MSU Formula racing team sets sights on national competition
March 31, 2023
Sparks flew as mechanical engineering and computer science senior Sharome Burton cut and shaped a piece of metal in the Sikes Lake Center garage. Soon, the small piece disappeared into the body of a racecar – a racecar Burton and his teammates have designed and built themselves. Piece by piece, day by day, working through breaks and into the night, the MSU Formula Society of Automotive Engineers team is building a racecar from scratch. It’s a daunting task in its own right, but the FSAE team has even bigger ambitions – a trip to Brooklyn, Michigan, where the best Formula teams in the country compete.
Starting line
If MSU’s FSAE team succeeds in its goal and makes it to Michigan in May, it will mark the second year in a row MSU has taken part in the competition. But for every finish line there’s an equally important starting line. For the FSAE team, that start happened over two years ago.
Burton said the team began in January of 2021 when a group of engineering seniors pitched the idea. He said the initial response among students was largely incredulous.
“Really it was a pitch from a few now-graduated engineering seniors. They said “Let’s build a car,” and you know, they saw that we were doing a lot of you know undergraduate research and other things that could be helpful toward that. And the first reaction is always kind of like “What kind of car?” You know, ‘An RC car?’” Burton said.
He went on to explain that despite money concerns and no foundation to build off of, the willpower of those first few students got the project up and running.
“Long story short, it was a very, you know, very enterprising bunch of students. Those formed the organization from scratch, got the requisite number of members to start it,” Burton said.
Since then, the team has attracted and retained students through its mission and unique opportunities.
Burton said he’s remained involved because he wouldn’t otherwise get the hands-on experience building a racecar provides.
“But what really got me to stay was the access to manufacturing things, you know. As high-level of a vehicle as you actually put an actual person into. Not being an automotive person heading into it, you know, it’s something I saw that I could adapt into in order to get me some better opportunities career-wise,” Burton said.
The novelty of the team has even attracted non-engineering students to participate in the project in other capacities. Psychology senior Aretha Fontaine said was surprised when she heard there were MSU students building a real car, and joined the team in a marketing and fundraising role soon after.
“I was just really intrigued by the fact that students were able to build an actual car. So I just wanted to learn all about it and figure out like what they had to do, what steps they had to take, how they would source funding. Like it was just really interesting, so that’s why I joined,” Fontaine said.
Roadblocks
The Formula team is in the middle of an intense stretch of production right now as it tries to complete objectives before the May 17-20 competition. While the team is confident in the design and construction of the car, a handful of obstacles remain.
Fontaine said the largest obstacle facing the team right now is money.
“Well right now, the main thing is funding. We’re trying to get enough money to be able to compete in Michigan in May. so we need some more funds to get the missing parts that we’re missing. So we need to get tires, the stuff to get the body of the car, a few other things. But we just need the funding to make sure that we actually do have a major car by May, so that’s the major issue. And besides that, nothing really, cause we have active participation. Everyone shows up when they need to, like I said it’s just funding right now,” Fontaine said.
The cohesive nature of the team has aided its goals. While some team members are focused solely on production of the car, the team’s unified vision allows others like Fontaine to tackle the funding issues. Fontaine said there are a variety of ways the team is working to achieve its monetary goals.
“So we have the funding page, we’re going around the city, village, whatever, we’re going around and trying to do like sponsorship drives and stuff like that. So that’s what we’re working on right now. We’re trying to stay active on social media to create some kind of traction, and those are our major sources right now,” Fontaine said.
The finish line
The team set the goal of competing in Michigan for a variety of reasons, ranging from validating their hard work to building connections for their future.
Fontaine said the event allows for all those things and more.
“The overall idea is to compete, show off your car and possibly gain sponsorship for like creating more cars. You can get access to new jobs, it’s like a great opportunity for any kind of student really,” Fontaine said.
After making it to Michigan last year, the team has experience to build on for this year’s competition. Burton said the past event was difficult because MSU hadn’t competed in the event before.
“Last year, and it sort of led into this year as well, it was an absolute – how would I call it – it was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, and this continues to be as well. The odds were so much against us, you know heading into the winter of that year, the winter of 2021. We still hadn’t started on actual manufacturing. We were still, you know, iffy on the funds, the designs, we had a lot to learn because we had to teach ourselves to build cars,” Burton said.
Burton explained that the process this year has been much smoother. While last year, the team was making adjustments to the car on the trip to Michigan and even right before displaying it, he said this year the team is in a better place.
“We’ve documented things better, we’ve been more organized, we’ve done things to a higher standard,” Burton said, later adding “When it comes time for competition, we’ll have a lot more to show to the design judges than a “Yeah, we barely made it, sorry we don’t have a full book or a report of everything we’ve done, itemized and picturized.” So yeah, lot of progress.”
Burton said the overall experience of both building the car and entering it into competitions has been educational. He added that it has been a highlight of his college experience.
“I’d say it’s the pinnacle of education, the opportunity to put your own ideas and thoughts into a form that you can actually test and use to compete against some of the best students around the world in a competition with high stakes. You have human lives at risk in these student-done machines,” Burton said.
