12A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2006
Engineers veer toward greatness
Lawrence Raitinger, Parker junior, brings the group's newest race car up to speed on the chassis dyno during a demonstration at Friday's Engineering Expo. The car has been geared for acceleration and can reach 60 mph in 3-3.5 seconds. Raitinger is in his second year on the project and is one of five people who race the car in competition.
Jared Gab/KANSAN
The University group is using hard work and sweat to top last year's result in Detroit's Formula SAE contest this year
BY DIRK NEWTON
editor@kansan.com
KANSAN CORRESPONDENT
While much of the student body is throwing down beers at the local bars or arguing with their burger-joint manager, a group of men in the KU engineering department is sweating it out in the garage at room 1109 in Learned Hall.
Perhaps you've passed by the room, which is cluttered with formula-style race cars and reeks of burnt rubber. Maybe you've been sitting in a classroom in the lower level of Learned and heard a deep roar coming from the basement. That could be the sound from any of the five cars that the school has built in the past. The students periodically test them and studying their design.
The group builds the cars from start to finish, and 90 percent of the parts and body are made and put together by the students themselves. The wheels, tires and engine are some of the few things they don't construct.
The body of the car is molded from carbon sheets in a massive oven and takes more than a week of eight- to 10-hour days to finish. The University is one of five schools in the competition believed to be using the lighter and stronger carbon body. The material is expensive and hard to come by, but Cytec Engineered Materials of New Jersey aided the Society of Automotive Engineers.
"It has a shelf life at zero degrees for aerospace quality and past that they can't use it on planes." Erich Ohlde, Lindsburg junior, said. "Basically we get about $130,000 worth of carbon fiber for free, but we don't go around bragging about it."
Early blueprints of the new car's suspension are on their design-room chalkboard. Nick Roberts, Olathe senior, said, "I won't even try to go into that," citing the elaborate formulas involved.
The program isn't new on campus. It has consistently placed highly in the Detroit Formula SAE competition since it first participated in 1995.
In the past, engineering students have used the first six months of the school year designing the car and the next three months building it by hand. If all went well, they got to test drive the car for a week.
The team's 12th-place finish last year was credited to the lack of pre-race testing because of an engine malfunction in the days leading up to the event.
"We had a top-10 car last year and could've even finished as high as top-five but the engine wasn't getting about one-third of its horsepower," Roberts said.
The team expects this year's car to finish in the top five, and each of them said there was a good chance it could win the whole thing.
to win, however, they might need some extra help. The team is undermanned this year and is looking for assistance from anyone who is willing to do so. They need help with mechanics and presentation and marketing.
There is no pay for helping, but the team says the experience alone is worth the time. People can volunteer by contacting team members via their Web site .jayhaukmotorsports.com
The team also is still looking for sponsors for the vehicle.
Edited by Matt Wilson
"We try to sell the entire design of our car and we pitch it to judges as if they're manufacturer's." Chris Hedden, Pratt junior, said. "So, what we have to do is talk about the market for the car, how we built the car, and we have to sell to them that this is a reasonable design."