Snapshots: Building Race Cars

 

The Wyoming Motorsports team gives students hands-on experience designing and refining a car from the ground up.

 

By Micaela Myers

 

This past spring, the Wyoming Motorsports student engineering team brought home its second championship trophy from the Formula Hybrid + Electric Competition at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The hybrid formula-one style car was designed and built by University of Wyoming students. The four-day event was organized in part by the Society of Automotive Engineers and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and features rounds of technical inspections, performance tests and static presentations. 

At the start of each year, the UW team of 25-30 students sets goals, meeting weekly but often spending seven days a week in the shop — two garages located in the basement of the original Engineering Building. This year, their goals included building a new car from the ground up. 

“At the beginning of the summer, I started designing the frame and suspension, and by August I had worked with the powertrain and electrical leads, and we had a good game plan together,” says mechanical engineering senior Zach Goldner of Omaha, who serves as the club president. “Throughout the year, we manufactured and designed different systems and got everything implemented.”

This year, the team added a second car — a Baja-style off-road vehicle, which headed to its first Society of Automotive Engineers competition this past October. 

“A lot of learning has gone into trying to design and build a whole different style vehicle,” Goldner says, adding that the club isn’t just for engineers. “We love getting more than just engineering students in the club because we have a business team that reaches out to sponsors and does our branding. We are really looking to expand into a more diverse group to cover all of our bases.”

Goldner spent more time in the garage than in the classroom the last few years — an experience he found invaluable. 

“We use 3D CAD software called SOLIDWORKS every day in the motorsports club, so I feel very proficient,” he says. “I helped weld the entire car last year, and so there’s a lot of hands-on experience that I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. I know my future engineering designs will be better off from the beginning because I can anticipate challenges with manufacturing.”

Even if his future job doesn’t involve building cars, Goldner says he’ll be building one in his own garage, just as he did at UW. He anticipates his UW experiences will give him a leg up in interviews. 

“I think being able to show that I have these huge integrated projects that I’ve worked on, which are essentially self-guided, will help me stand apart from other job candidates,” he says. “I can show that not only have I worked on this but I’ve seen it from inception to completion.”