Some clubs watch movies. Some play sports. One builds racecars on nights and weekends. Tucked away in an NC State research building off Ligon Street, a team of NC State students works throughout the year to design and test a working racecar.
The team, named after the competition they compete in each May, is called Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers). They operate, along with another building team, under the name Wolfpack Motorsports. Members of SAE work to build five different subsystems: chassis, suspension, aerodynamics, powertrain and electronics.
“The scope of this project is pretty large,” said Collin Walther, an NC State graduate and former team captain of Formula SAE. “There are several subsystems that are designed independently. Bringing it all together is a challenge.”
During the summer, core members of the team set goals for the following year. Come fall, the team recruits and focuses on designing the car. Near the end of October, the team moves on from designing the car to beginning manufacturing, which ends around February.
“It’s pretty demanding,” Walther said. “We’re trying to be more aggressive. We’re always trying to get the car manufactured quicker so that we have more time to test it.”
Once the car is built, the team tests it in preparation for their first competition, a week-long, Formula SAE competition hosted in Brooklyn, Michigan. According to Walther, teams from all over the world compete and the event is largely run and attended by representatives from automotive industry leaders like Ford and GM. The event also attracts NASCAR teams like Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports.
“Employers love that hands-on experience because a lot of people don’t get that just getting their degree,” said Eric Mandelblit, one of two co-captains for Formula SAE and a senior studying mechanical engineering. “It’s a really good opportunity for people to get involved and get a good experience. “I just love getting involved hands-on because classes are not hands-on, they are more theory and high level stuff. Being able to do something hands-on is great.”
The team builds the car in a lab space in the West Research Annex building, an NC State facility on West Campus. Walther said that building’s isolated nature has its benefits.
“It’s off main campus and off centennial,” Walther said. “We can work late, make noise and not upset anybody.”
Walther said that other teams he meets at competitions always have difficulty testing or tuning their engines late at night when students are free to work, a problem the Formula SAE team doesn’t have.
“I really want to help change the way we organize the club because, as engineers, we don’t really focus on organization; we focus more on the engineering side,” Mandelblit said. “I want to really help with the organization because I think that is what is going to bring us to the next level.”
Mandelblit said it can often be difficult to keep track of what revision each subsystem team is on. This has led to problems in the past, such as a chassis being redesigned without the body work team knowing, which resulted in the chassis not fitting the car.
“We had to leave it as it was because that part was really time consuming to make,” Mandelblit said. “We used tape to kind of seal it where it was too big.”
Mandelblit said the club plans to recruit potential new members at different events at the beginning of the year. People interested in joining can find the team at Campus Connections on August 15, Engineering College Connections on August 15 and the Engineering Welcome Back Bash on August 24. Their table will be the one with a race car parked next to it.
