Not quite F1, but almost (FSAE project)

[Jersey Tom]

A lot of people do try to overdesign things, or just do "trick" little stuff for the hell of it. But I think that's just a function of being a new design engineer and having all sorts of materials and fabrication available at your disposal without much worry about real costs.

And yea.. percentage wise there aren't an awful lot of guys that go from FSAE to race. CU isn't exactly big into the auto industry.. but since the '05 team..

1 at Swift Engineering designing the new Formula Nippon car
1 at Ford Motor Company
4 at Honda R&D America
1 at Goodyear racing/vehicle dynamics
1 at a Sprint Cup team

Small percentage in automotive at all. Even smaller (3 people, of like 40+) actually involved in motorsport.

[RacingManiac]

In the last 2 years, the grads from Toronto's team have been getting decent jobs in automotive related field:

-Testing engineer for a engine benchmarking company x1
-R&D for a new start-up plug-in Hybrid company x1
-Optimum G x1
-Ricardo x1
-ArvinMeritor x1
-Motorsport Engineering Program at Cranfield in UK x2(the finished one is working with FIA-GT now.)

This is out of 10 people graduated in the last 2 years....from year to year the team size overall is around 25 people....

In the last 6 years, we have had people end up going to work for Mygale in France to do their F3 program, and people who started their own racing team(Team Autotecnica in FBMW). And that Hybrid Company is also started by FSAE Alumni....

[flynfrog]

thats true but I feel it makes teams over complicate designs. If you can get a car running a month sooner to me is worth more than a month of R&D but this is not taken into account in the judging. Racing is just as much cut and try as it is design. I have also seen cars take top 5 in design that wouldn't pass braking test. Maybe keep the design judging but have it as a multiplier of your dynamic score.

It doesn't seem like it at the time (and it didn't for me when I was involved with FSAE), but the whole competition has so little to do with racing and the racing industry. It is a design competition 1000x more than it is a racecar engineering competition. I think the current scoring system is quite appropriate. Without placing well in the static events, a team will not finish in the top ten, but a large percentage of the points are based on the "fun" dynamic events.

This satisfies the boy racer in the budding engineers but still requires them to provide a sound design.

What percentage of FSAE engineers end up in the racing industry? The answer to that question gives a good indication of what the competition is all about...

Isn't the goal of the design to be a good race car. Why not just take cad models instead of cars then you can take out that pesky fabrication.

[f1rj]

hey frnz...
we r about 2 start a F1 project in our college..bt d problem is that since we r starting it for the first time, we r confused about the starting point. can nyone please help us??

[Jersey Tom]

Start at the beginning. Define what you're trying to accomplish.

[CMSMJ1]

hey frnz...
we r about 2 start a F1 project in our college..bt d problem is that since we r starting it for the first time, we r confused about the starting point. can nyone please help us??

It would help if you used all of the letters in the words you are typing..and welcome.

[Carlos]

Organization is a starting point, here is Tuffs University's flowcharting freeware: VUE (Visual Understanding Enviornment) http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm

For the rudimentry basics of spaceframe design - 'Racing Sports Car Chassis Design by M Costin and D Phipps' is a classic. The Appendix 111 - Suspension Calculations and Appendix 1 - Chassis Stress Calculations would be valuable - There is also Chapter 1X - basically a tutorial on designing a race car. The general path is:
General specifications - Wheelbase/Track/Engine Location ect> Hub height>Suspension Type> Uprights>Roll Centers>Suspension Design/Geometry ( Drawings - front elevation of front suspension/front elevation of rear suspension - this will basically give you the suspension pickup points/ side view/then design the spaceframe tying the suspension and locating the major components. You can find a used copy of the book on the net, use Google for general ideas on design of components. Brain storm with your team and do several evolutions. There are several FSAE sites and most Universities have websites that would be a good source of knowledge. Just suggestions; everyone has a different workflow.

Good Luck.