Off to the Races in the 2025 School Year!
September 2025 Newsletter
Fall quarter classes have officially begun! Our team has been busy welcoming new recruits, keeping on top of assignments, and has started meeting again in person. Our new recruits meeting was met with so much success, and we currently have over 200 applications! We can’t wait to work with all the incoming members.
As the start of the school year begins, the business subteam, formerly known as operations, welcomes you to join us at an exciting fundraising event! This Sunday, October 12th, our Cars and Karts showcase in collaboration with Crescent Cruisers auto club will take place at Blue Max Kart Club. We look forward to a raffle, local vendors, mock racing, automotive show, and more. We can’t wait to see you all there!
Looking further into October, Beyond the Podium, a documentary in collaboration with Davis Film Society, will premiere on October 19th on YouTube. A special early screening will take place October 18th, so RSVP before spaces are filled!
This September has also seen many exciting events, including a track day at Thunderhill! Thanks to the Thunderhill Raceway for discounted prices to use the track. Because of their generosity, our team was able to complete skidpad testing with and without the aero package.
Our team also had our Middle Design Review, where each subteam got to present their progress on FE13 and receive value feedback from alumni.
In wheel package news, the design phase continues, as uprights are adjusted to new suspension hard points. Some notable additions are the integration of new load cases for their FEA setups and improved camber adjustability. In the coming months, they aim to finalize the design of all their components and finalize their FEA setups to move forward into the manufacturing phase.
Our electrical subteam has finished major board designs for FE13 and have begun a new member-led project to model the wiring harness. They encountered issues when attempting to install sensors for Thunderhill track day, and have therefore been spending time researching strain gauge configurations and strategies to reduce the effects of electromagnetic interference from the motor and HV cables.
In chassis, the design has been completed and fully approved after the most recent design review. They were able to successfully implement the new torsional stiffness target-setting method they learned about at competition. Tubes are also being sent out to Gerlinger Steel in Woodland to be laser cut and Upstream Engineering in Sacramento to be bent, so the team can begin the manufacturing process promptly.
For aerostructures, this month has meant pushing through iterations of the aero package as well as material research. They have been hard at work optimizing the front wing and undertray. They have also been making progress in the drag reduction system (DRS) design, having completed AoA (angle of attack) studies. Composites has also been looking at material selection for 3D printed core elements. They have successfully been able to print a portion of the wing elements, and we cannot wait to see what comes next!
This month, suspension made major progress on FE13 design by determining hardpoints and continuing our CAD design. Before MDR, we determined major vehicle parameters and can now work with the other unsprung teams to ensure that we can make a final CAD assembly. We reached out to other FSAE teams to get insight on modeling our suspension system and learned more about our newest project: anti-roll bars. We had our first subteam meeting of the year, where new recruits were taught suspension kinematics basics and introductory projects were handed out.
