FAU Students Finish 8th in International Competition
By: Jason Schwartz
Students from Florida Atlantic University finished eighth in an international miniature racecar design competition recently.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) racing team competed in the two-day competition at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.
“It’s incredible to see so many teams coming together for this one event knowing that everyone worked as hard as we did to get here,” said Emma Cusano, chassis design team leader for SAE. “The massive spectrum of engineering ingenuity displayed by all the teams made this a unique learning experience.
We also had the opportunity to interact with engineers from all parts of the automotive industry,” Cusano said. “It’s a privilege to be able to participate in Formula SAE Michigan.”
Teams were judged on design, cost, presentation, acceleration, endurance, fuel economy, skid pad, autocross, innovative design concepts, brakes and noise, power train development and three view drawing.
The eight-person team, made up of interdisciplinary students in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, included Cusano, John Palmbach, Daniel Barak, Sitki Sipahioglu, Christian Caracci, Tim Bambu, Andrew Goodwin and Jonathan Taylor. Support also came from advisor, Oren Masory, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering at FAU and Fred Knapp, a machinist at the university.
The Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering faculty are very proud of the SAE team’s recent accomplishment, said Javad Hashemi, Ph.D., chair of FAU’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering.
“With limited time and budget, the team was able to design and build a car from the ground up with the help of FAU faculty, staff and local business owners,” he said.
The Formula SAE is a student design competition, organized by SAE International, for student members to conceive, design, fabricate and compete with small formula-style race cars. The concept behind the race is that a fictional manufacturing company wants a design team to develop a small formula-style race car which will be tested for its potential use in their production line. The restrictions on the car frame and engine are limited so that the knowledge, creativity and imagination of the students are challenged. The cars are built over one year and are taken to the annual competition for judging and comparison with approximately 120 other vehicles from colleges and universities around the world.
The competition included teams from the United States, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea and Venezuela.
