Telemetry helps Formula SAE team close the loop on design

Once a year, a team of students at Virginia Tech get to do something that ought to put a grin on any aspiring engineer's face: build a racecar.

THE PREMISE BEHIND FORMULA SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contacted a design team to develop a small Formula-style racecar for the nonprofessional weekend autocross racer. Thousands of students at hundreds of colleges and universities participate on Formula SAE teams every year. Each team designs, builds, and tests a prototype, and at the end of the year, the teams gather in Michigan or Nebraska to compete on the basis of cost, presentation, design, acceleration, skid pad, autocross, endurance, and economy.

“We run our team continuously,” said Virginia Tech University Associate Professor and team faculty adviser Dr. Bob West. “With our philosophy of balancing education and competition, it is very difficult to get our students up to speed in just a year or so. We encourage freshmen and sophomores to get involved. The serious discussion about the design and concepts for our 2013 entry started in the fall of 2011, so we can devote the 2012-13 academic year to building, testing, and optimization.”