Formula Student (FSAE) Germany - Driverless

[Won]

This year, Formula Student Germany had a new class for driverless cars. ETH Zurich's runs:
Run 1 - 2h59m
Run 2 - 5h42m



Personally, I thought FS/FSAE is beneficial but not crucial experience for students wanting to get into the industry. Aside from well-funded and (too) professionally-organised teams coming from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, my experience is it's mostly kids who all think they're the next Newey or Reynard doing whatever they want, without proper feedback or academic supervision. I have heard that racing teams don't always prefer students who spent all their 7 years of undergraduate () doing FS, because then they're already stuck in a certain mindset whether it's right or wrong. Besides, building and racing "traditional" race car has been going on for a long time, so doing "traditional" FS is somewhat derivative and at best, an academic exercise.

But with the growth of electric competition, and now the driverless competition, things are completely different. These kids will be the experts in this field, simply because there is so little of the industry out there. It's exciting times for sure. I'm just glad, for my own job security, that even electric and driverless cars would need a chassis and four wheels. For now anyway.

[tomgalloway1]

Carthropozine - end of an era. Long lines of self driving cars obeying every rule. Freedom to burn gas tires and oil will be dictated by algorithim.

Robo cops ,drones, and photo enforcement will drain the joy of the open road. Asphalt pirates - usually driving old BMW,s - will be hunted down electronically and suppressed.

Not a pretty picture