The sun is about to set, marking the end of another hot, sunny, South Florida day. But not for Florida Atlantic University’s Owls Racing team. They’re about to pull another all-nighter — to get their car ready for this year’s Formula SAE competition.
Each year, over 100 student teams from across the world design, build and compete with other universities to build formula-style race cars. Formula SAE challenges undergraduate and graduate students to create, design, fabricate, develop, and compete with small, formula-style vehicles.
The team’s president, Andrew Olson, has been in the shop since 5 a.m. on this particular morning. “If I’m not at work or in class I’m here. And then if I’m not here I’m at home sleeping. More time here than anywhere honestly,” he said.
About a dozen students from the Owls Racing team are working in the shop, located in one of the engineering buildings at FAU’s Boca Raton campus.
The workshop is in disarray — tools and parts are everywhere. A digital timeclock is counting down the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds ... until the competition.
“So right now we're putting in our engine," Olson tells WLRN. "It's a 2005 Suzuki GSXR — a motorcycle engine. Per the rules, we’re limited on how many CC’s we can have — that’s the displacement of the engine. The max is 710. So we go with the 600.”
Formula SAE has been around since 1980. SAE stands for Society of Automotive Engineers.
Each year, students have to build a car from the ground up based on a set of rules — that can change slightly from year to year.
“This year, we had to make some changes to the chassis,” Olson said.
Then, the car is inspected and judged by volunteer engineers — based on design, cost, manufacturing and drive-timed events. Olson said that in past competitions, the team has had the opportunity to speak with engineers that work at big companies like Ford, GM and GE.
“We'll talk to the judges about why we did our designs, why we went with this material. They will ask … how would you make this cheaper? How would you go about manufacturing this?” Olson said.
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There is no wheel to wheel racing in this competition. Rather, the drive events are timed. And, it’s not just about how fast the car can go — but how fuel efficient it can be.
Said Olson: “So you want to be the most fuel efficient while setting the fastest time. So it's kind of that delicate balance of, you know, we can really go really fast in the car, but we're using a lot of gas. So then do we get a bigger gas tank or do we change the tune?”
Olson told WLRN that as a mechanical engineering major, this is a great way to get practical experience — and for graduates to get jobs.
“We'll start the year with nothing and a year later we'll have a race car. So it's a great way to actually get real world engineering experience and you actually get to learn how manufacturing works, how things are actually built and put together.”
According to the team’s vice president, Steffano Martinez, the team has about 26 active members. FAU’s Formula SAE chapter was founded in 2004 and competed for the first time in 2006. The students get some help from faculty advisors from the College of Engineering.
Martinez told WLRN that the team gets their funding from a variety of sponsors — local businesses, families, and from the university. Local companies such as Wilson Manifolds in Oakland Park and Thrust Tech Accessories in Fort Lauderdale, have helped the team with parts, labor or funding. The College of Engineering provides them a space for their workshop and purchased the trailer to transport the car. They save money by reusing parts.
Team operating budgets vary across the country — and can range from $5,000 to $80,000. The fee to enter the competition is $2,650.00 per team. That does not include travel expenses.
After putting the car together, the team did some last minute testing in an empty FAU parking lot last week, before packing it up to head to Michigan. The four-day competition at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, starts today.
