In a parking lot on the outskirts of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), a smallish Formula 1-style race car rips through a track of laid-out cones, reaching speeds of up to 93 mph.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Jacob Manly after completing a few laps, his hair tousled from the helmet and eyes still wide with adrenaline.
Manly is part of the CSUN Formula SAE (Society of Automobile Engineers) team, Matador Motorsports, where they conceive, design and fabricate a Formula 1-style vehicle.
He is one of the lucky ones who also gets to drive the showpiece.
“You can see how much validation [there is in] your design by how it drives on the track,” said Manly.
After a couple of laps, he pulled into the pit and was immediately surrounded by the whole team – each checking how their portion of the constructed auto was holding up. Bolts are tightened, steering gets loosened; everything is adjusted to the driver’s liking before he takes it for another spin.
After two weeks of testing, Matador Motorsports is packing up its creation and heading across the country to the annual student formula SAE competition at the Michigan International Speedway. During the second week of May, 120 teams of university graduate and undergraduate students will be judged on the design and performance of their Formula 1-style vehicles.
During the 35 years that CSUN has participated in the competition, the Matadors have ranked as high as fifth place overall. This year’s team believes it can surpass the university’s previous best rankings of second in Los Angeles County and fourth in California.
“I think we’re a top 10 team this year,” said Manly, adding that their car is roughly 100 pounds lighter and a bit more powerful than last year’s.
“As long as we can finish the race. I think we’ll be in good shape.”
Hands-On Experience
The Formula SAE program became a cornerstone of the CSUN mechanical engineering program in 1988, to provide graduating seniors a year of hands-on experience in designing and building a Formula 1 race car.
The program is one of nine required year-long project-based senior design classes that engineering students can choose.
The entire project, including funding to participate in the competition, can cost nearly $100,000 per year. About 25% of that amount is provided by CSUN, and the rest is funded by donors and sponsors.
“The objective is to give these mechanical engineering students a real-world design experience prior to graduation,” said CSUN mechanical engineering Professor Stewart Prince, the faculty advisor for Matador Motorsports for the last 34 years.
“You can’t design a car like this without taking mechanical design, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluids, aero classes, [and more].”
The 25 seniors are divided into six teams, where they are responsible for designing and constructing different aspects of the vehicle – aerodynamics, chassis, suspension, engine, controls and drivetrain.
“In their entire academic career, they have to work as an individual,” said Prince. “But in the real world, you have to be able to work as a team. … This is the first opportunity they have to really work together as a team.”
Beyond designing and constructing the vehicle, students also project manage and handle all the clerical and administrative logistics.
Elizabeth Murillo, this year’s project manager, is the lone female on the team.
“It’s very interesting to just talk to 26 different personalities, [let alone] them all being men,” Murillo said.
As a transfer student from community college, Murillo was introduced to the project in her first year at CSUN by friends who were on the team. She decided to volunteer as a junior and shadowed last year’s project manager, and that led to her taking on the role this year.
The experience taught her how to, “manage people, how to talk to people and how to do a lot of paperwork,” Murillo said. She had to figure out how each person communicates, takes feedback, and who they work best with.
“It’s a lot of psychology that goes into that,” Murillo joked.
Late Nights
Austin Gomez, from Sylmar, said most of the group had known each other well for a couple of years when they entered their specialized instruction.
“We know how we work,” said Gomez, who enjoys how everyone supports one another throughout the project. “We know when someone’s getting stressed out and we tell them, ‘Hey, just take a break. Don’t overthink it.’ We tell each other, you know, ‘ask for help.’ … There’s nothing wrong with asking for help.”
Murillo said she feels the group has bonded by going through an experience that not many people get to have.
“We literally built our own little family,” she said. “We spent countless nights in the lab arguing or just like, going to eat together.”
Leading up to the production deadline, the students spend all hours of the day in the lab, even spending some nights there.
“We put our life on hold for a year,” Gomez said. “You know, we don’t hang out with [other] friends. We don’t hang out with family members. We go home late. But it’s worth it.”
On the final days of testing, they invite friends and family to watch them drive the car. Larissa Mousheghian came out to watch and understand what her son Dro Mousheghian, who is part of the suspension team, had been spending all his time doing this past year.
She believes the hands-on experience helped him land a job with an automation company.
“I can tell that he’s doing something that he loves, which is what every parent wants to see,” said Mousheghian.
The First Engineer
Eighty percent of the CSUN team this year is Latino. There are also Caucasian and Armenian students.
The Matador Motorsports are one of the teams with the largest Latino representation in the competition. According to Data USA, approximately 8% of mechanical engineers identify as “Hispanic.”
“We aim to inspire the next generation of engineers from underrepresented communities in STEM fields,” said Gomez.
Prince believes that many of his students are the first generation in the family to attend university.
Murillo is one of those students. She was born in Ensenada, Mexico, arriving in the U.S. at age eight, and spending most of her time in Oxnard until college. After her sister, she is the second person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, and the first to become an engineer.
“The first engineer,” said Murillo. “My parents are happy. They’re excited for me.”
Opportunities for the Future
“If you were trying to hire an engineer that was motivated, enthusiastic, and was able to build something like this prior to graduation, I’d probably go to the competition [to recruit],” said Prince.
And hundreds of racing and aerodynamic companies do.
The competition itself is broken into two parts, static events and dynamic events. During the static events, students give presentations on everything from the cost of production and marketing to technical design. They are judged by volunteers from organizations such as SpaceX, Tesla, General Motors, Cooper Tire, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Dynamic events measure the performance of the vehicle through linear acceleration, figure eight, autocross and endurance tests. This is when the true capabilities of the student’s designs and construction are visible.
Prince said the whole experience gives the students more than just technical knowledge; it prepares them to fully articulate their ideas and know how to work collaboratively.
“We all have the same goal,” said Gomez. “We want to become engineers. We want to become good engineers.”