Our Mission:
WWU Racing strives to foster an environment where we can help build the best product possible: the students. WWU Racing provides students with the space to develop as professionals through taking on challenging projects, collaborating, problem solving, and continuous critique and reflection, students develop the tools they need to succeed post graduation. Through this process, students gain the tools they need to succeed after graduation, becoming professional, well-rounded, and highly marketable employees.
Who We Are:
WWU Racing is a team of students with varying majors and skillsets who are passionate about furthering their knowledge through the development of a formula-style race car. WWU Racing aims to build a new vehicle every academic year and compete with it at the international Michigan FSAE EV Competition. Engineering team members design, manufacture, and test the car, while business team members focus on acquiring sponsors, managing budgets, creating media content, and participating in community events to share the team's mission and work with others. Being a part of WWU Racing provides team members with the acumen to carry on to their respective careers.
Engineers learn hand fabrication, machining, Computer-Aided Design, simulations, and data analysis, which helps to optimize our car. To ensure reliability, competitiveness, and safety, engineers use data-driven justification for all design choices. WWU Racing proudly produces the vast majority of our components in-house. Although time consuming, developing parts in-house allows the team to gain an in-depth understanding of the manufacturing process. The business team learns and practices accounting, management, marketing, supply chain management, operations, event planning, and public relations skills that transfer to any business environment.
All members, both engineering and business, learn the importance of goal setting, time management, and communication. The team works cohesively and holds each member accountable for their work, building a dependability that is highly sought after in young professionals.
Competition:
The Society of Automotive Engineers hosts a competition known as Formula SAE (FSAE) which is part of SAE's Collegiate Design Series (CDS). This series was designed to help students graduate with greater vehicle design knowledge and has been held for over 40 years. Western Washington University was one of the first few schools to participate in the series upon its inception. Multiple FSAE competitions are held each year internationally, allowing students to test their engineering and business expertise. SAE provides safety and design rules that every team must follow. Although constraining, these rules still allow for innovative vehicle engineering and design.
FSAE cars are raced in autocross fashion primarily, requiring cars to possess excellent handling, braking, and acceleration capabilities. The car is built and judged as a possible production prototype, so it must be built with performance, reliability, accessibility, and affordability in mind. Therefore, engineers must choose materials and processes that weigh these constraints and design the car accordingly.
SAE also requires students to demonstrate their knowledge in business-based events. Teams must submit a cost breakdown of their vehicle and are judged on accuracy as well as the ability to justify additional expenses with the value it adds to the car. Each competition also issues a real cost scenario and a business prompt, where teams must create and present solutions for the given situations.
WWU Racing currently competes in the all-electric category, which has proven to be both more challenging and costly. Immediately after finishing the school year, our team drives over 2,300 miles to Michigan International Speedway for the competition. With the electric vehicle components combined with the cost of travel, our team necessitates funding to keep our members involved and competitive.
Donation Usage:
Donations to the team are used to push design boundaries and take on new, ambitious projects. In this design cycle, we’re proud to be developing WWU Racing’s fourth fully electric car, Viking 67. Some key highlights of this design include an Emrax 228 LC MV motor and Cascadia Motion CM200DX motor controller, in-house designed battery packaging using pouch cells, and a redesigned suspension package. All of these and many more choices made by WWU Racing are viewed from a cost-to-benefit lens based on the educational value that each project provides for students. Money that is raised helps us to push our boundaries throughout the design, manufacturing, and testing to compete on an international stage.
How Your Donation Helps:
While WWU Racing is an on-campus club, it is run as an engineering startup. Our team must raise all our funds not only to build a race car but also to help build the team and the amount of physical assets we have at our disposal. These funds come from local sponsors, community outreach, events, donations, grants, and within Western Washington University. Every dollar that is given to the team goes directly to allowing a student to build a part of the car or the team, better preparing them for the real world. Each member of the team will use this money to get real-world experience in a safe and nurturing space that allows them to push their own limits without fear of consequence.
