Want to help the next generation learn how to work on cars?

Cheetokps

TJ Enthusiast
Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2020
Messages
591
Location
Wallingford, CT
Hi everyone, I am a member of my school’s (UConn) Formula SAE team. This is an organization where we design, build, and race a new car every year against other schools from around the country. Our annual competition is at the Michigan international speedway, where we came in 10th overall and 3rd in endurance last year (despite having our engine blow up during competition). We design almost everything on the car, from the frame to the suspension and more. I personally am on the controls and ergonomics subsystem, and among other things I designed our brake rotors last year to have slotted rotors for the first time

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Throughout my 4 years on this team I have learned way more about engineering than I have in my classes, and I was able to get a job lined up after graduation because of this team. In addition to this, I learned a lot about cars and wrenching (some of which has come in handy with my Jeep). As many of you know, kids are learning about cars and working with their hands much less these days, so this club is an invaluable experience.

The car itself is almost a mix between a gokart and a formula one car, I’ll attatch images below. We use an engine from a Yamaha r6 (highly modified) and make about 86 horsepower while weighing ~450lbs plus the driver. It does 0-60 in around 3.4 seconds, and handles so well (especially when you’re used to driving a tj)

I’m posting this because we’re currently in the process of looking for donations. Most of our funding is from donations, most of this goes towards tires as we go through tires very fast and need to drive often to get everything tuned right. They also go towards new tools/machines and parts, and other things such as bringing more members to competition. I figured some of you on here might like to help the future generation of car enthusiasts grow, so if anyone can help out I have posted the link below. All donations are being matched currently, so anything would help greatly

https://givingday.uconn.edu/o/unive...uRz4_nspWoRzHqp_B_IA0YKy5CLXtCxDMDmeWE2ewdXaw

If anyone has any more questions about the car or anything let me know, here’s some pictures (also check out the video on the donate link)
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Man, seeing stuff like this always makes me wish I went to a school with a bigger engineering department.

Also, if you're staying in the CT area after graduation and looking to get the jeep offroad more, check out northeastjeep.org
 
Man, seeing stuff like this always makes me wish I went to a school with a bigger engineering department.

Also, if you're staying in the CT area after graduation and looking to get the jeep offroad more, check out northeastjeep.org
I am, I’m going to be working in Wallingford. I’ll check that out thanks, I’ve always had trouble finding places to off-road around here
 
I was on the Michigan tech FSAE team for a bit. Awesome project, great experience, and the opportunity to drive a race car is kinda once in a lifetime stuff

You want to have fun…take old cars and throw the factory intake back on. We I was competing, we ran custom mapped fuel injection, but the rules stated it had to breathe thru a 20mm restriction in the intake. Once we were done with competition, we would put the carburetors back on with the factory intake (we were using CBR F4 engines ) and boost our power quite a bit. Then we entered a few SCCA rally events and got to practice driving. Lots of fun!
 
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I did Mini Baja my freshman year and FSAE after that - in the olden days, as they say (Mini Baja was only about a decade old and FSAE about half that when I did it). Great times, but budget was always our biggest obstacle to overcome. In fact, my senior design project was FSAE, and we weren't able to complete it that year due to budget issues. The class after us continued it and competed the following year. I feel for you, man, but I can't contribute to "the other guys" team. ;)
 
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I did Mini Baja my freshman year and FSAE after that - in the olden days, as they say (Mini Baja was only about a decade old and FSAE about half that when I did it). Great times, but budget was always our biggest obstacle to overcome. In fact, my senior design project was FSAE, and we weren't able to complete it that year due to budget issues. The class after us continued it and competed the following year. I feel for you, man, but I can't contribute to "the other guys" team. ;)
Understandable. I wish I could have used FSAE as my senior design project, cause right now I basically have 2 projects cause I spend so much time with FSAE in addition to my project
 
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I was at a smaller school with no FSAE and we had a tight budget for Baja (still do). Few years since I've been out and we finally broke into the top 10 at an event. It's impressive when we don't have the budget for any spares of anything expensive. It was a ton of work for how few of us were on the team. It was a good senior design project.
 
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We’re getting an extra $6,000 if we hit 50 donors, so even donating $5 if you can would make a huge difference
 
If I were you I'd post about it on the local CT jeep facebook pages. Havent seen anything yet about it on there. Theirs a ton of em and I'm sure they'd be willing to help.
 
If I were you I'd post about it on the local CT jeep facebook pages. Havent seen anything yet about it on there. Theirs a ton of em and I'm sure they'd be willing to help.
I thought about that, but I wasn’t sure which of them would take it down
 
None of them would. A lot of non Jeep related stuff gets posted to them. None of it ever gets taken down as long as they can tell you own a jeep