Mechanical Engineering Department Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Introduction

The Formula SAE competition is designed to give engineering students the opportunity to design, fabricate, test and race formula style racing cars. Students must start from the ground up in a year long process that culminates in the Formula SAE competition, held every May in Pontiac, Michigan. The competition is sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), GM, Ford and Chrysler and it draws roughly 90 collegiate competitors from North America, South America and The United Kingdom.

Each team must design their cars on the premise that a manufacturing corporation has hired them to design a limited production car (1000 units) aimed towards the non-professional weekend autocrosser. As a result, the car must posses outstanding performance as well as ease of maintenance, solid reliability and low cost. The car must also be aesthetically pleasing, comfortable and innovative. The team's goal is to achieve these ideals as well as possible.

At the FSAE competition, each car is judged against the competitors to decide which team's car best achieves the goals, overall. The cars are judged in static design, dynamic abilities and track performance. The static events include categories such as production cost analysis, design, and a marketing presentation. The dynamic events include skid-pad and acceleration performance tests. To test the car's at-the-limit track abilities, the single "hot" lap autocross event is run. Reliability and fuel economy are then judged in the endurance event, the highlight of the competition.

In summary, the there are three main areas of judging.

• Static inspection and engineering design.
• Solo performance trials.
• High performance track endurance event with scoring on overall time and fuel economy.