Formula SAE Lincoln is an international collegiate design competition held by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Engineering students from all over the world design, build, and test formula style racecars that are then entered into one or more of eight total competitions held around the world. FSAE Lincoln is open to 80 cars from 80 different universities. Ranking in the competition is dependent on a score based on a 1000 point scale with points coming from design, cost, sales presentations, and racing events

UC Irvine has had great success in the past competitions, winning the top spot in fuel efficiency in 2010 and 2011 with the cars Delta and Epsilon. This was followed by a hiatus from internal combustion (IC) vehicles to focus on electric vehicles. UCI’s IC car team was brought back 2 years ago through the first revision of Savage. In the 2015 competition, Savage successfully completed all technical inspection tests except the brake test due to rod end failure. Last year, Savage 2 was able to improve significantly compared to the original car. We were able pass tech inspection easily and competed in every static and dynamic event, ultimately placing 37th overall. Unfortunately, we were unable to complete the Endurance event as the car’s center of gravity was too high causing the car to get up on two wheels at times. We had never seen this issue on our test track before because the level of grip provided by the tarmac at the competition in Lincoln is much higher than Lot 16H.

The team’s goal is to have a running car complete by the end of Spring break. In order to reach our ambitious goal, we plan to incorporate design freezes on each of the vehicle’s subsystems. As a result, the entire car will be fully modeled and designed by November 29. Once the design is complete, manufacturing and assembly will begin in early January. However, the chassis design is already complete and we will begin manufacturing the chassis starting this week! We plan on the entire manufacturing process to take about three months. We have set a deadline for a running car by April 2. Following manufacturing, shakedown testing will begin in early April followed by rigorous testing and tuning of the car throughout April and June.

This year’s car, codenamed Mantis, is based on the Savage 2 design, but we have made many significant changes. The center of gravity will be lowered substantially and the entire suspension system will be dramatically improved with the addition of front and rear ant-roll bars and new geometry. We are certain that Mantis will be the highest performance and best placing FSAE vehicle ever produced by the Anteater Racing team.

This project provides university students the opportunity to apply the theory learning in class to a real-world project. Students gain valuable hands-on experience, design experience, and communication skills essential for a successful career in Engineering. Team members will be able to learn skills such as team management, time management, organization, engineering design, fabrication, and the unique chance to develop a product.