About Us

Formula SAE

Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers). Every year, student design teams are tasked to develop a small formula-style race car for a fictional manufacturing company. During the competition, the prototype race car is evaluated regarding the following aspects:


What Does Each Sub-Team Do?

Our team is divided into six sub-teams to manage the challenge of designing and building an all-electric formula-style race car. Through the division of labor among the Chassis, Aero, Electrical, Suspension, Powertrain, and Business sub-teams, our team is prepared to design, engineer, manufacture, manage, compete and connect engineering to the public. 

Aero Team

Responsible for the design and fabrication of the vehicle's wing elements, undertray, and cooling ducts. This work aims to maximize downforce while minimizing drag, allowing our team to find a sweet spot between cornering ability and fuel efficiency. The team's work involves rigorous analysis in ANSYS Fluent, as well as hands on experience working with carbon fiber

Chassis Team

Responsible for the design and fabrication of the main structural component of the vehicle. Engineers must prove their design meets strict safety and performance metrics, while minimizing the weight of their design. Involves extensive finite-element analysis as well as hands on work with welding and carbon fiber composites

Electrical Team

Responsible for the design and fabrication of the vehicle's high and low voltage components, as well as the programming of control and sensor systems. Engineers have the opportunity to design a high energy density 300V battery pack and custom PCBs. Students work on data and signal processing related problems with the various sensors used in our vehicle, and we are also looking to start a project related to autonomous vehicles

Powertrain Team

Responsible for designing a system that gets power from the motor to the wheels as efficiently as possible. Works closely with the electrical team in design choices, and work involves extensive finite element analysis and Simulink models

Suspension Team

Responsible for the design of a system that optimizes vehicle handling characteristics. Engineers are also responsible for the design of the braking subsystem. This involves problems in vehicle dynamics, and design involves work in CAD and proprietary simulation software

Business Team 

Responsible for acquiring funding, professional networking, marketing and managing public relations in order to support the team during the research, design, and production of the car. The team combines the world of engineering and business to represent both the team and the car at the hghest level. 

Pushing the Limits

IIT SAE continues to push the boundaries of race car technologies. The following are just a few innovative technologies IIT motorsports use to edge out the competition.

The previous car weighed 567.6 lbs and had a 0-60 time of x seconds. This year the team aims to improve efficiency and ease of user experience with an all new torque vectoring system and active aero implementation the team hopes to beat its predecessors. A new interactive dashboard will be implemented to visualize car data, record race-time information, and easily troubleshoot the car. 

Achievements

Gallery