Then & Now
By Judy Salamacha
Competition Drives Innovation
Racing is the adrenalin rush for success. Pitting your team’s creation up against the competition and winning means future bragging rights for the 80-plus members of Cal Poly Racing.
It’s proof-positive that the months — even years — the team has devoted to problem solving has triumphed through innovation and applied lessons learned. Competition is the final exam to test student engineers’ readiness to excel in their future careers.
“What we do, we do it all from scratch,” said John Culliton, president of the extra-curricular program Cal Poly Racing. “We could be the best team Cal Poly Racing has had in 30 years. For the first time we put three cars into competition and did well, and learned a lot. We’re ready to do even better this year.”
However, the three team leaders agree their big competition is the well-funded European teams attending trade schools with government funding. Cal Poly Racing needs some angels — sponsors to fund their chances to bring home the trophies.
Hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineering, the team hopes to compete in three divisions: Formula SAE (combustion engine), Formula SAE Electric, and Baja SAE.
The program demands students collaborate on research, design, project planning and managing, manufacturing and testing their vehicles. Competition is their opportunity to test endurance and performance worthiness in metrics such as acceleration, handling, and braking.
The teams must also deliver a formal business presentation demonstrating reliability, serviceability, affordability, and safety.
“It is a feat of engineering to build a car in nine months and carry a full class load,” said Culliton. “We are one of the few programs that the cars are built from start to finish in a year’s time. During the car’s second year, we perfect it with replacement parts and competition.”
Most programs are senior projects, but Cal Poly’s is open to all class levels.
Ryan Fatland is the team leader for the Baja competition. He explained they took ninth place, and damaged their composite floorboards. Intensive testing remedied the problem.
If not a win, the Baja Team’s goal is a Top-5 finish in April at Auburn University, Alabama and Portland in May.
Design elements that produce efficiency and cost savings also score points. The Poly student engineers have developed a custom steering rack, which all three teams will use.
In 2014, Formula SAE achieved a team best effort taking 26th at Michigan International Speedway competing against 118 teams. Henrique Chan leads the combustion team.
Weight and reliability is their challenge, however, since the group survived the 30-minute endurance test at Michigan there is good reason to anticipate a Top-10 finish in 2015.
Just as the electric car is evolving as an industry, so goes racing SAE Electric. Thomas Wilkon is that team’s leader. At the competition last year in Kansas only 15 teams showed up to compete and three ended up racing.
Wilkon said, “Competition is based on safety and reliability. It is taking longer to develop and live up to the current regulations. When many of our classmates are out partying, we’re in the garage working on the racecars. We work hard on real projects which makes us prime engineering candidates for future employment.”
For example, after graduation this year Formula SAE team member Michael Dutra will start work at General Motors. Cal Poly Racing Team members are regularly hand-picked for summer internships at places like Space X, Tesla, BMW, and Airbus to name a few.
Cullitan confirmed Cal Poly is also a major partner in a California Engineering Coalition with Sacramento State, Fullerton, Northridge, San Jose State, UC Davis, and Berkeley. The programs share innovations while in school and graduates aspiring to career achievements, help each other with employment and engineering concepts to better their industry.
Who will help Cal Poly Racing bring home the checkered? The Baja Team needs $13,000 and the Formula SAE Teams will need a combined $23,000 to participate in 2015 competition. All donations are tax deductible, sponsors are recognized and race car and team appearances can be arranged.
Individuals or companies that wish to encourage the students’ entrepreneurial efforts should check out sponsor guidelines on Facebook or at: www.calpolysae.org. Photo by Judy Salamacha Cal Poly Racing.
