F-SAE Competition
The Formula SAE competition provides an opportunity for Engineering students to conceive, design, fabricate, and then compete with small formula-style racing cars. The competition is run in Australia, England and the USA with the aim of giving students hands-on experience in an engineering project. Each year teams must build a new car from scratch to compete.
In most cases the car is powered by a motorbike engine and transmission, while the rest of the car is designed and built by the students. At the competition, cars are assessed in static and dynamic events. Static events involve assesing the standard of design, cost-effectiveness and production feasibility of the team's car. In dynamic events the cars are assesed on their acceleration performance, fuel economy, skidpan times, lap times and reliabilty in an endurance event.
The competition has a strict set of rules such as found in many forms of motorsport. Most of these rules are safety issues, and a broad range car platforms and configurations are permitted. This allows students the freedom to persue ideas such as full aerodynamic packages and drivetrain / suspension configurations right through to AWD, rear steering and electronic driver aides such as traction control.
The competition also promotes effective engineering management, teamwork and mateship. At Monash, team members are given the opportunity to pick up new skills by completing TAFE courses in welding, machining and CAD all free of charge thanks to our sponsors Chisholm TAFE, Box Hill TAFE and PLM. Participation in the team is also a great opportunity to establish contacts in the Automotive and Engineering industries as building the car requires a great deal of liason between suppliers, workshops, sponsors and so on. At some point all students will get the chance to get behind the wheel of the car they helped build.
For more information on the competition check out the official FSAE website at: