GM

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Design Event Overview Tony Lyscio Bill Riley
FSAE Workshop 10.24.09
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• What this presentation is A general overview of
  the design event, format, judge expectations,
  etc.
• What it isnt a technical formula for a car to
  win design

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Part A Mechanics of the Design Event

• Spirit of Design Event
• Design Report
• Design Spec Sheet
• Design Preliminaries
• What to Bring
• What to Do
• Design Semi Finals

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Spirit of the Design Event Directly from the
rules (older version) The concept of the
Design Event is to evaluate the engineering
effort that went into the design of the car and
how the engineering meets the intent of the
market. The car that illustrates the best use of
engineering to meet the design goals and the best
understanding of the design by team members will
win the Design event.

• Key Items
• Engineering Effort
• Design Goals
• Understanding of the Design by team members

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Design Report Submissions

• 4 pages text, 3 pages drawings, 1 optional use
  page
• Content very similar to info for design
  preliminaries (plan, goals)
• Highlight types of analysis, testing (both
  performed and planned)
• Discuss feature components and approaches
• Uses
• Staging of teams for design event slots
• Judges can get an early look at cars, begin
  judging process
• This is effectively your teams resume
• Needs to be in ON TIME!

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Design Spec Sheet Submissions

• Complementary to Design Report, a required
  submission
• Complete all areas, its OK to give a range for
  some specs
• Be as accurate as possible
• Uses
• Judges can catch a glimpse of vehicle synthesis
• Supports design report by adding details
• Provides cheat sheet to prepare for design event

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Design Event What to bring

• What to bring to your design time slot
• the Team (prepped, with a positive attitude)
• the Car (weighed, shined up and ready to race)
• Demo parts (examples, tested samples)
• Data, Data, Data (simple easy to read binders)
• Story Boards (simple, must be fast to set-up)
• the Passion you put into your car

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Design Event What to do

• Prelims -start with 2-3 minute presentation
  giving vehicle overview
• Overall design philosophy
• Starting point (rules, points, tires, event
  points, history)
• General performance goals (weight, CG, power,
  etc)
• Were your goals accomplished?
• Quick, broad and direct (all judges listening
  together)
• Team members pair off with judges (only 4-5 team
  members)
• Give Details, Data, Plots.
• Point out features, do not require judges to only
  observe and ask
• Judges only have 20 (50? For 2010) minutes with
  you, use all of it!

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Design Event Overview Semis

• Semis - Your opportunity to dazzle the judges
• Two members with the car at a time, ready to tag
  team others in
• Be prepared, whos covering what?
• More time one on one with specific judges
• Highlight system and component features
• More time for showing data, going through
  development results (know ALL of the whys)
• Aside from specifics highlight design options,
  compromises, and decisions

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Part B Design Criteria and Considerations

• General Design Process
• Things to consider during all phases of project
• Design trends
• Q A Session

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General Design Process

• Starting point??? -Rules, Tires, Scores, Lessons
  Learned
• On a per event basis, what are your goals?
• What performance specs will meet those goals?
• Break car into systems and work down
• Big picture overrides all else
• Have complete vehicle lay-out (mass CG of every
  bit)
• Synthesis- every component, its interactions
• Weight distribution and CG are more than a spec
• Iterate through systems integration issues

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Things to Ask Throughout all Phases of Project

• Does the car look like it was designed with a
  systems focus?
• What parts look like after thoughts? Were they?
• Is packaging tidy and look planned?
• Are items such as wiring exposed or neatly routed
  in looms?
• Are components adequately protected from
  environment
• brake lines on the front or rear surface of
  A-arms?
• wires crossing over hard sharp edges?
• Is the car reasonable to maintain and adjust?
• Is the car on track to mass, CG and packaging
  expectations? Why?
• Tuning? Can discrete adjustments be made?

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Things to Consider

• K.I.S.S. vs. High Tech
• Tire Data FSAE Tire Test Consortium
• Data Acquisition engineering and driver tool
• Mass vs. Stiffness - A balancing act
• Fuel? E85, or fossil fuel
• Itty bitty parts dampers, CV joints
• Modeling and analysis vs. physical testing

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Design Complexity
Both do the same job What are the performance
vs. cost, effort, and complexity trade-offs?
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Aerodynamics
You must consider - time and expense to design
and build - development time - mass effects -
actual competition benefits (stopwatch, and
judges)
vs.
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Composites

• You must consider
• Time and expense to design and build vs. REAL
  benefits
• Analysis capability, can you predict your
  performance?
• Development time
• Cost mass effects
• Composites are very process sensitive, allow time
  to build it twice
• When problems are found in tech, what is plan B?

SAE Paper 2002-01-3300
SAE Paper 2006-01-3616
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Qualitative Design Rules To Keep in Mind

• Good design ? If it looks right it usually is
  right
• Corollary ? If it looks wrong it almost always
  is wrong
• Good load paths are your friend
• Triangles good load paths, e.g. triangles
  (really tetrahedrons) are your friend
• The part not on the car has zero mass, no cost
  and cant fail
• The reward in performance must outweigh the
  risk and penalty of any component
• Systems Engineering ? Know it, Love it, Live it
• Engines ? Spark it right, always. Its the
  biggest knob you have for engine performance.
• Mass ? Mass begets mass. There is no minimum
  weight. Make it light. But dont break.

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Packaging Examples
Not clean, Not well thought out, and asking for
trouble!
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Packaging Examples
Well thought out, Well integrated, and Few
surprises.
This is where the Upfront work pays off!!
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Q A Good Resources SAE Website ? Design Area
www.sae.org FSAE Forums ? Forums FAQ
http//www.formulasae.org SAE Papers ? Many good
reports have been written over the years Carroll
Smith Books ? Practical Approach to good
fundamentals Tire Test Consortium ? Tire Data
www.millikenresearch.com/fsaettc.html
anthony.lyscio_at_gm.com william.b.riley_at_gm.com