Wonderful events last year. I think there are too many vehicle "classes". How about just student and adult. Provisions can be made for other battery types, solar, etc, but still only student and adult classes. Innovations, I think, will help push the evelope to create more efficient cars. What ya say?
This should be in the event rules thread under the 2012/13 rule ideas.
But Jim I have to disagree. The high tech batteries with the same power but 1/4th the weight give a huge advantage once all of the bugs are worked out so they should be in a separate class for both open and student classes.
Solar I'm not sure if it is and advantage or disadvantage because from what I've seen the added weight and aerodynamics offset any added power that the panels are adding. I've only seen a handful of cars and it is Oregon in the wet/cloudy spring so others may have seen other results. But if panels were more efficient and/or more aerodynamic than the few cars I have seen then again those cars would have an advantage.
The goal of Electrathon is to have a level playing field in that money will not make a car win. This is to be a 'cheap man's' race that is available to the masses. A well designed very low tech car should be able to compete with a more expensive car on a nearly level field. Most schools can not afford high tech batteries for their cars ( we have 20 cars a year and are lucky to have good Optima batteries). True things like expensive Battery Management systems that give accurate watt hour usage at all times will let the driver get everything out of their cars but again with some thought and good driving a car without those can compete well and sometimes win. We have had WHS students, along with myself, beat the Cloud cars which are much more high tech and have better battery charging (heating, dump charging, overcharging, etc.) with light composite bodies, unibody 'frameless' designs, more expensive Lynch motors, ultralight wheels, more aerodynamic cars, etc. on some races and not just when they have problems.
Just my thoughts. Open for discussion by the membership. I still hope to get the rules figured out before the school year starts.
I have to agree with Jim on the idea of too many classes. I count 16 umless I missed some. I differ with him in that I do not feel it is a good idea to allow differnat battery types. It just confuses the issue of what we are trying to do. If I remember correctly the batteries Jim ran last year do not even meat the EA atandards (there is a thread here from someone who pointed it out last season). Pretty much no way to police it at the races. Fewer classes would be a huge help in lessining confusion.
But, I am guessing the big circle guys back East would be upset if things were simplified like they used to be. You need to talk to them before you make any changes.
I stand corrected. There are currently 12 division/classes. I believe there were 4 up till a few years back when the new ones were added. I remember one of the biggest simplifications we did to the rules when we all cleaned everything up a number of years ago was to eliminate the huge number of classes and simplify it down.
I don't see where you are getting this many classes. There is OPEN and STUDENT division in each of the following. If we ever have enough College division which now race in the open division, then there would be a third class for each. STANDARD CLASS--standard lead acid batteries only. SOLAR CLASS--solar panels no more than 4' X 12' to assist any type of batteries. ADVANCED BATTERY CLASS--as it says in the handbook "any type of 'advanced' batteries" that are not lead acid type (i.e. nickel metal hydride, silver zinc, lithium ion, etc.).
That should be 6 classes (at the most 9 with College division) and we don't need to worry about any class unless at least 3 cars of a specific class show up (the board said at least 3 but it was up to the race steward and could go much higher). So if we have 3 SOLAR in STUDENT class then they would be competing against each other and MAY have trophies available if the race steward wishes to. If not they are just racing for demonstration and to learn how these systems work. We do NOT need to worry about trophies for them or their standings for any purpose except to be sure that any 'experimental' class outside of the STANDARD class does not take home a trophy for standard class. If there are a number of these cars in the future then we could even put the SOLAR and ADVANCED BATTERY in the same division (open/student) under 'EXPERIMENTAL CLASS' in each division which is the same 4 CLASSES that we had for years.
When this advanced battery class was set up it was meant to add one more option to the type of batteries now used in most electric cars (including your and my Think cars) and bring the possibility of using these newer battery types, all with about the same electrical storage capacity but less weight, for those wishing to test these batteries out. So far I think we in the NW have Jim M., a car maybe two from Wash. S. U. in the adult class, and a couple of student cars from Monroe and White Salmon. So far none of those are close to winning trophies but we do need to keep track of their places to be sure they do not 'take' a trophy away from the standard class. If the people within experimental class want trophies they need to be sure that at the race they are coming to there will be at least 3 cars in that class (open or student) to allow trophies and then it is up the steward to see if the number (and the budget) makes it worth buying trophies. If we ever have a large number of these cars and they are competitive with the standard cars then I feel we should start having trophies for them but it is not written in stone.
Maybe the number of cars needed before trophies is mandatory is something that should be in the handbook????? ANY COMMENTS??? Mike
1-studet standard 2-student solar standard 3-student advanced 4-student advanced solar 5-collage standard 6-collage solar 7-collage advanced 8-collage advanced solar 9-adult standard 10-adult solar 11-adult advanced 12-adult advanced solar
All 12 combinations are possible. I don't think I missed any.
I agree with the part about a mandatory number to establish trophies. We sometimes have less than three adult cars but have trophies for them. It seems unfair to establish catagories and then say it is up to the steward if they get trophies. Remembr, I feel it is wrong to have this many catagories. I was 100% in favor of narrowing the field a few years ago and thought it was wrong when it was expanded again. But, since the field has been established it seems even more wrong to exclude the cars from trophies.
From what I remembr a few years ago when the AGM rule went in it had nothing to do with what electric cars use, actually the oposite (AGM is a bad electric car choice). It was about safety. Adding in the other battery choices seemed to negate this thinking.
Just thought of this one. We have cars running in the student class that are using diffferant batteries, thus a differant class. The car runs and falls short of winning, so not a real big deal. Say that car runs and places someplace in the middle of the group throughout the season. So we are tracking season points to hand out trophies at the end of the student school year. The car that had differant batteries could easily affect the season outcome by adding points to a few of the cars that had a couple bad races.
I know that in the 2012 season that experamental battery cars did run in the regular group. There is almost no way to tell who has what batteries durring the race so they will genarally get scored in with the other cars. I do not know if it had an affect on the season, but it can. I feel the answer is to have more leaders policing the check in/startong/counting area, but that seems a stretch. We have trouble when counting because cars that have not even checked in enter the race.
1-studet standard 2-student solar standard 3-student advanced 4-student advanced solar 5-collage standard 6-collage solar 7-collage advanced 8-collage advanced solar 9-adult standard 10-adult solar 11-adult advanced 12-adult advanced solar
All 12 combinations are possible. I don't think I missed any.
I agree with the part about a mandatory number to establish trophies. We sometimes have less than three adult cars but have trophies for them. It seems unfair to establish catagories and then say it is up to the steward if they get trophies. Remembr, I feel it is wrong to have this many catagories. I was 100% in favor of narrowing the field a few years ago and thought it was wrong when it was expanded again. But, since the field has been established it seems even more wrong to exclude the cars from trophies.
From what I remembr a few years ago when the AGM rule went in it had nothing to do with what electric cars use, actually the oposite (AGM is a bad electric car choice). It was about safety. Adding in the other battery choices seemed to negate this thinking.
Anyone else have opinions too? Please speek up.
Aaron
As I proposed in the HPV/E thread, combining clean, non-toxic, althernative energy classes into a single LiFePO4/NiMH, solar, HPV/E class would leave two classes for high school, college, and open groups. That cuts the 12 groups above down to 6.
As stated elsewhere, Li-ION batteries have some serious safety issues, and should be excluded starting with the next rule change. LiFePO4 batteries as demonstrated by A123 are not explosive when abused. NiMH are signficantly less volatile than Li-ION as well. Both technologies are stable for several hundred to several thousand recharge cycles, as compared to lead acid batteries which have a usable life that is significantly shorter for racing.
The LiFePO4/NiMH batteries are a bit more expensive up front, and cheaper over a 3-8 year life. They are also lighter, significantly reducing the kinetic energy in a crash where another car is hit, and crushed in the impact ... thus reducing the energy available to mangle another car/driver and increasing track safety in accidents.
