FAU Owls Racing Team Posts Its Best Performance at Formula SAE Competition

Florida Atlantic University’s Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) racing team recently placed in the top 25 of universities in attendance at the 2015 Formula SAE Michigan competition in Brooklyn, Mich. Out of 118 universities from around the world, FAU finished 24th overall, beating schools such as Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Penn State, Northwestern and Purdue universities. The team placed in the top three of the business presentations led by both Luca Gervasoni, business team lead, and Arif Lakhani, team treasurer. Other notable placements included 16th in Autocross, 29th in Acceleration, and 30th in Skidpad.

Formula SAE is an engineering design competition, organized by SAE International, in which student members conceive, design, fabricate, and compete with a formula-style racecar. The four-day competition is packed with dynamic tests and static challenges that culminate to a 22-lap endurance contest as the capstone event. The cars are designed from the ground-up over the course of one year and require an extremely high level of engineering and project management to complete the challenges successfully.

"I could not be more proud of the leadership of this team − Christian Caracci, team president and Trent Ksionek, team vice president − and all of the dedicated and hardworking members," said Javad Hashemi, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering at FAU. "They represented FAU proudly and put their engineering skills on display for everyone to see."

The 20-person team includes mechanical engineering students Caracci, Ksionek; Elisha Chapman; Carlos Sigala; Steven Stanfield; John Strudel; Juan Amengual; Chris Branfield; Alex Conrad; Chase Nalls; Daniel Morishita-Horner and Thomas Strickland; civil engineering student Josh Garcia; ocean engineering student AJ Webster; electrical engineering students Stephen Lyons and Cydnie Staub; business students Gervasoni and Lakhani; mathematics secondary education student Ryan Kenney and underclassman Kyle Gauck. The team also was guided by team advisor Oren Masory, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering at FAU; Fred Knapp, FAU senior lab teaching instructor; and Keith Wilson, president of Wilson Manifolds.

"The 2015 competition has put FAU on the map as a powerful competitor amongst the top 25 Formula SAE teams in the world. This is the result of unprecedented university and sponsor support, brilliant design and manufacturing insight, and effective team building," said Caracci. "Over the last twelve months I have been very fortunate to lead the very best team FAU could produce. Our 2015 accomplishments mark a promising starting point, not an arrival: I expect great things of Owls Racing in 2016 and beyond."

Founded in 1979, the Formula SAE has given students from around the world the opportunity to apply textbook theories to real-world applications. Students with FSAE experience are highly sought after in the workplace due to their project management and teamwork skills, along with their excellence in business and engineering.

For more information about the Owls Racing team, visit their website at www.OwlsRacing.com.