The Cal State Long Beach chapter of Society of Automotive Engineers is teaming up with the industrial design senior studio class to build two vehicles from scratch for the Long Beach Grand Prix in April and the SAE Collegiate competitions in June.
The first vehicle will be an open-wheeled single-seated car. The second will be for off-road recreational uses.
A team of eight engineers will work on building and designing the interior of each car, and two design teams will work on the exteriors.
This is the first time the design department and the engineering department of CSULB have collaborated in 15 years, according to Max Beach, industrial design senior studio instructor.
The collaboration began when design students informally talked with the SAE about working together almost four years ago. Christiane Beyer, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor and senior project adviser at CSULB, was looking for an opportunity to work with the design department, according to Beach.
“A class was able to be formed when students were helping SAE to come up with a visual brand,” Beyer said. “I wanted to focus on giving the students an enriched, professional atmosphere.”
Both the design and the engineering students agreed that the collaboration would be beneficial to get hands-on experience with clients.
“I think it’s awesome,” said Matt Serrano, a junior aerospace engineering student. “We’re communicating with each other and learning how things will be done together.”
Senior design major Blake Robertson said the experience will allow them to collaborate with engineers, get their perspective and understand their needs.
“It’s also great to know that we’ll be building something that will actually work,” Robertson said.
However, one of the biggest problems for the engineers is the race against time. Teams had to juggle between class, work and club activities during the fall semester, and spent as much time as they could during the short winter break to work on the cars.
“We spent 10 hours every day for six days a week working on the framework,” said Taylor Hoff, a junior engineering major.
Hoff also mentioned that it’s a time-consuming process of experimentation.
“Previous members of the club didn’t leave us with much material or guidelines, so we’re jumping into it blindly and sometimes finding out afterwards that there was a better or easier way of making things,” Hoff said.
On the design side, the challenge is to still make a uniquely styled body that represents both teams, as well as the school, without compromising the dimensions of the framework and other components the engineers need to put in the cars, Robertson said.
“It’s moving pretty rapidly, but our final designs should be done by Friday,” Robertson said. “We’re thinking of an aerodynamic design with plastic, fiberglass and steel for the Formula series.”
The teams hope to finish the cars ideally by next month to start fine-tuning and preparing for the Long Beach Grand Prix.
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