UNM engineering graduates are impressing international automotive companies with their competition-winning race car designs.
In this year's Formula Society of Automotive Engineers competition, the UNM team placed eighth in acceleration, 17th in design and 24th overall out of more than 80 teams from across the globe.
The Formula SAE competition is one of the largest collegiate design competitions in the world and is well-known in the engineering field, said Joshua Stein, UNM's engine team leader.
UNM's mechanical engineering department has offered a car design and manufacturing course since 2000. The three-semester course is taught by John Russell, and students design a small-scale race car that is entered in the annual competition.
Russell said the students' racing effort may help them get jobs when they graduate.
"Recruiters from Honda, Toyota and GM sought out members of the team," Russell said in a statement. "Earlier in the year, four UNM team members were among 22 hired by Honda R&D after an extensive interview process."
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Russell said the competition includes three research evaluations: design, cost and manufacturing, and presentation.
The cars are also judged in dynamic events, including acceleration, autocross - which evaluates the cars' ability to turn - and an endurance test, which requires the car to be driven 22 one-kilometer laps.
Russell said only one-third of the cars finish the endurance test, and many do not even pass the initial inspections.
Though each car has to meet certain requirements to enter the competition, there is a lot of room for creativity in design, said Ian Young, the team's simulations manager.
More than 75 percent of the car is made by the students with the help of engineering software, and all resources are donated to UNM, Young said.
He said students also have access to a program called CarSim, an arcade-style video game that allows them to test drive their car exactly as it's designed. The team is then able to decide what changes would help improve the car as the project develops.
Russell said that while it is fun to build a race car, students face problems common in the industry as well as life problems when working together on the project.
"Everything in real life is brought into this," he said. "The big difference is that in any field, students at the University are essentially on their own for four years. This project is too big for one person. It needs and teaches teamwork."
Mack Brittelle, the team's deputy project manager, said the course has taught him things he couldn't learn in a classroom.
"The class teaches communication, management, ethics and fundraising on top of the engineering design and troubleshooting skills," he said.
Todd Miner, who was the team's systems engineer in 2008, said the students are continually forced to come up with solutions to their own problems.
The experience is definitely worth the effort, he said.
"You learn so much and it changes your life - the way you look at people, engineering, decision-making, problem-solving, everything. It has opened a lot of doors for me," Miner said.
