Photography by Paris Van Gorder
When working on a project, at what point do you decide things can move to the next step? For most FSAE teams, their last call comes in the form of Critical Design Review.
For ERAU Motorsports, Critical Design Review, aka CDR, represents a series of presentations done by each team sub-section–such as chassis, suspension and aerodynamics–to show final designs, budgets and timelines.
The judges? Other team members, FSAE alumni and even professors.
CDR stands as close to a real-life work environment as it can get, with alumni asking the same tough questions they face in their careers. At the same time, professors challenge students to apply lessons learned in class.
Can’t show solid reasoning or a plan behind a change? The design may be trashed or pushed back to next year’s build for further research. But this process isn’t a bad thing as it allows students to explore and grow.
CDR is one of the first big milestones these ERAU Motorsports students face. Why? Well, the designs that these students have been working on since May can now be brought to life, as ER-09, the 2025 entry, inches one step closer to completion.
Now that CDR has ended, ERAU Motorsports has begun to send out the completed ER-09 designs. And not a moment too soon as Thanksgiving break, finals and the end of the fall semester are rapidly approaching. Sponsors and outside shops must have everything they need to make the team’s parts before the students leave campus to go enjoy their well-deserved break.
The next milestone? Driver selection, which will be happening this Sunday. Stay tuned to see who will secure a driver spot for this 2025 season.
I had no idea how far FSAE went down the product development path followed by industry. Is this specific to one team or pretty much universal for all teams?
If they do go down this rabbit hole, then I can see where participants would be sought after commodities in the graduation employment world.
In reply to NOHOME :
20 years ago it wasn't the norm! At least not for us at Missouri.
In reply to NOHOME :
UIUC was following a stage/gate design process since the early 90s. It may have been poorly executed but the process was there.
It was flattened compared to industry because you didn't have as many steps since the needs we're clearly defined. IIRC When I went we had 4 phases with 3 design reviews. Ideation, Design, production/testing, then competition. We had a review between each but the big one was the design review prior to production.
After being in industry I do wish we had involved a more rigorous DFMEA to identify where we were taking risks and having a hard rule about where they should be mitigated or avoided. We had several failures that surely would of been caught had a simple RPN been assigned to the design and construction methods being utilized.
Example: We introduced an oil leak by modifying engine covers. Had we assigned an RPN based on (Oil leak results in Failure to complete endurance and makes a top 5 dynamic car an also ran) we probably would of just modified the chassis to not put tubes where Honda had engine covers and just left them alone. But instead we thought we were smarter then Honda and didn't correctly assess the consequences of what could happen.
NOHOME said:I had no idea how far FSAE went down the product development path followed by industry. Is this specific to one team or pretty much universal for all teams?
With how the Design portion of the competition goes you don't necessarily need one, but it definitely helps to be able to say you did Steps 1, 2, 3, etc when you are defending your work
In reply to NOHOME :
In my experience with talking with other teams at competition, if they don't do CDR exactly, they do something very similar in their own teams fashion. FSAE has greatly evolved over the years and teams are becoming more and more familiar with industry standards.
In the early 70's as an ME student at Georgia Tech we had a strictly student annual often multi hour regulated go kart race called the Tech 200. It was a rather competitive with 20+? teams 2 day event on campus if the space was available or at a local speedway if not. I like to think it was the seedling for what became FSAE. The last year I competed, the upper classman who helped organize the event for a number of years, Steve Clark ( who later raced I believed professionally) commented on my 3rd place finishing kart;
"if we gave an award for best engineered kart, your kart would receive it".
Understand however, even if our competitiveness was maybe equal, today they are light years ahead of what we brought to the track back then.
Occasionally I bump into students on the FSAE teams, and I am much impressed, admit I'm slightly jealous and they are so lucky.
In reply to jcc :
1971 Tech 200 at Peach Bowl Speedway in Atlanta, on track, the race rules stated a financial sponsor was allowed.
Nearly every team had a single sponsor.
We had four, two being Union 76, hence the kart number, and Local Tiger Auto Parts, we were well financed.
Only team with full custom team uniforms, it sure made us look fast.
That 22 year old track became a parking lot months later.
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