What?
FSAE competition scoring is heavily influenced by vehicle mass across dynamic events like endurance, autocross, and skid pad
Team wanted to quantify mass lost vs points gained across dynamic events, identifying which were most sensitive to weight to justify design decisions at competition
How?
Extracted competition results from '25 FSAE and FSG, combining both datasets to reach 78 teams after finding only 30 FSAE teams had complete dynamic event results
The scores were normalized to percentages to account for different event weightings between competitions
I then fit linear trendlines to % vs mass plots for each dynamic event, generating prediction tables and graphs for mass sensitivity across the 350-650 lb range
Repeated analysis filtering for single-motor vehicles only (as UWFE runs a 1-motor configuration), plotting and comparing both datasets to quantify how much more mass-sensitive single-motor configurations are
Results?
Every 15 lbs of mass reduction yields roughly 24-28 additional dynamic points (~1.6-1.9 pts/lb) for a single-motor vehicle
Endurance identified as the most mass-sensitive event, losing 1.2 points per pound for single-motor vehicles vs 0.88 for the FSAE average
While the results do carry sources of error due to limited data points, the analysis still provided a rough quantitative basis for mass-based design trade-offs at competition
