12/13/2021 Lexi Larson 3 min read
Written by Lexi Larson
Every year Illini Motorsports, the Formula SAE team at the University of Illinois, designs, builds, tests, and competes a brand-new open-wheel F1 style single seater racecar. Driven by their major accomplishments of the summer, the team is working hard to do even better this year.
Illini Motorsports came off the summer 2021 competitions with results to show for all their hard work. Winning first, second, and third place awards, the team showed they could have success even during a pandemic.
While creating a car during the pandemic was not easy, Illini Motorsports thought of it as a unique year, but not a bad one. The team had to tweak their whole process to be virtually adaptive, and they made it work with successful virtual meetings and member recruitment.
The situation provided the team with an opportunity to continue working on the car from March 2020, and all the way through the 2020-21 school year. The team was able to test the vehicle in the fall and the spring – a much longer time than normal. The extra time to test the car and prepare the driver made the whole team more than ready for competition when it rolled around.
The team also got a jump start designing their 2022 car during the winter months, when it is too cold to test the previous car. The extended design season allowed the team to investigate design changes much more confidently and adeptly.
With the success of last year’s car, Illini Motorsports is charging ahead to complete overhaul of the suspension, chassis, and drivetrain of the car. Big changes include new 10-inch diameter rims and 16-inch diameter tires. This change is so big that it consequently causes almost every other part of the car to be altered as well. As a result, the team is working extra hard to complete all the new changes while still allowing for ample testing time.
Jumping into Illini Motorsports is immersive and engaging, amazing for technical, hands-on, engineering experience. New students interested in getting involved should reach out to the team president, Salam Mulhem at smulhe2@illinois.edu, about how to join.
"Illini Motorsports has been the defining educational experience of my time at Illinois. Everyone on the team is so passionate about learning and about the car. I have grown so much as an engineer because of the projects I've worked on and the people I've worked with," said Lucas Day, a senior in mechanical engineering.