Cornell Racing, more properly known as Cornell Formula SAE (FSAE), is both a team and a research class in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. It is a community of students who work together to design, test, manufacture, and race a formula style, open-wheel race car. There are differences within the students who are involved with FSAE. As a freshman you are only allowed to volunteer, with a requirement of 10 hours a week. Undergraduate students taking it for credit must give an overall average of 20 hours a week. There are also graduate students who work on the car in respect to their graduate work and also have other requirements.
Cornell Racing has become one of my most interesting and important communities. A community is described by Haythornwaite as a web of “relationships that crisscross and reinforce one another” and “requires a measure of commitment to a set of shared values, mores, meanings and a shared historical identity.” (2007) Very similar to Haythornwaite is the idea from Gemeinschaft, which believes that communities are based on strong interpersonal ties, and a common purpose and language or identity. Lastly, a community can be more simply described as a group of actors (people) who are connected through ties, either strong or weak, and are focused around a central idea or activity. To better understand the dynamics of a community Haythornwaite uses the Social Network Analysis to investigate what is exchanged, communicated and shared within a community. This examination includes exploring the community’s social capital, which includes its social network, common ground, and reciprocity.
As previously stated a social network is made up of ties and actors. In my case the actors are other members of the team, our faculty advisors, and our sponsors. There are varying degrees of strength of ties between the actors and can be analyzed as either a strong or a weak tie. A strong tie implies frequent interaction whereas a weak tie is rare contact, but can lead to unique resources. An example of strong ties can be found between the student team members. Because we spend so much time together and all work so hard for a common goal this leads to stronger ties. Examples of weak ties would be our sponsors. We do not usually have much interaction with our sponsors, but they are great resources as they have access to information and materials that we don’t. Also many members of the team go on to work for various sponsors after graduation.
Cornell Racing has its own logo, which is put on everything from the car to team apparel. Team apparel is a form of common ground because it is worn to competitions, sponsorship meetings, and even on a daily basis to class. Another example of common ground is the challenging entrance requirements in order for one to become a team member. Every member of the team has to undergo extensive interviews and is then hand selected by the team. The class requirements are also forms of common ground that help to strengthen the ties of the team. Everyone on the team have similar requirements from putting in so many hours a week to our design presentations (preliminary, secondary, and final design). Common ground is shared not only by what we wear, how we got in, or what we have to do, but also by our shared interests and goals. Everyone on the team has an interest in cars in some shape, whether it’s the mechanical, electrical, or design part of them. The team also has a goal to win at competition. So far the Cornell FSAE team have been 9-time world champions, and we hope to make it 10 after this spring.
Our community is strengthened not only by factors like common ground, but also because Cornell Racing incorporates both FtF and CMC into our daily interactions and this helps to strengthen the ties within the community. This idea that communities which combine the use of the face-to-face and computer mediated communication create stronger bonds and share more frequently and effectively than communities that only use one of these systems is shared by Etzioni and Etzioni. There are various examples of both the FtF and CMC interactions within the team. Some examples of our FtF interactions include out weekly meetings with our Faculty Advisor, subteam meetings, driving days, and normal interactions when working in the lab. Our community also has various ways of interacting online such as our list serves and website.
Our team has several list serves, from one for the entire team to smaller ones for each subteam. These list serves create constant interaction through emails regarding updates about the car, help needed, parts, sponsors, and etcetera. There is also one additional list serve known as nasty, which is another interior sub culture of the team. A member of the team can get “nasty-ed” if they leave their account or email open on one of the team computers. If the unfortunate team member leaves their email open then usually another member of the team will make an email from their account with funny or absurd comments and such and send it to the nasty list serve. This will usually result in good natured teasing the following day.
These online and offline interactions lead to a high level of reciprocity. Not only is there a high level of response to actions and thoughts of one another, but these responses are often positive in nature. We often congratulate each other on a good well done, encourage each other for working hard, and enjoy the general good attitude of the team. Although it is infrequent there are times when there are negative responses, but it usually for the good of the team or individual. For example if someone is goofing around with one of the machines they may be reprimanded, but this is done with concern for their safety.
Cornell Racing is a unique community that is an experience to remember for a lifetime.
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6 comments:
Dear Lauren,
Really interesting post! I enjoyed reading about the different parts of the Cornell Racing community since I did not know much about it. You explained how the team members interact with each other using Social Network Analysis very effectively. I think it is very interesting how you mentioned the team logo as part of your shared common ground. This clearly helps strengthen the bonds between you and your teammates and is part of a shared language, which is one of the requirements to have a community. Great job!
Hey Lauren,
Really nice post. Your community was really interesting to read about. I was especially surprised about how much time you put in. wow! I also really liked your analysis of strong and weak ties, the examples you used with your teammates creating strong ties, while your sponsors are weak ties was really good. Your paragraph on how FtF and CMC communication serve to build even stronger bonds as Etzioni and Etzioni suggested was very interesting to see, and something I also found in the community I looked at. I also enjoyed your point about the “nasty” list-serve and how that has become a part of the culture of the club as well. I wonder what Haythornthwaite would say about this with regards to how it adds to or takes away from the ties between actors. Great post!
Lauren,
Great post. I was very impressed at all the detail you put in. It’s particularly interesting as one of my housemates is on the team. The community I talked about (the marching band) had a very similar mixture of FtF and CMC. I thought the “Nasty” list serve was amusing. It’s interesting that there’s a separate list serve just for that kind of post. In contrast, the marching band just has tons of spam on the main list serve. There is a distinct difference between the organizations with how you said negative responses were usually for the good of the team. I’ve seen many negative emails that are certainly not for the good of anyone. Maybe it’s because of the size of the groups, or the higher pressure of having an actual competition to plan for.
Hey,
I found you post to be really interesting, especially since I am a mechanical engineer too. I always see the FSAE guys (and girls) working late into the night in Upson and now I can see the dedication they have. I might even join the team for my senior design project.
I wanted to ask though, FSAE is a very successful team and has a winning history. Do you think the level of dedication and time put into the team would be different if this was not so? Do you think the sense of 'team' would suffer as well?
Caslynn
I liked how you labeled your sponsors as weak ties; I wouldn’t have thought of it that way, because the sponsors would not traditionally be considered in the FSAE community. That is an excellent categorization because only a handful of members would be associated with the sponsors in face-to-face rather than most or all of the community, and the sponsors have excellent ties to resources not otherwise available. In that respect, the adviser can also be considered a weak tie, because he or she has access to the faculty, school resources, and other network ties, which can be offered to a student community would not otherwise have them. Also, the interaction between offline and online elements that you describe highlights the importance of the online community, even for what would traditionally be a strongly face-to-face club.
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