UNM Wins 10th Overall in International Racing Competition

UNM 2012 FSAE car

Accel­er­at­ing to 60 mph in four sec­onds and main­tain­ing almost 2g’s as it grips 90 degree cor­ners, the agile black, red and white race­car is a blur. When it stops, “Lead the Pack LOBOMotor­sports” and spon­sor logos, includ­ing those of Lock­heed Martin/Sandia National Labs and ASUNM, the Asso­ci­ated Stu­dents’ Orga­ni­za­tion of UNM, and dozens more, are visible.

UNM took 10th place over­all in the 2012 For­mula Soci­ety of Auto­mo­tive Engi­neers (FSAE) inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion orga­nized by the Soci­ety of Auto­mo­tive Engi­neers in Lin­coln, Neb. June 20–23. With the premise that a man­u­fac­tur­ing firm has requested a pro­to­type car for a non­pro­fes­sional week­end autocross racer, the com­pe­ti­tion encom­passes all aspects of an engi­neer­ing busi­ness design team includ­ing research, design, man­u­fac­tur­ing, test­ing, devel­op­ing, mar­ket­ing, man­age­ment, and fund rais­ing. Eighty-one teams from Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Mex­ico, Puerto Rico and through­out the US par­tic­i­pated in the competition.

See the car in action

LOBOMotor­sports in the Top-10

The UNM LOBOMotor­sports team demon­strated prowess in mar­ket­ing, design, endurance and over­all per­for­mance. The team placed:

• 5th place in pre­sen­ta­tion, a test of their abil­ity to develop and deliver a com­pre­hen­sive busi­ness case that would con­vince the investors that the team’s design best meets the tar­get market’s needs;
• 6th place in endurance, a race approx­i­mately 22 km (13.66 miles) long with a dri­ver change, designed to eval­u­ate the over­all per­for­mance of the car and to test the car’s dura­bil­ity and reliability;
• 10th place over­all, based on events which include pre­sen­ta­tion, cost and man­u­fac­tura­bil­ity, design and dynamic events of accel­er­a­tion, skid­pad, autocross, endurance and fuel economy.

“I’m very proud of the stel­lar accom­plish­ments of LOBOMotor­Sports,” says Catalin Roman, dean of the UNM School of Engi­neer­ing. “The UNM pro­gram com­bines all facets of engi­neer­ing, hands-on expe­ri­ence, mar­ket­ing and busi­ness plan­ning, and the team proved their excel­lence against top-notch teams worldwide.”

Build­ing on pre­vi­ous suc­cess
UNM is one of a hand­ful of uni­ver­si­ties to offer the pro­gram as a three-semester cred­ited course; other teams may use their senior design course for indi­vid­ual credit but focus the over­all activ­ity as a club. The pro­gram was started in 1997 by John Rus­sell, pro­fes­sor of mechan­i­cal engineering.

“This year’s team is full of high per­form­ers who proved their knowl­edge in engi­neer­ing and busi­ness,” says Rus­sell. “Their wins reflect their excel­lence as well as the strength of the UNM pro­gram, build­ing on suc­cesses from pre­vi­ous stu­dent achieve­ments over the past 15 years.”

A gru­el­ing com­pe­ti­tion
The FSAE com­pe­ti­tion is a gru­el­ing one and the fil­ter­ing process reveals the key mark­ers. Twenty-five teams did not pass tech inspec­tion, a test that con­firms that each car com­plies with the require­ments and restric­tions of the FSAE Rules. Nine­teen per­cent didn’t com­plete their car for com­pe­ti­tion, 17 per­cent didn’t pass tech inspec­tion, and 38 per­cent didn’t com­plete endurance, leav­ing only 26 per­cent who made it through all events.

UNM project man­ager Gar­rett Kuehner led the team through 18 months of hard work, late nights and week­ends work­ing on the project. He also coor­di­nated logis­tics at the com­pe­ti­tion, jug­gling mul­ti­ple projects and tight time­lines and made key deci­sions. One of those deci­sions was to ensure that the team was first to set up on the field.

“Devin Plagge and Kyle Kaniho went to the com­pe­ti­tion site at 1 a.m. to secure an early entrance,” says Kuehner. “Once the site opened, the team assisted the event vol­un­teers by arrang­ing areas of the site after a large wind storm destroyed the main tent. Our cour­tesy was rewarded and we were offered the first oppor­tu­nity for tech inspection.”

Kuehner had per­sonal obsta­cles to over­come: a motor­cy­cle acci­dent in Octo­ber 2011 resulted in two weeks in the hos­pi­tal, two months in a wheel­chair, and three months on and off crutches between surgeries.

“Gar­rett never missed a meet­ing and met every dead­line,” says Rus­sell. “He han­dled the whole project as well as any pro­gram man­ager that ever worked for me in my 27 years in government.”

Key fac­tors that set UNM apart
Through­out the project, the team focused on three pri­mary design goals for the car they named the LMS-12: weight reduc­tion, dri­vabil­ity, and reli­a­bil­ity. “We dropped 10 per­cent of the weight from last year’s car; the LMS-12 weighs 495 lbs.,” says Kuehner. “It’s the fastest vehi­cle yet from UNM.”

The team inte­grated a con­tin­u­ously vari­able trans­mis­sion (CVT), allow­ing dri­vers to solely focus on dri­ving line and brak­ing points, vastly improv­ing lap times and con­sis­tency. The LMS-12 is also the most reli­able UNM car to date.

Mar­ket­ing is 10 per­cent of the grade at the com­pe­ti­tion. “Sell­ing and mar­ket­ing is huge in indus­try, and it’s impor­tant to have an excel­lent busi­ness pre­sen­ta­tion,” says Russell.

He arranged for the team’s mar­ket­ing pre­sen­ta­tion to be cri­tiqued by Bob Best­gen, a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, and Dr. Paul San­doval, a mem­ber of the fac­ulty at UNM’s Ander­son School of Man­age­ment. Focus­ing on improv­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion paid off as the team improved their rank­ings and took fifth place. “One of the judges said he was ‘most impressed’ by our team’s pre­sen­ta­tion,” reports Russell.

Hands-on engi­neer­ing
The UNM pro­gram teaches hands-on engi­neer­ing skills and reflects the types of chal­lenges faced by engi­neers through­out their careers.

“There are no prob­lems at the end of the chap­ter and no answers in the back of the book,” says Kirby Anne Witte, project man­ager for the 2013 team. “We must sup­ply our own ques­tions to fuel the design of many sub­sys­tems that flow together to cre­ate a vehi­cle that must not only drive, but also per­form and compete.”

Luke Yates, part of the 2011 team, says the pro­gram empha­sizes team­work, lead­er­ship and decision-making.

“I really learned how to work on a team and trust my fel­low team­mates to make the right choices,” he says. “The pro­gram strength­ened my abil­i­ties to work in a team envi­ron­ment, man­age my time in order to com­plete dead­lines, present my work in front of an audi­ence, as well as doc­u­ment and com­pile my work for future stu­dents. Over­all it was a great expe­ri­ence, and I’m very grate­ful that UNM offers such an amaz­ing pro­gram to help pre­pare stu­dents for industry.”

Rus­sell wants to encour­age more under­grad­u­ates to get involved as vol­un­teers before they take the pro­gram for credit so they can get a head start on the learn­ing curve.

Prepar­ing stu­dents for careers
The con­cepts taught dur­ing the class, the hands-on expe­ri­ence, and team­work, lead­er­ship, and mar­ket­ing skills are valu­able for the com­pe­ti­tion and for careers. Many FSAE alums get job offers before grad­u­at­ing from com­pa­nies such as Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda, San­dia National Lab­o­ra­tory, Boe­ing, and more. A large num­ber go on to the best grad­u­ate schools in the coun­try. San­dia National Labs has been a spon­sor of the pro­gram for four years, has suc­cess­fully placed FSAE pro­gram as interns and in all posi­tions within the organization.

“Honda Research and Devel­op­ment of Amer­ica hired four UNM FSAE stu­dents out of the 22 posi­tions they filled a cou­ple of years ago,” reports Rus­sell. “And it’s not just the national labs and the auto indus­try that hire our stu­dents. With the skills they learn, our stu­dents are hired by a broad range of industries.”

Spon­sors are key
Rus­sell also works with the team to solicit spon­sor­ships. “The gen­er­ous sup­port of our spon­sors enables us to pro­vide this pro­gram and we couldn’t do it with­out their sup­port,” says Rus­sell. He notes that over 60 per­cent of the spon­sor­ship funds are from Lock­heed Martin/Sandia National Labs, ASUNM and UNM. UNM pro­vides excel­lent sup­port com­pared to most other schools. Dozens of other spon­sors con­tribute in-kind dona­tions, includ­ing equip­ment, ser­vices, and tech­ni­cal support.

“FSAE has very strict reg­u­la­tions about every facet of the com­pe­ti­tion except bud­gets and spon­sor­ships,” notes Rus­sell. “Some teams have million-dollar bud­gets, are sup­ported by inter­na­tional cor­po­ra­tions, and have mul­ti­ple facil­i­ties for the stu­dents. Our team gets bet­ter almost every year and made it to the top 10 this year with just a $60,000 bud­get.” He stops for a sec­ond, and then adds with a smile, “Just think what we could accom­plish with more support!”

2012 UNM LOBOMotor­sports Results

• 5th place in presentation
• 6th place in endurance
• 12th place in autocross
• 14th place in design
• 16th place in econ­omy (fuel)
• 20th place in acceleration
• 25th place in skidpad
• 36th place in cost

The UNM LOBOMotor­sports Team
Gar­rett Kuehner, Project Man­ager
Bren­ton Bar­ton, Deputy Project Man­ager, Accel­er­a­tion Dri­ver
Devin Plagge, Sys­tems Engi­neer, Autocross/Endurance Dri­ver
Kyle Kaniho, Mar­ket­ing Man­ager
Andrew Mur­phy — Chas­sis Team Lead
Luke Yates — Data Acqui­si­tion Spe­cial­ist / Sus­pen­sion and Steer­ing Team Lead
Sebas­t­ian Gomez — Brakes Team Lead
C. Ari­ana Plont — Engine Team Lead
Jacob Fack­el­man — dri­ve­train Team Lead / Car­Sim Ana­lyst, Accel­er­a­tion Dri­ver
Blake Reece — Aeroy­nam­ics Team Lead
Julie Do — Mar­ket­ing Team Mem­ber / Aero Team Mem­ber
Josh Far­ley — Dri­ver Train­ing Spe­cial­ist, Skid­pad / Endurance Dri­ver
Ryan Shaf­fer — Engine Team Mem­ber, Skid­pad / Autocross Dri­ver
Lin Zheng, Chas­sis Team Mem­ber, Team Pho­tog­ra­pher
Froilan Ramirez, Engine Team Mem­ber
Josh Stuh­ler, Aero­dy­nam­ics Team mem­ber, Graphic Designer
Andrew Por­te­ous, Dri­ve­train Team Mem­ber
Steven Fitzwa­ter, Aero­dy­nam­ics Team Member

See the FSAE slide show.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit: LOBOMotor­sports.

Story by and media con­tact: Tamara Williams (505) 277‑5859; email: tamara@unm.edu