Formula SAE

Ohh racecar.  The Formula SAE team at MIT, otherwise known as racecar, is a second home to me.  We reside in building N52, behind the MIT Museum, in a shared machine shop space with several other MIT vehicle teams.  I’ve slept in that shop, BBQ’d for the masses, and executed more mad engineering over  all nighters than any other place on campus.  It’s home to me in a lot of ways.

Here are a few of the pieces I’ve worked on.

Our first render of the new MIT FSAE car

The team teaches what few other projects at MIT can, which is the necessity of quality engineering in any project.  Our driver’s life lies in our hands when we finish putting the car together, and we must have complete faith in our engineering and design of the critical components on the car.  If we machine a part wrong, don’t check our sums, or don’t use our tools properly, the car can quickly fail once put to the ground, and this is our shared responsibility and liability.

Fortunately the team has a lot of background in executing rigorous design loops, and at the end of the day we haven’t had any major failures to date.  One of the greatest learning experiences I’ve had at MIT thus far has been building a part for FSAE, slaving in all the design and machining hours, only to put it on the car and have it fail utterly and completely.  Then the fun of analyzing the failure, looking for what variable was missed in the model or what error was made in the assembly.  Being in such an environment really brings out the true innovation and meat of an engineer, and in no other fashion do I think you can learn in a more genuine MIT way; really being out there using your mind and hands to assemble a very cool, very fast race car.

Various parts designed can be found throughout the website.  If it looks fast, it’s probably for racecar.

-Cd