What is Formula SAE?

      The Formula SAE competition is an annual competition that began in 1981.  It has grown from six schools to over 140 universities participating, with teams from all over the globe.  The purpose of the competition is to conceive, design, and build a formula style race car, and then compete against 140 different universities at the competition.  In order to give teams the most flexibility in design, rules are kept to a minimum, such as limiting engine size and restrictor diameter.  The students are challenged to design a formula style race car to market to the weekend autocross racer.  This car and the team then participate in several static and dynamic events at competition.  The static events include a design presentation, cost presentation, and a marketing presentation, and the dynamic events include acceleration, skid-pad, autocross, endurance, and fuel economy events.  A total of 1000 points is possible, with 350 points coming from the endurance event.  Each team is challenged to find the best compromise between performance, cost, design, ease of maintenance and several other factors to develop the best race car possible.

U of E in FSAE

    The University of Evansville’s involvement in Formula SAE traces back 13 years.  The first year the university went to competition was in 1995, finishing in 79th of 84.  After this, it wasn’t until 2001 that the school returned to Michigan, placing 98th of 125.  The team was then not seen again at competition until 2005.  The team was fairly young, and while it only placed 109th of 140 schools, this experience gave them the desire to do something the other two teams couldn’t—return to competition the very next year.  In 2006, their persistence paid off, as the team gained 33 positions over 2005’s mark to improve to 76th of 140, while also scoring points in all events except for the endurance event.  In 2007, the third consecutive year of competition, the team gained 15 positions from 2006 to finish 61st overall.  In the presentation event, the team finished in the Top 30. In the skid-pad and design events, the team finished in the Top 40.  UE Formula SAE is poised to improve upon these results in 2008 as it continues to transform students into well-rounded engineers.  Many of the same members from these three previous teams will be returning for 2008, with a new design already in the works.

Team Members

Email:  formulasae@csserver.evansville.edu  |  University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Avenue, Evansville, IN 47722  |  800-423-8633  |  Comments or Suggestions: ns51@evansville.edu