Designing an FSAE chassis

[Mystery Steve]

It depends on the school, obviously. Some of the established schools, that have some pretty significant budgets, get equally significant sponsorship/collaboration deals. We were near the "lower" end of the spectrum and spent in the $20-30K range.

Most of our funds were acquired through student government funding. Some was through corporate sponsors, and the remainder was private donations. If I had to give rough proportions for each, I would say it was approximately 3/6, 2/6, 1/6, respectively.

It certainly isn't a cheap project, especially for a first year team. You'll possibly need to acquire tools, a way to transport the car for testing, etc. It adds up quickly. Especially if you have little university support as regards to shop space and equipment. But that's a topic for a different thread...

[Jersey Tom]

"Funding" comes in many forms. Some raw materials and services are donated free of charge or at discount, which is a big help. Still, cash is king.

We wound up going through about $30,000 USD actual cash expended. That was good for a top 20 finish... with better management and knowledge transfer I argue it could certainly have been fine for a top 10.

Some of the cash comes from the university and grants. Some from local business. Some from family. Some from out of pocket. Think I wound up "donating" $1500 while in college and $1500 after, buying sets of tires. In the old days before any sort of decent funding, guys "donated" a whole hell of a lot more out of pocket.

About $5000 goes to paying travel and hotel expenses for a domestic competition, so about $25,000 to comfortably build a car.

[RacingManiac]

Toronto used to be(I think AFAIK still is) rather well funded. The Alumni association gives a lot to the team(10-20k), and each department within engineering gives probably ~4 figures that starts around 1 or 2 at least. And the main department(mech eng) a bit more. The rest comes in a lot of outside sponsors, student government and donation. The team typically(though not this year) goes to 2 competition, one in Michigan and one in Europe(my years was UK, now Germany), and the logistics of that sucks up a huge chunk of money. I think I remember the overall expenditure probably is in the $100-150k Canadian, this is combined cash and material/service, we typically I believe used to raise 50-70K in cash. I don't remember having to pay for something myself, aside from just gas for my own car through the driving to testing, supplier, sponsors, running errant...so forth, and we pay for oversea competition expenses(ticket, food, room and board), minus rental car, ourselves...

The funding definitely have grown through our better results, and also due to the expansion of the business team on the team.

Compare to some of the EU teams though I don't think the budget spent purely on the car itself is comparable....though we are definitely one of the better funded N. American teams.

Now compare this budget to Solar Car program, and most FSAE are about at least an order of magnitude off...

The 25K figure is what the final product supposed to cost in mass production...personally I never understood how that worked out with respect to cost report...

[madtown77]

Well, lets be honest, the cost report used to be a crap indication of actual "cost". Its better now with the standardizations but still far from realistic in my view.

We had $25,000 in cash and probably like $100,000 in "gifts in kind" to clarify. Almost 0 funding from the university (we do have nice shops and equipment, and an occasional donation, but nothing we can count on), so we are nearly completely funded by corporate sponsors. Its a rough life but as I have learned in the "real world", about as realistic as it gets.

To clarify, CF monocoques are possible for the top 30 or so teams in the world, but the competition is not just about those teams. The only school that I know of that REALLY understands the CF manufacturing process is TU Delft, who are really in a class of their own is anyone saw the FS Germany results and saw some of their car. CF is terribly expensive so it takes a huge helping hand to produce a chassis.

There are quite a few teams with the CF chassis that don't know the first thing about manufacturing one which is an integral part of the competition.

One other note, which I'm sure any other alums can attent to, it makes life a lot easier in the professional world when you are used to having to scrounge and work with what you have. Perhaps the greatest learning experience from FSAE?

[G37Sam]

I have a few barrels of oil lying around, we'll sell them and fund for our project.. just kidding

I recall our government wanted to give us a hand so we'll talk to them more seriously about it. We have a good welder in our workshop, we'll get a few tips and get the flow of it hopefully, I've done a few welds before but nothing chassis-fancy yet.

[Jersey Tom]

One other note, which I'm sure any other alums can attent to, it makes life a lot easier in the professional world when you are used to having to scrounge and work with what you have. Perhaps the greatest learning experience from FSAE?

This x1000. Seriously.

"Ok crew. It's 1am. We have to race tomorrow morning. The car is broken, and we have a collection of stolen tools, crappy equipment, and Red Bull to work with. Ready.. set.. GO"

Actually I took a trip up to Madison this last weekend. First time I've been up there. State street reminded me a lot of Boulder. Nice town, will probably be up again. Wouldn't want to be there in the winter though.

[bassimon]

[...] we typically I believe used to raise 50-70K in cash. [...]

Compare to some of the EU teams though I don't think the budget spent purely on the car itself is comparable....though we are definitely one of the better funded N. American teams.

I also heard that there are European Teams with budgets of the lower 6 digit range (in € cash) but we are definitely not even though we are sometimes believed to be one of the rich German teams. So the rumors around here with numbers of 500-1000k are definitely wrong.
On the other hand wour team is quite good in getting stuff and manufacturing time for free so for our budget this year our cf-monocoque was way better than most teams spaceframes

@madtown77: i heard (just nothing approved) that delft unfortunately lost some of their chassis knowledge from the last generation team members and i am keen to convince you with our manufacturing expertise if you are in Detroit next year

[madtown77]

I actually haven't talked to Delft since they last were at MIS when I was still a student. They helped our team a lot as did Rennteam Uni Stuttgart when they went to Germany in 2007. They had an impressive knowledge of how to manufacture CF components though at that time and gave a lot of helpful hints.

@bassimon: Unfortunately, this next spring I will be closer to where you currently are than MIS . I will also be leaving before FS Germany to head back to home so this next round I will be unable to participate. That is unless I decide to use my one free ride back stateside for being a design judge as opposed to visiting family/friends. It's possible, lol.