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Hope College Formula Racing (Formula SAE)

Accelerating Engineers to the Top

Members of the Hope College Formula Racing team pose with one of their cars at a 2018 competition. Hope College Formula Racing, the college’s Formula SAE team, is a co-curricular group of students with majors ranging from engineering to business to religion. The team is responsible for designing, fabricating and developing a competition car for a variety of dynamic events, along with raising funds and creating a fictitious business plan to demonstrate how the car could effectively be developed from prototype to full-scale production.

Formula SAE is an international collegiate racing series organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). The Formula SAE engineering design competition is for both undergraduate and graduate students. The two United States competitions take place at Michigan International Speedway (May) and Lincoln Airpark (June), hosting 120 and 80 teams, respectively, from all around the globe.

A Hope College Formula Racing student waiting in their car for the race to begin.

STATIC EVENT: DESIGN (15%)	Participants are judged on the quality and creativity of their design. Judges use team test data and analyses to evaluate the efficiency of the team's design and material decisions.
STATIC EVENT: COST ANALYSIS (10%)	Participants are judged on their theoretical budget report, detailing all costs associated with a theoretical limited production run based on their car’s design.
DYNAMIC EVENT: PRESENTATION (7.5%)	Participants are judged on the team’s ability to deliver a business presentation convincing a hypothetical corporation that their team’s design is worthy of being mass-produced and sold.
DYNAMIC EVENT: Acceleration (10%)	The evaluations of the car’s ability to accelerate down a 75-meter straightaway, testing power and speed.
DYNAMIC EVENT: AUTOCROSS (12.5%)	The evaluations of the car’s handling through a tightly wound course testing the car’s suspension and power.
DYNAMIC EVENT: ENDURANCE (27.5%)	The evaluation of every aspect of the car and driver abilities. It is a 22-kilometer race with a mandatory driver change halfway through the race that forces the team to restart the car after the driver change.
DYNAMIC EVENT: SKID-PAD (7.5%)	The evaluation of the car’s cornering ability through a narrow figure-eight course, which tests the setup and balance of the suspension.
DYNAMIC EVENT: EFFICIENCY (10%)	The evaluation of the car’s fuel economy, which is calculated during the endurance event.