Judges’ Advice: Design Report

Following a few enquiries about the "Design Report" templates, we thought it might be best to issue an advice note on this subject from Neill Anderson, Head Design Judge

First of all, the starting point for any question is to read the Rules. The Rules (Part S, Article 6) define the Design report structure and there is literally tons of advice on the Internet: a lot of it written by me!

There is no pro forma or template for the Design Report, but if your University has taken part in Formula Student before, you will most likely have your own template on file. As per the structure definition in the Rules, the report should be 8 pages of A4, comprising 4 pages of text, 3 separate engineering drawing views (plan, side, end, a page each) and one optional page to use for images, tables etc. Do not use newspaper style columns. The worst approach is to follow University report protocols or structures. Do not consider a cover page, do not place images or tables in the text and please try to outline the key objectives up front and conclude at the end whether they were met.

Remember that whilst the UK rules are very similar to the FSAE rules, the UK event has one key overall difference: Class 1 and 2 allow for EV or hybrid to go head to head with IC cars. This is the first fundamental design choice.

The FS UK Score Sheets are on this website under Forms and Documents and show points broken down by category.

Tip: A sensible person may allocate report text in order of points importance!

For any further guidance, get in touch with the team at fs@imeche.org