. Longer A-arms and different shocks and springs
I have some regrets not doing FSAE when I was in USF, went to a few meetings, but being a freshman at the time, and I kind of lost interest in automotive stuff around the same time and explorer other stuff in college that I just couldn't commit to it.
Just thinking about this some more. If the 15-year-old version of me knew about FSAE, yeah, pretty good chance I would have gone to a different school.
In reply to aw614 :
It happens, I mean I joined FSAE when I was a freshman but was so overwhelmed at the time that I ended up not going back until my Senior year. If you want to keep up with the current USF team they are super active on social media and love talking with alumni.
My HS sophomore daughter is a huge F1 fan and (she says) future aero or mechanical engineer. When we visited Columbia this summer, I pointed out the FSAE team they have. She's in a robotics club now.
Mr_Asa said:Some teams also dont care as much about the actual driving events. They are focused on the design portion. Thats usually driven by the faculty and the school itself, though.
In those cases they take the view that it is an engineering competition, not a driving competition.
Very true and thats something that has been an issue in recent years.
Static events of competition are Design judging, Business Presentation, and Cost report, with Design judging being the number 1 thing teams aim to do well in, not only because its worth 150 points alone, but it gives teams ideas and guidance on things to improve for the next year. Dynamic events –Skidpad, Autocross, Endurance and Acceleration– are also important, endurance being worth the most, but if your car is poorly designed the chances of doing well in those aren't that promising.
Don't get me wrong scoring for everything isn't perfect, but over the past few years SAE has been slowly implementing changes to kinda get that engineering mindset back on the right track, which I support 100%.
mfennell said:My HS sophomore daughter is a huge F1 fan and (she says) future aero or mechanical engineer. When we visited Columbia this summer, I pointed out the FSAE team they have. She's in a robotics club now.
Robotics are great! I started my HS robotics club when I was a Junior and was majoring in Mechanically engineering with an interest in robotics when I first started college. Is she still thinking of doing Mechanical? There are lots of roads and industries she can take if she really likes robotics. And who knows, maybe FSAE will grow on her haha, it did for me.
Paris Van Gorder said:I started my HS robotics club when I was a Junior and was majoring in Mechanically engineering with an interest in robotics when I first started college. Is she still doing planning to do Mechanical? There are lots of roads and industries she can take if she really likes robotics. And who knows, maybe FSAE will grow on her haha, it did for me.
Her current plan is aeronautical but her reasoning is ... suspect. :). She read somewhere that they are the most highly paid engineers. I don't think that's true TBH.
She would make an excellent engineer IMHO because she's not just good at math/engineering. She paints and draws, loves to read, and has placed highly in writing competitions (top 10 nationally once).
OTOH, she shows limited interest in the internals of the completely disassembled motorcycles that inhabit the garage, which would have transfixed little mfennell back in the day. I just assume mechanical engineering types the people who took stuff apart as a kid.
My local PCA club supports the FSAE program at a nearby college that has had some success in the past, and the team shows up a few times a year to our autocrosses. kb58 is right, when they drive the car on the Auto-X course, they are usually unbelievably slow. Like 20 seconds slower than I go in my stock Cayman, and the FSAE car should easily take top time. Most of us are perplexed that a driver could be that slow, but the rest of the team are usually really excited, jumping up and down and pumping their fists in the air like they just won a championship. I guess they are just very happy that the car is running and nothing fell off!
One time I asked one of the kids how they select the driver, and she told me that it came down to who had the most experience. The driver in question was far quicker than any other team member from what she said. I had been thinking that maybe he had just started driving, and he had never drivin the car before! My guess was that there was no official competition involving performance, so driving performance simply wasn't something for the team to consider.
I think part of it is that most kids simply aren't very interested in driving, so they haven't ever thought about driving quickly. The last autocross of the year was two weekends ago, and a large number of the team showed up to watch and help out in running the autocross. They didn't bring the FSAE car, so they were working the course and watching. A couple of the members thought it was so cool, they wanted to run their own cars. (I helped one of the kids tech his Mazda 5, and he was surprised that I made him take out all the junk from inside the car 
.) Both drivers (Mazda 5 and 2010-ish Corolla) were super slow, it looked as if they were just tooling around the cones at parking lot speeds, yet they and their team members were really excited after each run. It was great to see them excited like that, and I got the impression that it wasn't about going quickly, it was about being out there and doing something that they had never really considered doing before. As far as I'm concerned, good for them!
The FSAE cars are really cool! Very, very tiny, but obviously well and cleverly engineered. I'm really proud that my PCA club helps the program out.
mfennell said:Paris Van Gorder said:I started my HS robotics club when I was a Junior and was majoring in Mechanically engineering with an interest in robotics when I first started college. Is she still doing planning to do Mechanical? There are lots of roads and industries she can take if she really likes robotics. And who knows, maybe FSAE will grow on her haha, it did for me.
Her current plan is aeronautical but her reasoning is ... suspect. :). She read somewhere that they are the most highly paid engineers. I don't think that's true TBH.
She would make an excellent engineer IMHO because she's not just good at math/engineering. She paints and draws, loves to read, and has placed highly in writing competitions (top 10 nationally once).
OTOH, she shows limited interest in the internals of the completely disassembled motorcycles that inhabit the garage, which would have transfixed little mfennell back in the day. I just assume mechanical engineering types the people who took stuff apart as a kid.
I have a few friends who graduated with Aerospace degrees, one of them works at NASA and another works at Gulf Stream. Aerospace Engineering is a very high paying industry the big thing is that you can't just get the degree and get the high pay right away. You need to be very very active in related clubs, have internships etc. Alot of companies are very picky about fresh graduates and their backgrounds.
For mechanical engineering it can be a mix of things but many of my friends who graduated with ME degrees were FSAE members and currently work in motorsports, or the automotive industry. But then again almost all of them had a focus in high-performance vehicles (a track my old university offers). But alot of my old members were also Aerospace engineers who used FSAE to grow their design work and project management.
There is something for everyone and I wish her the best of luck!
RacerBoy75 said:My local PCA club supports the FSAE program at a nearby college that has had some success in the past, and the team shows up a few times a year to our autocrosses. kb58 is right, when they drive the car on the Auto-X course, they are usually unbelievably slow. Like 20 seconds slower than I go in my stock Cayman, and the FSAE car should easily take top time. Most of us are perplexed that a driver could be that slow, but the rest of the team are usually really excited, jumping up and down and pumping their fists in the air like they just won a championship. I guess they are just very happy that the car is running and nothing fell off!
One time I asked one of the kids how they select the driver, and she told me that it came down to who had the most experience. The driver in question was far quicker than any other team member from what she said. I had been thinking that maybe he had just started driving, and he had never drivin the car before! My guess was that there was no official competition involving performance, so driving performance simply wasn't something for the team to consider.
I think part of it is that most kids simply aren't very interested in driving, so they haven't ever thought about driving quickly. The last autocross of the year was two weekends ago, and a large number of the team showed up to watch and help out in running the autocross. They didn't bring the FSAE car, so they were working the course and watching. A couple of the members thought it was so cool, they wanted to run their own cars. (I helped one of the kids tech his Mazda 5, and he was surprised that I made him take out all the junk from inside the car
The FSAE cars are really cool! Very, very tiny, but obviously well and cleverly engineered. I'm really proud that my PCA club helps the program out.
First off, thank you so much for giving the students support! It always means so much for teams to get community support.
In terms of driving, FSAE cars are actually limited with their engines. The engine used to power the vehicle must have a total combined displacement less than or equal to 710 cc per cycle. So most teams run motorcycle engines to meet that requirement as well as to save on weight and to make it easier to fit everything in the back of the car. Hence why they aren't super speedy.
Paris Van Gorder said:Here is a little flashback of when I was VP of the Embry Riddle Team. I have so much love for this program and for my old team.
As an Embry-Riddle alum of the 1996 variety, I recall there was a stillborn attempt at the end of that year to get a team together for 97. They managed to get a body buck cut and a lot of design, but no completed car. Of the students who were pushing the team start up, 3 more wound up working in motorsport. It was about that time I took a job in professional motorsport and moved from DAB to California. All five of us wound up working in the CART series at the same time on different teams. At least two of us are still working in motorsport, and one is making sure some of those rockets at the Cape get off the ground safely.
When i ran baja sae a long time ago, we revamped the team pretty extensively. We took a massive amount of weight out of the car, clean sheet design, and moved up from 80-something the previous year to 22nd.
In addition to the massive improvements to the car, i was pretty strict on driver selection and ran tryouts three saturdays in a row. Everyone that wanted to drive got 5 laps in the car, top times were our driver team. We had a few hurt feelings and suggestions that time fabricating should play a part, but i maintained it was a race team. They were welcome to drive the car all they wanted on practice/shakedown weekends, but at competition we were there to race. Numbers took precedence.
I was heavily involved in Formula SAE while in school.....back in the late eighties.... It started my 35 year Automotive Engineering career with Ford and now Scout Motors. I'm also now a Industry Advisor for a local school
I also met my future wife on that Formula SAE team... still married and have two sons that became engineers too.....
yeah, Formula SAE is a great program.
I did Baja. Was a good time and I learned a lot. I no longer work as an engineer but really valued that time.
starting to take my daughter to engineering schools now. She's interested after doing first robotics.
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