For a group of 15 mechanical engineering students, class is the fun part of the day.The students spend 20-25 hours a week in a dusty workshop covered in oil, grease and sweat, building a Formula One race car to take to a competition in Michigan.”The competition involves about 24 hours of driving, about five hours of sleep per night for a week, spending the whole day in the damp, cold weather of Michigan and running around for parts until your lungs hurt,” said mechanical engineering junior Russell Garehan. “It’s about the most exciting thing I’ve experienced, and I love it.”A Formula One car is a single-seat, open-cockpit, open-wheel race car with the engine positioned behind the driver.The students aren’t designing or assembling a car — they are building one from scratch.University mechanical engineering seniors have participated in the competition for the past three years as a senior design project. Seniors receive class credit for ME 3903, and underclassmen can possibly get directed study credits. Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers International, an organization for mechanical engineering professionals.In the contest, a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. Every year a team of University students designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules. The prototype race car is evaluated for its production potential and performance.Teams from around the world converge on Michigan International Speedway outside Detroit from May 13-16 for the competition.Team captain Lance Brumfield has plans to make Formula SAE much more than just a class project. “We are representing LSU, so it’s a pride thing,” Brumfield said.Brumfield said the team started earlier than normal for this year’s competition and made an effort to recruit underclassmen.”I would say that I am less a product of the goal to recruit underclassmen and more of an inspiration for it,” Garehan said.This is Garehan’s third year on the team. He is personally responsible for the design of the body of the car as well as the design and fabrication of the diffuser, an aerodynamic device attached under the car.Garehan received no class credit for his first two years of work because he wasn‘t a senior. He will get a directed credit this year. “I’m very passionate about motor sports and would like to get into the automotive industry when I graduate, a very unrealistic goal at LSU since most mechanical engineering graduates go on to work for the petrochemical industry,” Garehan said. “That’s why I was OK with not earning credits those two years.”Garehan said the project can become a full-time job for students if they stay involved.The group is even sacrificing walking at graduation this May, as the competition and graduation coincide.Brumfield said while the team doesn’t have advanced facilities and machinery like some of its competition, it has the talent to do well.”We have just as much will and determination,” Brumfield said. “It’s just some practical stuff we have to overcome.”Brumfield said the team members have spent hours reading books and doing research on the Internet. They are taught theory in class but not application.”It’s very cool to see something that you’ve been taught about in class and go, ‘Oh yeah, that makes so much sense now,’ when you apply it on the car,” Garehan said.In the past, University teams have finished in about 50th place out of more than 100 teams.This year, the team started working a semester early to make sure they would have ample time to prepare. In the past, teams submitted their design proposals and performance parameters in the fall and tested and fabricated them in the spring.Brumfield is hopeful to have the car rolling before fall presentation. He will use the spring semester to run tests and pick the drivers.”It’s a huge rush to drive the car, especially knowing you put it together,” Garehan said. “You really don’t know how fast a curb can come at you until you drive one of these cars around one of the parking lots on campus.”As of Sunday, the chassis is complete, and Brumfield is concentrating on ordering parts while working on the suspension.Brumfield hopes to raise $40,000 before he goes to competition. At present, he has raised about half of it.Exxon is the title sponsor, supplying $10,000 and all lubricants the team needs. Other sponsors include Albemarle, Shell and Friendly Yamaha.”All we can do now is encourage underclassmen to join and work on getting more sponsorship. It is a slow process that cannot culminate in a year,” Garehan said. “I hope that four or five years after I graduate the team has 30 members each year and can get around $100,000 in funds.”—-Contact Jack LeBlanc at [email protected]