Grand Canyon University Motorsports, the team on campus known for building racecars, just returned from the big Formula SAE competition in Michigan, and although it didn't get the chance to race, it continues in its goal to cross the finish line of completing a vehicle cleared for competition.
The club, a student chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers that competes in the Collegiate Design Series (Formula SAE Internal Combustion competition), switched lanes to become a club sport. That move is huge, opening the doors to more opportunities for funding.
Another big change: Its home is no longer under the ramp of the university's 33rd Avenue parking structure.
“How many times did I hit my head on the fire suppression (system)?” said Davis Wright, a junior mechanical engineering major.
It now operates out of the College of Engineering and Technology garage, which are three large shipping containers adjacent to Building 1.
Those are just a few of the strides the club took after attending Formula SAE Michigan recently in Brooklyn, Michigan, where 107 registered teams of university undergraduate and graduate students vied for a spot on the racetrack – the Michigan International Speedway – after spending the past academic year conceiving, designing, fabricating and developing small, formula-style racecars.
Despite not advancing past the preliminary rounds, the team beat other notable university teams in those early sessions; it was the furthest GCU Motorsports has progressed in the Formula SAE competition.
Back from the big show in Michigan, “Now we can actually tackle the more nitty-gritty of the engineering side of these cars,” said Grant Garcia, a senior mechanical engineering major.
That means building a sturdy foundation, from setting a project management template, to establishing a system that enables new members to step into their roles more easily, to a detailed web design model.
“Once we make it to competition, it will help us move up in rank because we'll be able to have a more presentable design presentation or a well-built cost report for cost competition,” Garcia said.
The GCU contingent, led by former president Tyler Palanuk, Wright (the powertrain lead) and Garcia (the incoming club president), had the chance to visit with more than 600 representatives from U.S. colleges and foreign countries at the Formula SAE event.
Judges examined each university team's designs, which those teams support with data, simulations, and production and mass production cost estimates.
Wright and Garcia appreciated the support they received from judges and several universities, including Arizona State, to put the club in a better spot to succeed next year.
“All of us gain so much knowledge that now we have the ability to not just pass down this knowledge to people below us, but kind of build the foundation so we're a lot stronger and more well equipped for the next year,” Wright said. “… I think our new goal is accomplishing all these other tasks so that now we can ideally start rising up in the ranking after we go through competition.”
Paul Lambertson, College of Engineering and Technology dean and GCU Motorsports' supervisor, remembers some of the team's challenges. He met several times with Palanuk to “try to restart the engine of a great team,” he said.
“When you think about how the team got through all of the technical challenges and was only a few minutes, maybe a few seconds, shy of getting actually through that last challenge and getting onto the racetrack, that's huge,” Lambertson said. “And so looking at that, building on that this year, I see really great things happening for the team.”
Club leaders encourage team members to attend workshops that will help them use machinery and other equipment and allow them more access to working on the car. They’re also receptive to input from students with project management backgrounds.
“I can't tell you how many people are in that club that don't know about cars,” said Wright, who has worked as a professional mechanic for the last two years. “And that's totally fine, because at the end of the day, you can boil these down to some basic engineering principles and then just kind of focus on those. And then through focusing on those, you start to learn how cars work.
“… Also, we don't expect new members to hit the ground knowing exactly how to time an engine. I try to really divert my focus into teaching people how these basic systems of car work in the most simplest of form so they can try to have a baseline understanding of where they can pair that with some newly acquired engineering knowledge to help integrating themselves into whatever subsystem team they want – whether that's electrical or powertrain or aerodynamics.”
There’s motivation from current members and incentive from prospective members hanging in the front of the College of Engineering and Technology Building. Hovering over the conference table in the front corner is last year’s race car structure, powder coated in GCU purple.
“Whenever I give tours, I point out that car,” Lambertson said.
Shining that spotlight on the racecar, built by students, is intentional.
Said Lambertson, “There's all of this stuff that we're trying to do to build momentum to help make the team successful.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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