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Formula SAE® News Notes February, 1999 From the editor Rules questions Earl's performance products Design judge team Hotel accommodations Steve's corner Important info from the cost team From the Editor Hey FSAE™ gear heads, faculty advisors, and sponsors, check out the new articles in this issue! Included are valuable tips from the Design Team via Carroll Smith and new feature called Steve’s Corner. Don’t forget to send in your FSAE™ registration and payment including the $250.00 late fee! For those of you who haven’t already registered, remember the last day to register for Formula SAE® is February 15, 1999. Rules Questions Please remember that all rules questions must be in writing. Direct your questions to: katklauz@aol.com February 15, 1999 – Late Vehicle Registration. Submit your registration form, statement of compliance, and payment to :
The deadline for registration has past. All teams registering now must pay an additional $250.00 late fee! No exceptions! Registrations will not be accepted after February 15, 1999. March 1, 1999 – Safety Structure Equivalency Form. Please submit to Creative Consulting Services. You can either mail or fax the form and any supporting data to:
April 1, 1999 – Cost Report. Please send to:
Teams who submit late reports will be assessed a penalty of –25 points per day with a maximum penalty of –375 points. Teams who choose not to do a cost report will be penalized –400 points. April 20, 1999 – Pre-event Design Reviews. Mail*, fax or email* to:
Must reach sae by 4/20/99. *Mail and email are preferred. Teams that do not submit a pre-event design review will not compete in the design event, and will receive zero points for design! Teams that submit a review,but are deemed to be unsatisfactory, will also not compete in the design event, but will receive between 5 and 20 pts. for their efforts. Car numbers 1-10 are reserved for the top finishers of last year’s competition. Requests for car numbers will be filled on a "first come, first serve basis." Please send a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice for car numbers. No car numbers will be reserved until the registration form and payment have been received by SAE, so hurry and get your checks in the mail today! Numbers & Teams Registered
Teams who do not submit a pre-event design review will not compete in the design event, and will receive zero points for design! Teams that submit a review, but are deemed to be unsatisfactory, will also not compete in the design event, but will receive between 5 and 20 pts. for their efforts. Earl’s Performance Products Earl’s Performance Products, the world wide leader in high performance automotive plumbing, is pleased to announce their product support program for the Formula SAE® Competition. Student chapters are able to purchase any of Earl’s extensive line of products at a discount of 50% from list price. Every Indianapolis 500 winner since 1973 has used plumbing from Earls as have the vast majority of professional racing teams in NASCAR, CART, NHRA and Formula One. Contact Kevin Cochran: Earl’s Performance Products, 189 West Victoria, Long Beach, CA 90805. Design Judge Team Since the SAE student Race Cars are just that – racing cars – in addition to engineers from DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and General Motors we include a number of engineers actively working in professional racing. Our goal is for each of the design judging teams to include engineers from both industry and racing that have current valid experience in chassis/suspension and engine/powertrain. These judges basically work independently. This year, for the first time, the design competition will start with the submission of design briefs. Those teams that do not submit a design brief will not be judged for design. Teams will be pre-assigned to judging lines so that each judging team will see a representative cross section of cars. The procedure begins with a five minute presentation by the team. This presentation should be concise, however it should include the following:
This is a tall order for a five minute presentation. We would have no objection to separate efforts for chassis/suspension and engine/powertrain. Story boards, notebooks etc. are a definite plus. A brief written description of the project could be left with the judges. Again, this year, we are requiring color photos of the car. Thirty minutes is an inadequate period of time to evaluate the design of a car. Therefor, it is essential that knowledgeable members of the team accompany the judges as they inspect the car. Questions should be answered completely but concisely. If the team feels that the judges have overlooked some important feature of the car, it should be brought to their attention. When the judges have completed their inspection of each car, they huddle, compare notes and assign numerical scores to the car. At the end of the day, each team normalizes their scores, assigns numerical placing to the cars that passed through their lines and selects some number of cars to advance to the semi finals. One or more roving judges, who do not take part in the initial scoring, make certain that no deserving cars are left out of the semi finals. At this point normalized scores are assigned to each of the cars that are not selected as semi finalists. A reduced number of judges evaluate the semi finalists and select the final five or six cars. At this point, the level of the competition is so high that we inevitably wind up taking points away for less than optimum features rather than awarding points for excellence. Again normalized scores are assigned to the cars not selected as finalists. The proof of the validity of the design lies in performance. For this reason final design judging takes place after the dynamic competition, usually on Sunday morning, before the awards banquet. Because driving skill, preparation and luck are involved in performance, we evaluate how well the car works, rather than how well it scores in the dynamic events. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, and vehicle dynamics is not an exact science. We the judges do not have to agree with the design features or even the design philosophy of the cars. What is essential, is that the teams have valid engineering reasons for their design decisions and be prepared to defend them. We see the same less than optimum features each year (although, thankfully, not usually form the same teams). They include:
Total belief in the validity of finite element analysis, FEA, should always be backed up with some form of physical testing. Theoretical knowledge and the ability to calculate stresses are absolute necessities in the engineering world. So is a "feel" for the rightness of structures and mechanisms. The theory is very well taught in our universities, however the feel seldom is, neither is it inborn. It can only be learned by actually making and developing complex devices – like student race cars. The annual SAE Collegiate Design Competitions ensure that several hundred young engineers will enter industry having been part of a team that has conceptualized, designed, constructed and developed a racing car, a load bearing aircraft or a walking machine. These people will have necessarily learned how to work as a member of a team; that, in order to be successful, any team requires a strong leader; that time and money constraints are immutable; that practicality takes precedence over elegance (and even purity) or design and that the interfaces between the operator and the machine are critical to the success of the project. This experience and the knowledge gained through it will serve both the graduates and the industry well. Hotel Accommodations We have blocked rooms at the following local hotels to aid your team in getting accommodations. Reservations are on a first come first serve basis, so call early to ensure that you can get rooms at the hotel of your choice. Important: Tell the reservations clerk that you are with Formula SAE® and rooms have been blocked for your use. The cut-off date for each hotel is April 28, 1999. All reservations must be guaranteed for late arrival by a first nights room deposit or guaranteed to a major credit card. Reminder: Most of the hotels will waive the state tax if your team provides a copy of the school’s tax exemption certificate. Some hotels have more stringent requirements than others, so be sure to ask the reservations clerk exactly what you will need to take advantage of this tax savings.
The above hotels are within a one-mile radius of the Pontiac Silverdome. If you have any questions or concerns, please call Stacey Bush at 724/772-8533 or email stacey@sae.org.***If you need to reserve a room after May 19th, please contact Stacey Bush at SAE 724/772-8533 to ensure you get the FSAE discount. Steve’s Corner Welcome to the first installment of my column. The staff at SAE Educational Relations has asked me to write for the newsletter. I intend to cover a variety of aspects of Formula SAE®, but first, a little about myself. Many of you may recognize me as the Design Event photographer. I have been documenting all of the cars for the organizers since 1996. Before that, I attended every Formula SAE® event since 1987. My involvement began my freshman year at Georgia Tech. After reading an article in the school newspaper about a new project on campus to build a racecar, I joined. That was the rookie year for Georgia Tech. After working on body and composites projects for several years, I designed and built the chassis for the car that placed 2nd in 1990 and was team manager for my last two years. My last year as a competitor was 1991, the first year that an auto company instead of a school hosted the event. The Formula SAE® of today is quite different from the event of 1987. What has changed between then and now? The quality of the competing cars has improved dramatically, of course, but the biggest change is the amount of recognition by the automotive industry. Formula SAE® is a fantastic introduction to the engineering field. Even if a competitor is never again involved with building or selling cars, the experience gained from the project is invaluable. I am employed as a consulting engineer for the electric utility industry to develop predictive maintenance programs. I still draw heavily on my experience with Formula SAE®. This column will be a means of communication to everyone involved with Formula SAE®. I will be writing about visits to the competing schools, involvement of teams outside of the May event, and anything else appropriate. I welcome your feedback and suggestions. Send your feedback or suggestions to Steve via email: sayovitz@mindspring.com.Important Info from the Cost Team This year, the following exchange rates are the only rates to be used in your cost report. This will standardize the exchange rate for all reports and eliminate teams from using the lowest exchange rate of the year. Daily 12 noon buying rates in New York, certified by the New York Federal Reserve Bank for customs purposes. Federal Reserve Bank of New York
* Buying rates are quoted in foreign currency unit per U.S. dollar unless denoted by an "+". Rates denoted by a "+" are quoted in U.S. dollar per foreign currency unit. The noon buying rates in New York for cable transfers payable in foreign currencies are certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for customs purposes, as required by Section 522 of the amended Tariff Act of 1930. The information is based on data collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from a sample of market participants and is intended only for informational purposes. The data were obtained from sources believed to be reliable but this bank does not guarantee their accuracy, completeness or correctness. The introduction of the new European currency, the euro, on January 1, 1999 will result in two changes to the posting of certified rates by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: 1) Effective January 4, 1999, the FRBNY will commence posting a dollar-euro exchange
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