The FSAE competition is pretty much a time and place for teams to show off a year of hard work and dedication. The first day is spent by having FSAE rules experts meticulously look over your car and gear to make sure you have met all the required templates and specifications. This is where actually reading the rules comes in quite handy! We also have to go through a tilt test to check that the car does not leak any fluids and the exhaust noise has to be at or below 110dBc. Next we have to pass a brakes test where we must lock up all 4 tires. We do all of this while also participating in a cost, business and design presentation. During these presentations we present the information to professionals who then critique and score our presentations. We finished 25th in design, 48th in business, and 42nd in cost.
The last two days is where all the fun is as we actually get to participate in the dynamic events which are acceleration, skidpad, autocross and endurance. The acceleration event is to see how fast your car can traverse a set length in a straight line and our car had the 39th fastest time in this event. Skidpad is essentially a figure eight that tests how well your suspension works in a sweeping turn. Our best time around one circle was 5.355s which earned us 24th place in skidpad. Next up is autocross which is a course set up with cones consisting of slaloms and tight turns. We placed 22nd in the autocross event. The endurance event is actually two events in one. The first is the actual endurance race and the second is a fuel economy score. We had the 29th best fuel economy score but unfortunately we were not able to finish the endurance race as we ran out of fuel approximately 200 yards from the finish line. All of these event scores can be summed up into a 29th overall finish for this year’s team.