[MVRC] Mantium Virtual Racecar Challenge 2016

[Ft5fTL]

As i said i think it could be a good showcase for the competition. But the current system is more reliable and probably more accurate then importing cars to a sim and let ai decide what to do. I can certainly make a test race if some competitors send me the CD*A , front and rear Cl*A numbers (with and without rear wing for diffuser).

[Alonso Fan]

How about we don't consider Ai t all. How about we run hotlaps for everyone and the fastest time wins? For the actual runs we won't have to import new geometry all the time. Import a basic generic geometry and change the colour of the car based on team. Then once each season we could import all cars for a showcase to pit on the website (not a real championship race perhaps)

[CAEdevice]

We should also consider the random events, especially in case of a race with more cars on the track. I am not sure, but I am more attracted by a pure CFD challenge.

[Alonso Fan]

Yes. Although it would be nice to use a sim instead of a virtual stopwatch, I fear it will open another can of worms and probably prove to be more problematic and time consuming than what we have currently. I'm fine with what we have currently, but don't let that stop you having fun and putting your cars in sims. Perhaps you can make a showcase for the website, although it would probably be a false representation of the championship if we stick to what we currently have

[machin]

It might surprise you guys, but I am also of the opinion that ultimately the championship needs to move to a visual depiction of the lap times: this would help to draw in new competitors I think, and also draw in a casual viewing audience.

I originally developed Virtual Stopwatch to help me assess which modifications would make my Hillclimb racecar faster for the least amount of cost/effort, and for that purposes adding visual depiction of the lap would literally be of no benefit, and therefore it is not something I was ever interested in implementing, and as an engineer I like looking at graphs anyway!

I've been talking to Andre and we will probably be releasing more of the speed-trace graphs next year: I think I can automate the process easily enough so that it won't be too much of a hassle.

In short: Virtual Stopwatch is available whilst the championship needs it, but I am more than willing to stand aside when you have something more visually appealing.

In my opinion I think the current "Against the clock" format works much better as part of an engineering challenge than an AI affected "simultaneous race" format... But that's just my opinion.

[CAEdevice]

At the moment VirtualStopWatch is the beat sokution in my opinion.

We have to decide if the challenge is a videogame or an engineering competition. This also matters about the decisions about rulebook and open source car.

[LVDH]

Hi guys,
I am currently ultra busy with the new software version. It will be great and will have a very cool GUI. Getting it to run under Windows is an annoying issue though.

Personally I think having AI races would be the coolest thing we could do with the championship. However the additional work involved means that it will for sure not happen this season. If we are lucky we can run the last or a bonus race that way.
I understand that a pure aero challenge is what the some might want but this would simply make things more realistic. If you build the very best F1 car it does not guarantee victory in every race does it? In the long run the best car will most likely win the championship though.
But what I am now surer of what we will get is what Richard mentioned. We will have more data from his simulation tool we will show. The new plots should make the engineering hearts of you guys pump one or two extra beats a minute, right?
However, please stay relaxed, the most important things to sort out have not even started from my side. I hope next week I can more or less finish up the new software and get back to putting far too much work into MVRC. You guys will get a new more realistic CFD setup, new rules, a new intro class car (this is very big on my list) and a new twist to the championship.

[Alonso Fan]

Twist?

[rjsa]

So I've been playing catchup, and I'mm up to 3.55 L/D and 2.987 m3/s cooling.

Boy cooling is damn hard to do. Everything else evolves, interaction after interaction you gain a bunch, loose in a few but it's a positive trend. Cooling's is just stuck at 2.9 and won't bulge.

[miqi23]

So I've been playing catchup, and I'mm up to 3.55 L/D and 2.987 m3/s cooling.

Boy cooling is damn hard to do. Everything else evolves, interaction after interaction you gain a bunch, loose in a few but it's a positive trend. Cooling's is just stuck at 2.9 and won't bulge.

You should be able to easily stretch your car to an L/D of 5.5!

[rjsa]

Do tell me how you did it!

[CAEdevice]

Hi, I slightly change the topic since LDVH wrote about the intro class car.

I would like to know your opinions about what do you expect about it.

1) The intro class should have the same performances of the top class? (i.e. more like a LMP1-Light or a LMP2 car?)

2) Would you prefer a car "ready to race" (providing two/three rear wings, two/three front diffusers, optional winglets/gurneys kit) or a more editable car (roughly: everything in front of the front wheels axle and behind the rear wheels axle may be changed).

3) I will provide STEP files, that is the best exchange format (and STL for who uses Sketchup), but I also can provide Solidworks, Inventor or Creo/ProE native models with the common parts "frozen" and the wings (and a few other parts) parametrically editable. Since it would require sometime to do that, and I also want to develop my car, I would be better to know your preferences on advance.

Last point: it would be great, on order to promote the presence of "customer cars", to have a "constructors challenge" were only the first two cars for each "factory" would take points at each race.

[Ft5fTL]

LMP 2 makes more sense to me.

Besides that i have some proposal about tracks. How about using tracks from WEC calendar instead of using tracks like Monaco or Nordschleife? Since the competition switched to LMP, there is no point to have a race on Monaco.

[RicME85]

Definitely the car with interchangeable parts. I reckon that will help draw some more people in. Obviously if you wanted to you could use the base of the car and design your own parts in the free areas but if you want a base to start from to get into the challenge and learn the ropes that has to be the way to go.
Without it I think the competition will become too 'elite' and leave those with no knowledge but an interest behind.

[CAEdevice]

LMP 2 makes more sense to me.

Definitely the car with interchangeable parts. I reckon that will help draw some more people in. Obviously if you wanted to you could use the base of the car and design your own parts in the free areas but if you want a base to start from to get into the challenge and learn the ropes that has to be the way to go.
Without it I think the competition will become too 'elite' and leave those with no knowledge but an interest behind.

The decision is for LDVH (I don't like democratic stuff), but, what about a LMP2like class with 100hp less and 50kg more, no cooling or engine feeding requirements (but a free volume template in front of inlets and behind outles) frozen geometry between the axles, provided sets of winglets and wings (that could be easily rotated, replaced, combined) and (as Ric suggested) with possibility to re-design the "non frozen" volumes?

The target would be to have a LMP2like rulebook of no more than 50 words.

I would need two or three weeks to design and test it: so it would be better to define the rulebook soon.

I could also run with that car for the first race in case I hadn't enough time to complete the "topclass" one.