Suggestions for BajaSAE.net

I'll start with a few things that have been suggested already.  Share your thoughts about these.

-FAQ / Knowledge Base for the official BajaSAE rules
(published and maintained by the National Tech Inspectors)
Every year people always complain about the BajaSAE Rules.  Many teams have made the statement that, in order to be able to understand the rules, you have to simply have been to competition at least once and learned by the experience.  It's definitely true that few things are better than having been to a competition to observe everything before the first time you compete.  But this is not always possible for first-season teams, and it should not be a requirement in order to be able to understand the rules and comply with them.  And yes, everyone agrees (officials included) that some of the rules are "stupid".  Finally, suffice it to say that in *some cases* the rules are non-specific by design, and are left to be evaluated in their full extent within the context and competition at hand.  Doing so is not always the best idea, but usually attempting to explicitly state every possible option is equally as impractical.  Such is the reality of organizing engineering events.  Etc, etc. 

I don't want to go on and on about every problem with the rules.  What I do want to do is discuss how we might make them (or access to them, and discussion of them) better.  I think we can all agree that some means by which we can better understand what is meant by the rules would be a big step forward.  The FAQ / Knowledge Base system could essentially supersede the email-only process that we currently have in place, and could become THE place to go to easily ask questions (and find answers) to rules-related topics. 

Imagine there is a rule about which you had a question--say "seat belt mounting".  Suppose you could jump to the rule by entering "33.2.3", or find it by searching for any rules that mention "shoulder belts".  Once there, you can read the rule itself and also see a list of all questions that had been asked about that particular rule, and even read the responses to those questions from the National Techs.  You could "subscribe" to that rule's  section, so that whenever someone asks another question related to that rule (or a Tech answers one), you get a notification to check it out.  You could even ask your own question (publicly or privately) and get an authoritative answer.  Also, from season to season as the rules committee changes the rules, you can be notified (once they are released) about exactly which sections changed from last year and start getting clarification on those items sooner rather than later.  If you think about it, much of this information is already available, but the ways which we currently manage it make finding, accessing, or even becoming aware of it a challenge.  In this age, there is no reason for that.  We can have the tools to handle this much better as long as we can see where it is that we want to be, and are willing to adapt that into our workflow.

In order for a system like this to ever work, it would of course have to have support from the National Techs and SAE, which is definitely not a given at this point.  Still, I think the idea has a lot of potential to provide better management of the rules and the other information that teams need to fully understand their meaning.  I also believe that something like this would ultimately make life easier for the Teams and the National Techs, while enabling both to do a better job.

Free candy...?

Nah man I know that dude, his name's Jim and his van is white but he's totally legit.

A list of good Baja vendors and their discounts sounds like a great idea to me.  I'll put it on the list.  Thanks!

Last year I asked Douglas about the discount and they said they weren't doing it anymore. I think they said it was because they didn't have enough money for it. 

Thanks, Adam.  That's a great suggestion, and one that we are hoping to be able to do during the first race this season at Auburn. 

The only thing that makes me hesitate even a moment on it is that I'm not sure how SAE will react.  In the recent past, they have expressed irritation that our forums even exist, citing that it basically competes for attention with the "official" SAE forums.  Unfortunately, they could probably give us hell if they wanted to get nasty about things. 

However, upon us finding that FormulaSAE has their own independent forum (and apparently has for some time time now), there is a better precedent for the BajaSAE forums too.  In fact, I really feel that I should have started this forum back in the early 2000s when the ideas first came up.

In any case, I really feel this site (especially the forums) has a lot to offer the Baja community, and that the benfits outweigh the risks of angering SAE.  (And, if they'd hear me out about the topic, I really feel that they would actually agree.)  Therefore, I'm going to try to do my best to spread the word about BajaSAE.net at the upcoming competition.  I'd ask for you guys' help also.  Let people know that we've got a good thing started and to come be involved!

Thanks for your support,
-Mike

Agreed that the official forum is terrible...  more active members would help this one flourish. 

Classifieds section created. Clicky

Shazaam!


Edited by JeremyB - 2009-Feb-02 at 11:35am

It may have already been suggested but I would like to see a "Build Progress" section of the forum where each team could start up their own thread to post pictures and updates on how their build is coming.

Hey how about making some stickers with the URL to post on the cars of the people that are already part of the forum! I wouldn't mind... would have to see what the rest of the team says but I bet that one sticker is good for at least 3 hp!!

Haha.  Awesome!  Downloaded...  Thanks guys.  I'll see what I can do.

Hey guys,
I had other ideas about what the forum could do.

First, there should be a search function.  This will keep people from making posts that already exist.

Second if it is possible a page to post links to team's videos from competition and testing.

I imagine it would work like this.  I can post a video on my site, but the chance someone searches for my exact "baja hopkins" link is low, the same issue exists on youtube,  typing baja sae only gets you so far, also the quality stinks.  What we need is a list that has say team name and them links added below them.  This allows people to come to this site and see where the videos are and then click the link to them.  Basically it is a Baja video catalog.


Example

Ohio State
video 1
video 2
Johns Hopkins University
video 1
video 2 --(perhaps and explanation of what the video is of)
..etc

USF's page has a good example of this type of organization.  It will work well because BajaSAE.net does not have to host the video's, just hold the links, this allows any format also (WMV, Quicktime, Youtube,).

I would really like this because it would allow more people in the baja community to see my video; I am sure the other teams would want the same type of centralized area for their videos. 


My ideas for the site,

Later,
Adam