Only around 60% of cars at Silverstone pass scrutineering each year, which causes frustration for teams that cannot then compete in the dynamic events. These 10 top tips will help to ensure that teams get out on track and collect those valuable dynamic event points.
1. Read the rules
Make sure you read the rules thoroughly, including the supplementary rules published on the Formula Student website. FSAE Online also has useful information on several areas of the rules, including the full drawing for the standard impact attenuator, example frame layouts that are acceptable arrangements for the front bulkhead support and main hoop bracing support structures (the two areas teams most frequently get wrong).
2. Ask questions
If you have any doubts about an aspect of your design, or once you’ve got a basic layout for your frame, submit a rules question on the FSQD with a few simple images for comment. Any mistake or issue captured at this stage will be much easier to address at the concept stage. When submitting rules questions please include the rules reference you are querying and try to use engineering language. Like many aspects of Formula Student this is good practice for the future world of work, but it also makes our lives much easier when answering your questions. Do not use slang or jargon!
3. Remember templates
You should have a representation of the 95th percentile template in your design schemes (as well as a 5th percentile female if you want a few easy design points!). Make sure this has the required clearance to the required limits; adding 10mm or more on to the limits is a good idea to account for build errors and manufacturing tolerances. The same applies for the cockpit templates. Manufacture your own templates and use these to check your chassis as it’s manufactured.
4. Check, check and check again
Check the size of the tubes you are welding into your chassis multiple times before welding them in. Adding colour coded paint marks to the tubes you’ve already checked is a useful visual aid for one final check before welding. We have an uncanny knack of finding tubes with incorrect wall thickness. Are we psychic, or do we have some other kind of mystical power? A little; years of scrutineering does that to you. But having an ultra-sonic wall thickness tester also helps!
5. Submit on time
Scrutineering effectively starts with the various document submissions (SES, IAD etc). Submit these early and you will get a response from the reviewers much quicker than if you submit on the last day (it’s a deadline not a requirement!), giving you more time to make any changes required in good time before the event.
6. Be your own scrutineers
If you have a running car from previous years, get in to the habit of running your own scrutineering checks each time before taking it out testing. This is strongly recommended from a safety point of view anyway, but has the additional benefit of getting you familiar with the items on the Technical Inspection form, meaning you’re much less likely to arrive at the event with simple errors that cost you valuable time to fix. The tech form from the previous year’s event is usually published on the FS website. If it’s not, submit a rules question to remind us!
7. Learn how to lock-wire
Make sure you know how to lock-wire properly. There are plenty of examples available online, but be sure to check a few resources and not blindly trust the first one you find.
8. Contact us
Try to make contact with an experienced scrutineer who is happy to visit your university. We have judges and volunteers based all around the UK, many of whom will be more than happy to come and have a look at your car before the event. Once you find someone, remember to thank them (beer or chocolate is almost universally well received!) and try to establish an ongoing arrangement, including for future years.
9. Get the right drivers equipment
Compared to the FSAE Rules, UK teams have a much reduced list of acceptable types for helmets and driver suits (these are based on those accepted by the MSA for that competition year). Make sure you check your drivers equipment against that listed in the Formula Student supplementary rules.
10. Get in the queue early
Secure your place in the scrutineering queue by “pre-scrutineering” your car. This requires that you have a car that is in a running condition, or very close to this around two weeks before the event. The pre-scrutineering form is an edited version of that year’s tech form and is usually the first chance you’ll get to see how it differs from the previous year's (which you have of course already downloaded and familiarised yourself with...!). I’m certain that many teams just add the required photos and tick the box for each section without actually running through the checks on the car. This is a waste of your time and ours. Getting you to run through the tech form items before the event is to try and help you not hinder you!
If you don’t manage to secure a place in the queue before the event make sure you do it as soon as possible at the event. I could tell you how to do this now, but in the interest of encouraging you to pre-scrutineer your car I won’t.
There’s a high likelihood that if you follow all of the above, your experience of scrutineering at the event will be relatively pain-free. There are a few things that even the experienced teams can forget, though:
- Use the 95th percentile template you lovingly crafted earlier in the year to check if the driving position is reclined or not. If it is reclined, have you got the right harness type and appropriate number of sun-belts?
- Make sure your harnesses have the required quick-adjusts. You will not pass scrutineering if they don’t
- We require that you use arm restraints as well as the driver's safety harness
- You may be waiting outside in the queue or between the different stages of technical inspection. Having an easy-up to shelter you from the Silverstone elements may turn out to be the best thing you brought to the event (other than your beautifully prepared car of course!)
- Present your car at scrutineering on your dry tyres. If you arrive with wets you’ll be asked to change them
- You should have used the push-bar to bring your car to scrutineering. Please make sure you don’t leave these on the ground as they are a trip hazard
- Your car should have an empty fuel tank but water and oil should be full. We may ask you to crank your engine
- Don’t forget the stickers for the master switches (checking the master switches work as required is a given, but there are a good few teams each year where they don’t)
- If you’re using the standard impact attenuator we’ll want to see the proof of purchase
- Bring your test samples (IA and monocoque where appropriate). We’ll want a good look at these too
- The maximum number of team members in scrutineering is four. You should all have the required dynamics passes displayed. The same four people don’t have to go through all of scrutineering. Keep your tallest driver close by as we’ll definitely need them for the driver egress check, but they may be asked to jump in the car at other stages
- Come prepared with the tools required to remove your wheels, bodywork, impact attenuator and any other items that obstruct visible access to items on the tech form
- Garage stands can save our elderly backs whilst poring over your car, so they’re generally a good idea. However, if they’re not sturdy we definitely won’t use them!
- Have some team members waiting outside the gate in case you forget something or you need a particular tool
- Lastly, be nice to the scrutineers. They’ve given up their free time and without them there wouldn’t be a Formula Student event to compete in.
GOOD LUCK!
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