7
TERTIARY
Building a race car gives budding designers a
chance to compete against other universities.
By danielle wright
STuDeNTS AT THe university of
Auckland are readying themselves
for another attempt to test their engineering skills in the development of
an open wheel racecar, as part of the
annual formula SAe Australasia event
held in Melbourne each December.
originally known as the SAe Mini
indy, the student design competition - organised by SAe international
(Society of Automotive engineers) has been running since the All Blacks
scored their first grand slam victory
over all four home unions, back in 1978.
it took a few years to organise a
proper event, though, which happened in 1981 in America, with the
first event held in Australia in 2000.
There are now 500 universities competing worldwide.
The university of Auckland formula
SAe co-team leader isaac Grigor was
new to the group last year and now
spends about 40 hours a week working
on the yearlong project.
“it’s not worth anything to our
degree, and isn’t even an official
paper,” says isaac, who admits no one
on the team is allowed to be failing any
papers if they’re on the team. “There’s
a huge amount of work that goes into
designing everything, even the smallest components that look simple.”
The university of Auckland formula
SeA team first competed back in 2004,
bagging the fiSiTA Best Rookie Award
The University of Auckland
team is aiming for a podium
finish in the annual Formula
SAE event.
Pic by Ted Baghurst