Reddit reviews Racecar: Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE

If you haven't seen the FSAE Forums, definitely take a look there. I'm not sure what year you are (freshman, sophomore, etc.) but realize that organizing the team will take A LOT of work. Our team at VCU has been around for at least 10 years now (we think it was technically formed in 2001) and we have yet to take a car to competition, although the progress that has been made in the last couple years has been absolutely incredible.

I like what /u/welptheresthat says in his comment, but expecting to go to competition within two years of forming the team is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. There are two primary resources you need that our team was struggling with for years, and they are members and money.

It will take way more than five of you to build and design a car, although the amount of experience each member has obviously plays a large part. If you can draw in people who will be willing to donate extremely large chunks of time to the team and even lead the design of car subsystems (suspension, steering, differential mounts, etc.) it will pay off immensely.

As for money, it is very difficult to give pointers on this because I don't have a lot of experience with it unfortunately. The school will hopefully be willing to give you at least a tiny bit amount of money in some way, shape, or form no matter how little (it will be difficult to convince the school to give you $10,000 for car parts...). Fundraising and donations at our school were tricky, because apparently we were breaking a school rule by receiving money from corporate sponsors. This ended being a huge pitfall for us, because without money, you cannot have a product to show off to students and faculty. We would lose 80-90% of the students who showed up to interest meetings after they would see that we only had a chassis built and sitting in the loading bay of the engineering school. After we got a suspension and running engine, we began to retain more students. There was some personal expense laid into the team as well from past students, and it was definitely necessary to get to where we are now.

Overall, do your research to form the team and get a source of income, and then attract as many students as possible looking especially for those who might want to do this as a career. Keep asking yourself if the team will be able to survive the year(s) after you graduate. Are there annual fundraisers? Are the 3D models and drawings easy to access? Is there someone on the team with machine shop training and fabrication experience? Is there someone who can take care of e-mail updates?

Make the foundation for your new found team as solid as possible. Best of luck to you and other founding Formula SAE members!

P.S. You should also read this book, Racecar: Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE. I read it very quickly, and it's very useful for hearing the experiences of a Formula member on a successful team for Oklahoma University. Despite not being as successful as the Oklahoma team, I was definitely able to relate to many issues they were experiencing...