Smithie it is
Woohoo! They're halfway to their gofundme goal.
Smithie it is
Woohoo! They're halfway to their gofundme goal.
DeanCase wrote: In reply to SVreX: THANK YOU!
The Mumpkin Miata has a distinguished and lengthy Challenge history.
DeanCase wrote: In reply to SVreX: THANK YOU!
You're welcome (but I haven't heard back from them)
Smithies over half way to their gofundme goal!!!
C'mon ladies. WHERE'S YOUR BUILD THREAD?
Ovid_and_Flem wrote: Smithies over half way to their gofundme goal!!! C'mon ladies. WHERE'S YOUR BUILD THREAD?
I'm selfishly holding out on donating until I have another build thread to follow 
Speaking of which, where is that other college team's build thread? ...paging Georgia Tech...
In reply to maschinenbau:
And Texas A&M....
Rumour has it that the Smithies have acquired a mazda of sorts and have begun on the cage
Watch out GA Tech....they're gaining...
In reply to Ovid_and_Flem:
Smith-That's a serious cage-plans for the car after the challenge?
Interesting way to wear a helmet.
Obligatory friendly competition post:
Wreck Racing thinks that the engine is in the wrong end.
Pretend that turbo isn't there. You saw nothing.
The solution to keeping the trans subframe in the car is always more power. 
In reply to SVreX:
Don't worry, we've used more glue, rivets, and bolts. We did a full day of testing and the transmission didn't try to escape a single time!
Smithies are now live over in the build forum
I would suggest they have a donation box at the challange also. A few beers will likely open some wallets at the event
I haven't read all the comments here, but I don't disagree with Evil completely. Years ago I was teaching high-school. My students were mostly dirt-poor. $2,000 is a LOT of money to them, more than most of their folks made in a month before taxes. We wanted to build a car and race. Did we do a gofundme page? No. No begging for us. We figured out how to raise money and that was what we did for lots of saturday and afternoon "work sessions". We got permission to sell water and ice cream at AROC autocrosses and even Milan Dragway! We dragged a parts car into the back lot at school and students (and faculty) paid to whack the car with a sledge hammer. We did anything we could do to earn a buck, we had $5,000+ of them to earn.
It was amazing for me to see these kids determined to do what was necessary to build and race a car, even when that wasn't working on the car. Some of those students keep in touch with me to this day and say how awesome it was. Many of them still talk about crunching numbers to figure out how much a Bomb Pop should cost, taking into consideration dry ice and fuel to get to where we were going.
I hope the Smith folks make it, I hope to see them this year. I hope this is a great experience for them and hope it helps direct where their careers take them, but I'd be more enthused if there were no handouts being asked for. Gotta work for what you want.
Interesting GRM discussion of GFM
And this image doesn't compel me to give you money. I need help more than you do if your shop looks like this
[flame suit on]
Well ain't this a stickey wicket. DrBoost I see your point. No flame suit necessary. I for one welcome viewpoints that are well thaught out concise and most importantly not a personal attack.
I happen to not disagree with you. Now the other side of this is I have three daughters and seeing these girls doing this hits a little close to home. For starters girls up until recently have been the minority's in the engineering field. Add to that a bent towards automotive and the opertunitys have been extremely limited. So although I see your point I also really want to see the Smithies make it there simply because I have seen my daughters fight the glass ceiling.
Another point that I have to remember is that the gofundme thing is a relitivly new thing that is scocially excepted by the younger generation. For my generation it is not. So while I whole hardidly agree the TeamEvil was completely out of line there is going to be a fair number of those that will not disagree with you DrBoost.
People are not going to like this but that is the way it is. The gofundme thing is a pollerizing debate. Its acceptance or hatred is derived from personal experience. Social economic background. Political beliefs. All of these are things that will influence how one feels about this.
I think that the debate has now been had. Both sides have made there case and no one is going to change so there is no further point in trying to convince anyone of anything. It is simple really those that want to donate will. Those that don't want to will not. People's money is there own and how they decide to send it is there choice.
For the record, the GoFundme page was my recommendation to the students. The $2017 GRM Challenge is many things to many people. I feel that it is different for student teams on multiple levels. The purpose of FSAE and SAE Baja is NOT to determine who can build the best race car. It is to showcase the engineering talents of students in front of people who can hire them. I was sincerely hoping that companies who hire engineers would sign up at the $400 resume book level. Two companies have done just that, while many other people simply felt they wanted to support a rookie team.
In reply to DrBoost:
Dumb question- what's the real difference between a go-fund-me fund raising effort and a bake sale?
Both of them are asking people to give you money for something so that you can go out and do something.
Honestly, when it comes down to it, selling water at our autocrosses and a go-fund-me thing do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. You convince people to pay you money for something that they could have gotten cheaper in the interest of raising money for a project.
Going and scrounging parts to raise money- that's part of the challenge. Incorporated into the budget.
I see no problem with anyone doing a Gofundme for a challenge car. It takes a tradition bake sale and puts in across the entire country.
DeanCase wrote: For the record, the GoFundme page was my recommendation to the students. The $2017 GRM Challenge is many things to many people. I feel that it is different for student teams on multiple levels. The purpose of FSAE and SAE Baja is NOT to determine who can build the best race car. It is to showcase the engineering talents of students in front of people who can hire them. I was sincerely hoping that companies who hire engineers would sign up at the $400 resume book level. Two companies have done just that, while many other people simply felt they wanted to support a rookie team.
Please remind them to apply for auto industry jobs. I've already sent my contact information to them.
alfadriver wrote: In reply to DrBoost: Dumb question- what's the real difference between a go-fund-me fund raising effort and a bake sale? Both of them are asking people to give you money for something so that you can go out and do something. Honestly, when it comes down to it, selling water at our autocrosses and a go-fund-me thing do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. You convince people to pay you money for something that they could have gotten cheaper in the interest of raising money for a project. Going and scrounging parts to raise money- that's part of the challenge. Incorporated into the budget. I see no problem with anyone doing a Gofundme for a challenge car. It takes a tradition bake sale and puts in across the entire country.
There's a few differences. One gives the 'donator' a tangible good. It's selling something versus simply asking for money. Selling goods at races and race tracks means the students have to learn how to approach the public, building communication skills and developes an enterprising spirit. A GFM page is a handful of clicks to set it up, and a mass e-mail with a link in the body.
One teaches face-to-face communication, the other is a cyber hand-out. One builds character, the other doesn't seen to do that, in my opinion.
I know times are changing, and this is part of it. Maybe that makes me an old cermudgeon, but I like to see folks work for what they want.
My students got a LOT out of our fundraising efforts and they loved doing it. If I were doing it again, that's the road I'd go down.
In reply to DrBoost:
Of course if you look at this particular GoFundMe page, you'll see that they have benefits of support ranging from T-shirts to resume books. Not all GoFundMe programs are the same.
In reply to DrBoost:
A quick search of GoFundMe for "Formula SAE" generates 808 results. This is a standard procedure for educational engineering projects in 2017.
Here's how I look at GoFundMe requests, charities, bike ride fund raisers, political campaign donations and the like: If I support what you're doing and believe in the cause, I'll donate some money. If not, I move along.
In reply to DeanCase and David S, Wallens:
Well said. This has degenerated into two camps arguing about the gofundme model. I agree some gofundme solicitations are superficial and selfish. I think Smith"s is worthwhile. I have already contributed to Smith. I'll plan give more. As I have with another challenge project. Where was the indignant outrage on that project?
And for the poster that felt Smith's tiny pristine machine shop was too nice....I would venture a guess GA Tech's facilities are a tad nicer. And bigger.
Let's all get back to the really important thing. Let's make the Smith engineering student team feel welcome in the GRM community.
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