About Formula Sae
What is Formula Sae?
Formula Sae is an international engineering competition between universities around the world.
The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules whose purpose is both to ensure onsite event operations and promote clever problem solving.
Formula SAE promotes careers and excellence in engineering as it encompasses all aspects of the automotive industry including research, design, manufacturing, testing, developing, marketing, management and finances. Formula SAE takes students out of the classroom and allows them to apply textbook theories to real work experiences.
Today, the competition has expanded and includes a number of spin off events. In the United States there are three locations: California, Michigan, and Virginia; Michigan being the largest event and longest running.
Formula Sae attracts entries from universities all over the World, from the UK, mainland Europe and from the Americas, Asia and Australasia. For the universities, Formula Sae represents a valuable project that blends academic work and learning with the development of practical engineering skills. They are increasingly using it to attract school leavers to their degree programmes, and to forge closer links with local industry.
The automotive and motorsport industries in particular, and many other high technology engineering companies, know just how important the continuing supply of high quality engineers is to their success. For them, involvement in Formula Sae helps them maintain and develop that supply. At a time when many university engineering courses have difficulty filling their places, Formula Sae uses the excitement and appeal of motorsport to open young minds to the world of possibilities that a career in engineering involves, and gives them a wealth of real experience to prepare them for success in that career.
Competition Events:
The competition consists of both dynamic and static events, as well as, a technical inspection that must be passed in order to compete.
Static events: - Design event (150 points)
- Cost event (100 points)
- Presentation event (75 points)
Dynamic events: - Acceleration (75 Points)
- Skid Pad (75 Points)
- Autocross (100 Points)
- Endurance and Fuel Economy (325 +100 Points)
TOTAL : -1000 points.
CLASSES
Class 1
Main class in the Formula Student category. Competitors have to deal with 7 tests (4-3 static dynamic) and pass the relevant safety tests (braking, noise in the exhaust gas, leaking fluids, ergonomics)
Class 2
In this class will hand a project in which the minimum requirement is that the chassis of the vehicle is built. "Class 2" are just static events (presentation event - design event - cost event). Each event is scored for each team.
Class 3
Class 3 is designed for teams that go for the first time to the competition. The main goal of this class is to have completed a project with a detailed design. There is no need for any component to be built to gain access to this class. Only the static event is scored.
UPM Racing team, in their participation in the 2008 season, won the FIRST PLACE in the design event for CLASS 1 (series 200)
