About This Project

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What is the context of this research?

Bobcat Motorsports is a race team that competes in the Formula and Baja Society of Automotive Engineers competitions. The team provides students with hands on experience in racing design, fabrication, and competition. Every 2 years, our team must design and build a new car from the ground up. In the first year, our team begins the design and build process. An immense amount of time is devoted in designing, analyzing, and building our new rolling chassis. In the second year of the build cycle, the team turns the rolling chassis into a perfected machine. Again, an immense amount of time is taken to reach the final product. The rest of the vehicles systems are designed, analyzed, and built in the second year. Also, once the design and build phases are completed, we turn our attention to rigorous testing and tuning. We ready our final product for intense competition against teams from all around the world. Because we race in two entirely different competitions, we stagger our 2 year production cycles. Every year we produce a final vehicle, alternating between Formula and Baja SAE.

What is the significance of this project?

Our team members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, majors, and levels of knowledge. We come together to design and build high performance vehicles for SAE racing competitions. We provide students with the experience to pursue a career in the race or automotive industry. Many former team members have incredibly successful careers in the racing world. We strive to continue improving our team and contributing to the future of the racing world.

What are the goals of the project?

Our project goal is to produce a reliable and innovative Baja SAE vehicle and race this vehicle at competition in Kansas. Because of the differences between Baja and Formula, we are experimenting with the engine, shocks, the planetary gearbox required to effectively put power to the ground, and the car's steering rack. These parts are much different than the Formula equivalent and are not parts we have at our disposal. With the power-train assembly, we are transitioning from a motorcycle engine and transmission in formula, to a small Briggs and Stratton engine with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) as seen in snowmobiles coupled to a planetary gearbox. We are further transitioning to larger off-road air shocks from small mountain bike coil-over shocks. We are also transitioning to a more robust steering rack capable of handling the rigorous demands of off-road racing. These parts are critical to the design and will directly effect the success of the the vehicle. Assistance would allow us to purchase prefabricated assemblies that are too intensive to design and manufacture ourselves. These parts are essential in allowing us to accomplish our goal of manufacturing a reliable and innovative vehicle for the 2014 Baja SAE competition and proving that we can make the transition to off-road racing. Every team supporter will receive their name on the car taken to competition.