Formula SAE (student formula)

To us, actual services like manufacturing or supplies are so much better than cash. Otherwise we'd still have to go look for places to help build our stuff
 
Pat's Corner is the bomb. I've been reading all the old articles and he's got some really useful stuff there.

Also, I'm totally fucked for the design review. Thank god my part isn't really that crucial in that it doesn't affect any other systems, because it still hasn't arrived from the States. On the upside, this does mean that I'm learning how to run FEA in Abaqus which I otherwise wouldn't learn until the end of next year.
 
Local sponsorship is a must. Also don't always expect money from sponsors, but whatever service they can offer is really helpful. For example there's a local company here that lets us use their equipment (lathes, mills, painting facilities, etc.) during their evening shift. That's been extremely helpful as it allows us to keep working when the shop at school closes. Another company did our brake rotors, and another supplied us with our fasteners. These are all little things, but they add up and are extremely helpful in the big scheme of things.

Of course I didn't only meant monetary things but a manufacturing place or a company who has a lorry which can be used for the events etc.
I wanted to make clear that you can't rely on the university because they won't help you that much.
 
Exactly. Where the hell did they manage to pull such a good looking chassis engineer :lol:
 
I don't understand the decission either. From what I've discovered it's nothing porn related just those bikini pics. And from that picture on Jalopnik you don't even see that this is on university property.
 
I think the car is considered university property. And yeah what a shit thing to do, suspending the whole team...all that hard work all year and you don't even get to go to comp. Those people who weren't even involved in the shoot (and I can't even see anything really wrong with it) would be pissed off. Better make sure that the photos we have of scantily clad grid girls at promo events posing with our car never get out.
 
The 2011 PSU car is 30lbs lighter oO!!!!!!! (According to their Facebook page)
 
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There are 2 weeks left until the big one. Formula SAE at Michigan International Speeday. Who's going?
 
Wish my school had FSAE. We did manage to get UVM to start a Formula Hybrid team. It's like FSAE, but engine size is limited to 250cc and you have to pair it with an electric motor. In one of the challenges, we are given an amount of fuel and basically which ever team gets the furthest, fastest wins. So fuel efficiency is crucial, but speed is too.

Its pretty cool, the technology is exciting. But these damn cars are so complicated that they barely ever run. I'm not an electrical kind of guy, and it always seems like some system is malfunctioning. I definitely wish we had a FSAE team, I'm more into the competitive driving aspect and there's no arguing that FSAE is better for that.

Anyone else have a F Hybrid team at their school?
 
We don't have one. It's relatively new and the only Canadian team I know of is McGill. However the concept of it is really cool and I'd be interested to join that if our school had it.
 
We have a full electric team at our uni, but no hybrid. Funnily enough I don't think they actually have any electrical engineers on their team, but the boys have done a pretty fantastic job of knocking out a couple of really cool electric cars (the first one they did, a retrofit of our 2004 petrol car, was the world's first FSAE electric car, and so the electric side of the competition developed from that).

On a completely unrelated note, I went into the shop today and was talking to the engine head, and two guys stuck their heads out of the office wondering who the heck had walked in because you rarely hear a female voice in that building, then realised it was just me. :lol:
 
A question, how small is the smallest team you've ever seen? At the moment, we're 6 people. But we're still in the early, early stages.
 
6 people working isn't bad. Start off small so you don't have to worry about managing a large team.
 
Another thing you'll notice is that when you have a large team, it'll still be a handful of people that will do most of the work. 6 people that are willing to put in the required effort is better than managing 20 people of which only half want to do work.
 
Very true. We usually start the year with 40 or 50 people showing up to meetings. We've just entered the manufacturing phase and I think there were 10 or so at the workshop for the meeting (which was cancelled, doh!) last night. I think it probably happens to all but the most well organised teams, that you start out with heaps of people and end up with a core of not more than 10 people doing all the main work.

Having said that I don't necessarily consider myself one of the core - our uni is split into two campuses that are 25km apart, and I'm still at the campus which doesn't have the team office on it, so any involvement for me means driving an hour or taking two hours on public transport, which I can't do very often because of class or work. That gives us big issues with third years getting to the FSAE campus and having not been involved in the project before, so this year I'm heading up a team of first and second years, mainly doing conceptual design and theoretical stuff so they're not completely green when they get to third year.
 
Formula Student Germany said:
Ergonomics judging FSG 2011
Category: Competition

By: Steve Fox
Attention all FSG student competitors:

The Chief Engineering Design Judges would like to make the following announcement:
In addition to checking all cars for proper ergonomic fit this year using a 95th percentile male Design Judge, we have a little surprise for you. For the first time ever at FSG, we might be using a 5th percentile female Engineering Design Judge to check your cars for proper ergonomics as well.

Have you guys/ girls seen this already? What do you think?
 
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