by "SVTyler" (svtyler)
Published 08/09/2017 at 09:31
by "SVTyler" (svtyler)
Published 08/09/2017 at 09:31
No Tags
STARS: 3
This year I’m a Team Lead on Purdue’s Formula SAE team and before 9:30am today I’ve composed and sent seven emails, made four phone calls, filled out two separate administrative request forms, resent an email for a building manager who judging by his refusal to answer my emails for two months now may be dead, started another email draft for a different building manager who replies with the speed of a turtle on heroin, spent about a half-hour on our school’s crappily-designed website trying to find those phone numbers and email addresses to begin with, and spent another ten minutes being passed from secretary to secretary trying to find out the name of a building manager (I never did). On the plus side I’m up early enough to hit up this sweet sandwich place for lunch, so I got that going for me, which is nice.
Bandit, if you’re reading this, I don’t blame you or Michael one damn bit for not wanting to be team lead. Christ.
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
08/09/2017 at 09:37, STARS: 1
fun!
"MrDakka" (mrdakka)
08/09/2017 at 09:41, STARS: 2
Nah that’s management; which is why I never want to become a manager of anything.
"Bandit" (2bandit)
08/09/2017 at 09:46, STARS: 2
lol #BajaLyfe
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 09:49, STARS: 0
Same, I don’t like dealing with people, I like building and designing things. What’s funny though is all the professional engineers I know want to be managers because apparently it’s an easier job. More power to them I guess.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 09:51, STARS: 0
It actually is 98% of the time when you’re doing actual engineering and manufacturing work, this kind of behind-the-scenes stuff just sneaks in every now and again to remind you why didn’t get a management or HR degree lol.
"SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie" (sidewaysondirt)
08/09/2017 at 09:52, STARS: 0
Weird. I was just talking to a Purdue FSAE person yesterday on an MR2 group on FB.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 09:56, STARS: 1
DON’T YOU MOCK ME IN MY HOUR OF NEED. I HAD TO TALK TO PEOPLE TODAY AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I DON’T LIKE THAT
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 09:57, STARS: 0
I didn’t know anyone on our team had an MR2, you remember his name by chance?
"WhaleTailWant" (whaletailwant)
08/09/2017 at 09:58, STARS: 1
Boiler-Up
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 10:09, STARS: 0
Hammer down
"Little Black Coupe Turned Silver" (littleblackcoupe)
08/09/2017 at 10:10, STARS: 3
At a real job you would have done all that by 8:30. I am mildly concerned you aren’t awake on the regular to eat lunch...
"LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com" (limitedtimeonly)
08/09/2017 at 10:15, STARS: 1
Now just imagine an entire day of that, all week, and every week for the foreseeable future. That is similar to my job, but I like getting people coordinated and product finalized. I do need occasional breaks . . . hey look, replying on Oppo!
Sometimes I do engineering, which is nice when a marketing target still hasn’t returned my calls after six months of monthly voicemails. I’m going to have to drive two hours and sit in his office next, I think.
"StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8" (stndibnz1)
08/09/2017 at 10:17, STARS: 1
Real life isn’t all that bad. Right now I’m sitting in a 2.5 hour meeting, where my topics don’t even come up for an hour and a half......But I should stay on the meeting, in case they come up sooner. Also, I’ve only gotten 1 email so far today and it was spam. Some days are better than others.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 10:26, STARS: 0
Dude my sleep schedule sucks during the summer, I deliver pizzas from 4pm-12am so I usually get up at around 3 most days (which is why I sound like I just woke up during our Oppo Forza races lol). Doesn’t help I play video games after work for about four hours every night with a group of people who work second shift at a factory so we’re usually up until like 4 or 5. I just like sleeping in so right now’s the only time I can really do it, especially since I graduate next year.
"Bandit" (2bandit)
08/09/2017 at 10:26, STARS: 0
*former purdue FSAE. He dragged his sub team through the mud with poor management.
"Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer" (smallbear94)
08/09/2017 at 10:28, STARS: 1
People suck. People you don’t know suck worse. Talking to people you don’t know is worst of all.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 10:32, STARS: 1
Pls no, I don’t want to think about real life :(
It is kind of funny how people just ignore you sometimes. Like, I try to reply to all my emails and calls pretty much as soon I can, but so many people I’ve contacted haven’t even bothered to respond at all when a simple ten-second ‘no, sorry’ email would totally suffice.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
08/09/2017 at 10:33, STARS: 3
You are clearly a terrible team leader. A true team leader would have delegated all these tasks to subordinates.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 10:38, STARS: 0
Do meetings like that really happen all that often? We have about a 1.5-2hr team leader meeting every two weeks and I really don’t mind those because they’re more conversational as compared to prepared emails and whatnot, my problem is I’m a writer at heart so my emails asking building managers if they have a spare room our team could use ended up being five paragraphs and 500 words.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 10:45, STARS: 3
Give me a break man I’m new at this, give me a few months to properly develop my passive-aggressiveness and micromanagement skills and in no time at all the rest of the team will hate my guts just as they hate TPS reports and coming in on Saturdays.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
08/09/2017 at 10:49, STARS: 2
When I was in grad school, I worked at Kinko’s. I was the daytime production manager, which really meant that I ran the giant DocuTech machine in the back room and cranked shit out. But then they made me a shift super as well, so I had to monitor time sheets, OT, schedules, etc. I absolutely hated that. Just leave me alone and let me run the machine and I’ll run every damned job in the shop and get them finished ahead of schedule. That’s what I was good at. I had no management skills. The boss eventually realized that and just left me alone to run the machine.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 11:07, STARS: 0
Dude I’m with you, I don’t like the minutiae of the job, just the job itself. There’s no real satisfaction in computer systems and logistics compared to having a physical product you can point to and be like, ‘wow, I made that’, which is the entire point of what we do on FSAE at least. Well, that and following rigid systems like time sheets and schedules drive me crazy because you can think of unbelievably easy ways to improve the systems, but you can’t because your boss is always there to be like
that’s not how we do things here.
"StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8" (stndibnz1)
08/09/2017 at 11:12, STARS: 1
I have two 2 hour meetings a week, and a few hour long ones. Also, one thing you need to learn when emailing managers is to be short and sweet. They get so many emails a day, you want your point across in as few words as needed. Otherwise, they won’t read it all. Same goes for presentations. As few words on the screen as needed, take away boxes for all graphs and just speak through the rest of your points. You don’t want people reading it while you’re presenting.
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
08/09/2017 at 11:22, STARS: 1
you can think of unbelievably easy ways to improve the systems, but you can’t because your boss is always there to be like that’s not how we do things here.
Welcome to the real world.™ It will be like this for the rest of your life until you start your own company.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 11:29, STARS: 0
Yeah I definitely need to work on being succinct over emails, my concern was conveying literally all the necessary information they could ever ask for in a single email (ostensibly to save them time writing follow-up emails back) without seeming like an scatter-brained idiot, but looking back on them I can definitely see how a dude inundated with actual emails could just blow off an essay by some random student he’s never heard from before because it’s as long as the rest of the emails he received that day put together. More advice to take to heart then.
"Tapas" (tapas)
08/09/2017 at 11:36, STARS: 1
I propose a better solution.
People are less capable of avoiding you if you meet them in person. Go see them in person.
And don’t walk. Take the SAE car for “test runs” to do these errands :)
"JGrabowMSt" (jgrabowmst)
08/09/2017 at 11:53, STARS: 1
Here’s my advice, from having worked in some very crappy jobs...
1) Being the “Team Lead” does have an air of responsibility. Delegation is one of those responsibilities, but in the end, the biggest responsibility is making sure things get done. It sucks, I don’t need to explain that further.
2) Delegate basic tasks to new people and existing people that are relatively simple. Since you’re within a school, obviously as the leader you need to handle the communication between administration, but if it’s a simple thing like scheduling use of a parking area with security, or a delivery, anything else, that basic stuff someone else can handle. It’s extremely good to also ask people what they are interested in most, and try to push tasks that are related to them.
3) Take zero shit. Accountability sucks, but when someone says they’re going to do something, follow up with them. What I will say is that too many managers follow up after the deadline. Set yourself up a google calendar with reminders that are a day or two before a deadline to follow up. If gives everyone a chance to breath, and should someone get caught up, hopefully enough time to follow up without missing a deadline.
Additionally, an important thing that I do, along with what I do for my fellow colleagues is extremely simple. I work with them. If I see them struggling, I will directly step in to show them how to do something, or I will ask them if they want to spend some time going over a process. This falls into their lap as something that they need to follow up on, but I will keep an eye on it. I work in IT, and it is not just a good idea, but it is absolutely critical to follow up with deadlines and processes, and making sure that protocol is being followed correctly. Keep an eye on the people who are a year or two younger, and find out where they want to be, because as a team, the absolute best and most effective way to stay coordinated and strong year after year is to get people where they’re happy, keep them happy, and when people are leaving for any reason, they were working with someone else that can pick up right where the previous person left off.
From my experience, a leader is equally involved as the employees. You may all have different tasks, but I am way more motivated to work and share work and progress when I see that the people above me are as involved as I am. It can be a struggle because I have a very unique job position, but the people above me work their asses off, and they equally recognize that I work my ass off, and we’re always on the phone or emailing back and forth following up on emails and work that’s scheduled to make sure if someone is falling behind, someone else can pick something less significant off of my plate. And last but certainly not least, schedule time to not be working. You guys are in school, school comes first. Graduating is more important. Formula SAE can be a huge in to the motorsports industry, but you can’t discount your regular classes and the time you need to dedicate to studying and regular school work. I strongly recommend blackout days to dedicate to everything else you have going on in life, even if it just means going out for pizza, visiting a local track to watch other people, or just having a day off of working, whether you guys do a group day, or not.
That’s my $0.02 to help you be an amazing team leader, do with it what you will!
"promoted by the color red" (whenindoubtflatout)
08/09/2017 at 12:11, STARS: 2
Uh sure, why not? /hides fact that there are several kinja tabs + slack chat open...
My actual grown-up job is considerably less stressful than anything I’ve done in school.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 12:26, STARS: 0
I’m going to keep this comment bookmarked because it’s exactly the kind of thing I needed to see. Our team in the past has been extremely hands-on and collaborative (the entire team works on one part, with the team lead leading the manufacturing process) so the lead setting the tone for the whole team should definitely not be a problem, especially since I’m one of those people who’s super-hard on myself about these kinds of things. On top of that, I’m kind of pissed off at how last year went in terms of our final product (long story short, our carbon turned out good-to-great but the gelcoat we put over it cracked and looked really crappy) so to say I’m motivated is a bit of an understatement.
Delegation will be interesting because for the first time ever, we’re starting research on a monocoque chassis and the plan is to let some of the new blood take charge of the project since they’ll be the ones actually implementing it in the next few years. My plan is to kind of evaluate everyone as we build this year’s car, then in the spring assign the most competent kid as the leader of the monocoque team to kind of run that part of the project. I’ll still keep an eye on everything, but the thing I kind of want to emphasize was encouraging people to research for themselves and ask questions and be detail-oriented on their own terms, whereas last year we all just kind of showed up, did what the team lead told us, and left.
That being said I’m definitely not going to hang them out to dry if they have questions, most of our current team started out knowing absolutely nothing about carbon fiber and whatnot so another goal I had was for people to not be afraid to ask the more senior members since that’s how things have always kind of gone. I basically don’t want to hold people’s hand through this but at the same time I want them all to feel comfortable bringing up any questions they have no matter how dumb or insignificant, which is something I’ll definitely have to figure out how to balance.
Google Calendars are a great idea, though. I have an Excel schedule that runs into March but having an active reminder like that is definitely something I’ll have to put together soon considering how inconsistent our schedule was last year. Actually, we didn’t really have a schedule that I knew of, so right off the bat we’re looking a little better.
All that being said, I hope my work-life balance shakes out a little better than I’m fearing it might. I’m graduating next year so I’ll be doing both FSAE and my senior design project at the same time, but considering I’m taking 12 credit hours and only 9 of them are major-related I shouldn’t kill myself. At the same time you’re right, I need to have
some
fun since it’s my last year of college, I might as well, right?
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 12:29, STARS: 1
That’ll be the plan once I get back on campus, I promised my boss I’d work my summer job up until the weekend before classes start so I’m kind of stuck here for the time being unfortunately.
And funny story about driving the FSAE car around campus: last I heard we got banned from doing that because we left a big ol’ puddle of oil out on the engineering mall’s sidewalk. I still think it’d be a great recruiting tool, this loud-ass open-wheel car tearing between buildings at 50mph.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 12:39, STARS: 0
That’s because you’re a good employee and have free time because got all your work done early, right :)
I’ve heard that once you graduate it’s less work-intensive, but you have a lot more ancillary concerns to keep track of (meetings, budget vs. design constraints, inter-personal conflicts, etc.). I can’t say I’ll miss the stress of college but at the same time I’m in no rush to join the real world just yet, being a student isn’t as bad as we like to make it out to be.
"TorqueToYield" (torquetoyield)
08/09/2017 at 12:51, STARS: 1
‘I’ve heard that once you graduate it’s less work-intensive’
Yea, no.
It varies by job, but in general school is the easy part. You’re responsible for very little and in the end it’s all just for fun or for practice or for imaginary points or whatever. It’s a hell of a lot different when the deadlines are real, there’s millions of other peoples $$$ on the line, and you have real bosses and real consequences to your work. I’ve been in positions where the work is due yesterday and if you muck it up the product will fail or people will potentially be hurt, and it’s your ass on the line. Not to mention there is no “well this assignment is done, or this semester is done, time to relax”, the work never ends, it’s always on to the next one.
Don’t even get me started on how little undergraduate programs prepare you for the real world. All those little things the professors tell you to just ignore because they’re out of scope for the class are where the real world begins.
"StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8" (stndibnz1)
08/09/2017 at 13:02, STARS: 1
Yup, thats the biggest piece I can give you. I had a co-worker that was just like that. Sending 6 paragraph emails to the senior manager. Then he would ask questions about it and the SM would just say “Oh yea, I saw that. What did you need?” Sometimes its just easier to say something in person as well.
"SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie" (sidewaysondirt)
08/09/2017 at 13:04, STARS: 0
Their name is Marshall. Apparently they built two wiring harnesses at some point.
"SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie" (sidewaysondirt)
08/09/2017 at 13:06, STARS: 0
Maybe we’re thinking about a different person or they’re lying. They said they did electrics and coding the PDM.
"JGrabowMSt" (jgrabowmst)
08/09/2017 at 14:07, STARS: 1
I’ll freely admit, I didn’t do anything fun until the second semester of my senior year.
It wasn’t necessarily the way to do things, and while I was heavily involved in a few on-campus activities (radio/tv specifically), I was actually employed by the school, it was more than just being a member of the club. It was a unique position I was put in that to my knowledge, no one else has gotten since, and I was the first to get it.
While I went to car shows, I didn’t do outside projects while I was a student because I knew what I needed to focus on. I had two paying jobs (full time job off campus as well as the on campus job), so time management was a huge deal. Even now, I use calendar reminders to tell me when to take out the trash or recycling because I have so much going on.
It is a tough balance to achieve, but make sure to have a bi-weekly meeting. Weekly I think can be difficult for some people, so bi-weekly gives everyone time to enjoy life while still being dedicated (did I mention I’m also involved in a kickstarter project?). Doing a million things is great, but you need time to unwind. Get all teams together to meet up so everyone is a familiar face, and you can all just kind of say what your progress is, what your issues are, and open the floor. Just because one person is within a single department doesn’t mean they can’t contribute to another when there’s a snag. You can’t put blinders on people, but you can ask them to prioritize a certain segment.
Also make sure to remind yourself of the most important thing every day you work on anything Formula SAE related (or anything really)...
You’re learning, you’re part of a team, and the project will still be there tomorrow. It’s okay to have a late night, it’s okay to get frustrated, it’s okay to experience all of the ups and downs that you’re going to have, but when it’s all said and done and you walk down the isle and are handed your diploma, you were doing it because it’s an amazing learning experience. Learn to delegate, it will be hard but you will get used to being able to focus better on your tasks at hand. Your experiences here will help you in the future, and you’ll want to look back at all of those experiences as positive ones, so don’t lose your head over mistakes or things going wrong. It’s all a learning experience, and if you forget to learn from it and are just being angry when something doesn’t go as expected, you’re deviating from where you need to be.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it took Edison a long time to get the light bulb going. A completely sorted Formula SAE car is no different, it takes time, people and mistakes to get where they are today.
"Tapas" (tapas)
08/09/2017 at 14:21, STARS: 1
That’s too bad.
Any chance you can convince them its all electric now and say it was a 2018 April fool’s prank when they catch on? :D
"uofime-2" (uofime-2)
08/09/2017 at 15:10, STARS: 1
Being a team lead in FSAE tends to be similar to a regular job, having school on top of that makes things tough.
On the upside, you tend to love what you do, on the downside it can be a lot of pressure to preform because failing effects not only you, but your teammates who by the end of the deal tend to be like family
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 20:31, STARS: 0
I can believe that, there are some dudes on the team who I swear never leave the shop, I have no idea when they finish all their homework and other projects and stuff. Luckily I’m leading our Composites team which is mostly manufacturing the aero package versus designing things on top of it like the other sub-teams, so hopefully I won’t get too burned out on the workload. Definitely prepping for a lot of late nights, though.
Not sure what that says about me, but I’m one of those people who will bust my ass for other people even more so than I would for my own personal projects. Not because I don’t care about myself, but like you mentioned because it involves more people than just me and I want to do a good job for them. Considering our team lead last year kind of gave up at the end of the season I think we’ll end up ahead of where we were last year just by virtue of me giving a shit and really putting in as much work as I can, which is definitely what I plan on doing.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 21:39, STARS: 0
Honestly I’m a sixth-year senior (long story) and FSAE is the first actual club I’ve done the whole time I’ve been here. I’ve always just liked to have time doing my own thing like reading or writing, just me time where I can decompress and just relax, so going from completely uninvolved to head guy in about year is going to be something to definitely get used to, especially with my senior courseload. Still, it’s about time I had to learn time management, I’ve kind of regretted not challenging myself as much as I probably could have while here so if anything it’ll be a good learning experience.
Our meetings actually are bi-weekly, one during the school week and one on weekends. We definitely got a little lax last year so I wanted to make sure we have a set schedule that we’re always following. Humans are creatures of habit after all, so I figure if we do that we won’t have those weird lulls of inactivity where we’re just kind of putting off work because we don’t feel like it.
And this is all great advice, thanks for taking the time to type it all out. Our previous team lead didn’t exactly give me much to go off of so I’m trying to absorb all the information I can at this point and hopefully come out of this with something to show for all of our hard work.
"promoted by the color red" (whenindoubtflatout)
08/09/2017 at 21:46, STARS: 0
Yes & no, it’s a different kind of stress. As highlighted by KeepJerseyDirty, you have problems with consequence and you’re facing off with the bureaucracy at times. There will be days with zero things going on and days where things were due three weeks before you got them.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/09/2017 at 21:46, STARS: 0
I meant it terms of like actual hours you work in a day, normally I’m up at 8am and don’t go home until about 10pm because I’m busy doing homework or projects or studying for stuff. Overtime notwithstanding, I’d love to have a set time I’m allowed to go home. But yeah, I realize the stakes in the real world are far higher than us just farting around in the lab trying to bs our code into working or the equation to fix itself. Purdue’s actually really good about real-world applications, like our engineering final projects are all in collaboration with actual companies like GM and Lockheed, so I’m hoping this year gives me at least a bit of preparation for what professional life is like.
"JGrabowMSt" (jgrabowmst)
08/09/2017 at 21:49, STARS: 0
I was a 5 year senior, don’t feel bad. I went to school with a lot of veterans as well, so just remember there’s no rush with college. Get what you want out of it, and learn. There’s no time limit or requirement. One of my sisters went to summer school for two years just to graduate in 4 years, I had other priorities like working and cars. In the end, I think it was worth it, and spent less money in the process, so there’s no right or wrong way of doing it.
I would definitely find someone in the next month or two that can be an assistant to you, because you don’t want to overwork yourself, and if you’re not used to the workloads, it’s best to ease into it. I’ve been working on a project all day, and just took a two hour nap next to my girlfriend because I needed to walk away from it for a while. Everyone’s different, but down time is important across the board.
You’ll get there. Along with giving everyone else time, do give yourself time to ease into it, as long as you keep things scheduled and running smoothly, the only time you’ll be racing is on the track, and that’s the way it should be. Strive to finish early and dedicate more time to testing. Data logging is where most of the questions get answered, and it’s tough to log during a race and be able to troubleshoot.
"uofime-2" (uofime-2)
08/10/2017 at 10:46, STARS: 1
I was the aerodynamics team leader for the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 2012-13. I oversaw the aerodynamic design, structures and composites manufacturing for the wings, undertray and body.
I really recommend putting together Gantt charts and setting milestones, because it is to easy to minimize timing for things in your head and allow yourself to get behind (its what I ended up doing for a living now, project engineering)
Aero is a huge manufacturing and integration challenge.
You need to have your “aerodynamic concept” foil and placement WRT the car nailed down by the end of October (which is very, very challenging if you have young team and didn’t work on it in the last year or over the summer). While that is happening you need to be doing some testing of your assembly concept, testing bonding methods (you ordered your structural adhesives over the summer right) to make sure your wings don’t fall apart
You need to finalize your structures (how it all mounts to the car) and your manufacturing tooling by the end of November. By that time you need to have sourced who is going to machine your molds and everything else. Once the whole car design is frozen (which should be by the end of November) release your suppliers to build the molds, you’re probably using sponsor donation machine time so that can take a couple of months to fit the jobs in ( December, January is a horrible time for getting stuff done at businesses, lots of projects have launch goals by end of the year and everyone is on vacation)
Then its a mad dash in February, and March to do all your lay-ups and assembly work so you have April, and May to test, train drivers, break stuff, fix it, and hopefully get some data validation to impress judges at competition.
It is super easy to slip December and January with finals and winter break. Then you loose your testing time and you’re in the mad dash to get it together before Michigan competition, you show up looking sloppy, with no validation for the design judging, your car inevitably breaks and you fail endurance.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/10/2017 at 15:30, STARS: 0
Man that’s all great info to keep in mind, thanks. Our team started working basically the week after comp so we’re already well into design and are just trying to iron out details right now. While aero decided basically to just iterate on last year’s design, actual manufacturing will be interesting because one of composite’s team members got an internship at Trek Bikes over the summer and wants to try some of the stuff he learned about which is why I built in a few extra weeks of laminations into Gantt chart for experimentations and screwups. We’re not planning on doing anything too crazy, the main thing I’m looking for is ease of manufacturing instead of some hyper-exotic whatever that produces really good carbon but it is a pain in the ass to actually manufacture.
I think we’re still going to use the same adhesives and core as last year since it worked so well. Actually materials-wise most everything went pretty well, the only thing that didn’t was the gelcoat, which delaminated halfway through comp and looked absolutely terrible so we’re going to try and either go bare carbon or find a solution (which we can do second semester, right now cosmetics is the least of our concerns). Aero deals with the structures and mounting of the wings, we just kinda build them, so that’s all we really have to worry about on that front but I’m still trying to be involved in aero’s design because last year our team lead wasn’t, so we had no real clue what the hell aero was doing and why, which as you can imagine caused quite a few problems.
Mold-wise we’re hoping to do RenShape again. We’ll have to outsource it since our machine shop doesn’t have anything that can machine RenShape, but considering Ford and FCA were willing to do it for us last year (nosecone and sidepods respectively) I imagine they wouldn’t mind doing it again.We ended up having to do a foam mold for one of our sidepods because we accidentally fucked up the RenShape mold (may or may not have melted a hole in it after leaving a Solo cup catalyzing resin on top of it like dumbasses) and after the amount of sanding we had to do to get even a semi-decent surface finish I really don’t want anything to do with foam for as long as I live.
Last year we ran the car four times before comp and two of the times something broke (oil line and rear driveshaft) so this year we moved up manufacturing deadline to hopefully give us more testing time. We’re also going to be starting research on a monocoque for upcoming years so composite’s schedule is going to be a bit compressed to make room for prototyping.
The abbreviated schedule’s going to be a challenge but it seems like everyone is kinda pissed off about how last year went so hopefully that means they’ll put as much into the car as they can this time around and end up with a better result. I know the people on our team and honestly I think we can do it. It’ll be hard, but I think we can do it.
"uofime-2" (uofime-2)
08/10/2017 at 15:59, STARS: 0
Renshape is nice stuff to work with, formular 150 not so much....haha
Sounds like you guys are off to an awesome start. Nothing like a crappy year to motivate a team to pull it together for the next one.
My old team has been working on monocoque for the last 4 years, nothing but problems. Made it all the way through design review last year before it was again scrapped and a space frame was hurriedly rushed through design.
Gobs of testing, with simulation (and correlation to it) as difficult has it is it is just to easy to build one that is heavier than steel would have been or build one where it fails parts pull out.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/10/2017 at 17:16, STARS: 0
I’ve heard horror stories about Foamular 150 and have absolutely no desire to go anywhere near it lol. RenShape is ideal but holy crap it is expensive. I’m still trying to find a sponsor so we don’t have to spend all our own money but so far no one’s bit (probably because costs so damn much), but I’m pushing for us to use it anyways just because of how well it works.
I think we are off to a good start, it’s just that we have a few new team leads this year (myself included) so it’s been a bit of a learning curve for some of us. Now that we’re almost three months in it’s starting to settle down but we’ll see once manufacturing starts.
And to be honest I’m glad I won’t be around for monocoque considering all the problems I’ve heard other teams have had with theirs; I walked around a bit at Michigan and talked to the monocoque teams and all but the Germans (who of course had Porsche and AMG make their monocoques for them) said they were multi-year projects with a bunch of setbacks along the way. It’d definitely be cool, but I think our lead engineer (who’s the main one pushing the monocoque) is focusing too much on the finished products he’s seen at comp and not necessarily at the amount of work that goes into them. Still worth a shot, I guess, I’d love to see it work.
"uofime-2" (uofime-2)
08/11/2017 at 10:08, STARS: 0
Look at a company called “General Plastics” they make a nearly identical product line and would donate off cuts from their really large orders (that were more than big enough for what we were doing) to my old team and still do afaik.
Monocoques are one of those projects that sound so simple, but once you look very closely at all and you start to realize what is involved, they become a lot harder.
the biggest gotcha with them is that you need to understand the forces involved with every (major) item that has to attach to it. So many teams have suspension pickup points fail, because of a combination of not understanding the real forces and load case acting or because they don’t design, test, validate their bonding process for the inserts for the pick up points. That’s a big part of why you see those “elite” teams doing lots of strain gauging, then having someone who knows what they’re doing manufacture the design.
It’s easy to act offended at hearing some team has a company do manufacturing work for them, but in reality FSAE is a DESIGN competition and if you look at yourself you realize the vast majority of parts on every subsystem are manufactured by professionals.
Drive train isn’t hobbing gears
Electronics isn’t doing photoresists, making PCBs
Suspension isn’t machining dampers or bending springs
Ect, Ect
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/12/2017 at 01:05, STARS: 0
I’ll definitely have to check General Plastics out then, that’s great they’re so willing to donate to FSAE teams. Seems like every company I’ve talked to has been kind of hesitant or just straight up said they don’t sponsor student organizations which, to be fair to them, is understandable considering the kind of resources they’d be donating and how many teams have probably tried to contact them previously.
Honestly those kinds of variables is why I’m kind of apprehensive about this whole monocoque thing. The guy running the project has this pie in the sky idea of how we can design and manufacture a prototype this season and fully implement it in 2018-2019, and from preliminary research I’ve been doing on just the materials side of things it’s looking like a much bigger undertaking than he’s thinking it’ll be. Luckily we’ve found a company (Hendrickson, who one of our suspension guys interned for) who’re willing to do a design analysis so at least we can get a professional’s input on what all we need to take into account in the upcoming years.
And for the record I wasn’t trash-talking the teams that outsourced their monocoques (or any of their engineering), I just thought it was funny that Stuttgart and Munich were so nonchalant about their monocoque (“ah yes, Porsche vere kind enough to manufazzure ze monocoque for us”) while every other team I talked to that did it themselves pretty much had PTSD lol.
"uofime-2" (uofime-2)
08/14/2017 at 10:13, STARS: 0
We always worked the tax write-off, charitable donation, aspect very hard when looking for sponsors, don’t do it for the kids, do it for your own money haha
Hendrickson does on the highway truck suspension and other heavy duty supsension stuff AFAIK, I’m sure they do a lot of simulation, modal and fatigue included but I’m not sure they’d know what to do with composite structures. For that you want someone like Dallara, pretty sure they’ve got an office down in Indy.....
Either way a simulation is only as good as your input data, you’ve gotta have all you loads figured out. Garbage in, Garbage out.
If you want to get his head back on the ground have him calculate the weight of a monocoque, using the rough surface area of your chassis and a typical 3 layer 6k sandwich panel with a half inch nomex core. (hint: this will weigh as much or more than your current chassis, with no reinforcements or inserts for mounting suspension, engine, roll bar(required), ect.
A good place to start is to start making test panels for the SES testing, make sure your process is consistent by testing multiple panels of each design and do correlation studies with FEA of the same panels. Concurrently you can do shear and compression/tension testing with fatigue analysis on inserts simulating you suspension loads.
To the Germans Porsche, BMW are like GM, Ford, you nonchalantly mentioned GM machining stuff for you earlier, who’s the bigger company? haha
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
08/15/2017 at 13:11, STARS: 0
I’ve been working the “oh of course we don’t care about winning, all we want to do is learn how to be better engineers and work as a team” angle pretty hard. Not sure if anyone’s buying it but that’s what I’ve been trying haha.
You know, I was kind of surprised Hendrickson was willing to do it considering their typical expertise, but like I said any professional input we can get is a net positive as far as I’m concerned. Our contact at Hendrickson is a former Purdue chassis lead so I’m not sure what experience he has with monocoques (maybe they researched one back then too), but since the guy who interned with him seemed pretty I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. If not, they were also going to look at the tube frame from this year so at least they’ll for sure be able to help us on that front.
Honestly I think the monocoque lead is just wanting the design points; our car’s kind of a fat pig as-is (I think with driver last year we were at 670lb) so if anything we should be approaching the monocoque as a method to decrease curb weight but, as you mentioned, most of what I’ve read into so far say they come out being roughly equal in weight to a tube frame chassis so I dunno. I think it’s a worthwhile experiment to research and prototype for future years, but I’m doubtful that it will be this amazing incredible breakthrough that’ll put us head and shoulders above the competition like the lead is thinking it will. Shit, if we could just iron out the powertrain and electrical reliability problems and finish endurance that’d be a huge improvement.
And to be fair, there’s a difference between Ford giving us three hours of machining time to CNC our molds versus Porsche just constructing an entire monocoque haha. Either way now that I’m a team lead and can see how much sponsors actually fund the team, I won’t blame anyone for taking help.
"DrJohannVegas" (drjohannvegas)
05/14/2018 at 17:09, STARS: 2
SVT, came back into your old posts to say hello. I’m the dude who runs the scales/scales computer at competition, but didn’t wanna bug you while you guys were hustling this year. (LBC tipped me off to your identity, kinda.) Car looked really good and you guys should be proud of the efforts. The composites work was excellent, the setup very good, and you guys rocked it in some very tough conditions. Congrats on a strong senior year, hope you all are running that thing at other comps. Now you can terrorize the youths as a design judge! (They always need more folks in your area, or at least what LBC suggested your expertise is.)
Be well, man.
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
05/14/2018 at 17:45, STARS: 2
Hey man, thank you so much for the kind words, we’re proud of what we did this year and were so stoked to see all our hard work finally pay off with a top 10 finish. Hopefully we can take the car out a few other places and show it off, right now the university wants to display it so maybe we can sneak it for a few laps here and there :)
Wish I would’ve known you were one of the guys working otherwise I would’ve said hi (LBC only told me after the fact), apparently there were a few other Oppos at comp on other teams and volunteering so maybe we can get an Oppo meet organized next year? Either way take care, and thanks for helping out at comp. You volunteers don’t get enough gratitude for keeping the whole thing moving and we all appreciate the work you guys put in.
"DrJohannVegas" (drjohannvegas)
05/14/2018 at 18:09, STARS: 2
I’ve been lucky enough to do the Michigan event for 10 years as a volunteer. Have done every job in the place; steward (in the years the Big 3 wouldn’t let employees get credit for volunteering), every dynamic event, fuel (oy, the stress of endurance refilling!), and random odd jobs. Although students can be frustrating at moments, I love it and wouldn’t trade it in for anything. But let me let you in on a little secret: it’s more fun on this side. (Fewer stressful obligations.)
Trying to make Lincoln fit w my schedule, so maybe I’ll see y’all there. Hit me up at username at gmail if you wanna chat.
And again, congratulations. Couldn’t think of a team I’d more like to see in the top-10 (aside from my alma mater, ofc).
"Little Black Coupe Turned Silver" (littleblackcoupe)
05/15/2018 at 11:37, STARS: 1
To be fair, you were super busy :p
"DrJohannVegas" (drjohannvegas)
05/15/2018 at 16:45, STARS: 0
ain’t no busy like racecar busy, tbh.