Chimera, UniTrento’s single seater, had a successful run in its Formula SAE debut. The competition was held from July 19-23 at Riccardo Paletti Racetrack in Varano de’ Melegari (Parma).
The UniTrento “E-Agle Trento Racing Team”, which is made up of nearly 60 students and coordinated by professor and advisor Paolo Bosetti (Department of Industrial Engineering), is very satisfied with the results.
Bosetti stated that “We obtained the first prize for the best telemetry solution, which means the best system of collection and communication of the data of the operations of all the systems of the vehicle. These are visualized in a very effective way by the driver through a large display on the wheel and by the technical team in the paddock.”
“Furthermore, even though we weren’t able to complete the trials on the track due to a problem with the seat beat, we were able to achieve excellent results, especially considering that this was the team’s debut and the vehicle was prepared in a very short time: 12th place in the business plan presentation, 13th in the discussion of the vehicle project and 15th in the discussion of the team’s balance sheet.”
Bosetti went on to say that “these placements are very satisfying when you consider that there were 44 teams competing in the electric category in Varano and 25 teams pulled out. Finally, I was very pleased to receive sincere compliments from the judges and the faculty advisor’s of the other teams for the excellent start of the team from the University of Trento.”
Formula SAE is an industrial design competition reserved for students and is promoted internationally by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
The competition, which began in 1981, is for the design and production of a racecar. The experience allows students to move from theory to practice and use what they have learned about automobiles in their books and coursework, but also by putting their heads together creatively as a team, to produce the best high-powered racecar. In this particular class of auto racing, teams are evaluated based on a series of tests for design quality and the engineering efficiency.
“The races,” Bosetti explains, “are divided into “static” and “dynamic”. The first type are technical competitions which are done with the vehicle stopped and are events which span from the presentation of a business plan to the illustration of the technical choices to the evaluation of the safety features by a panel. The second type of trials are real authentic races like you would have at a Grand Prix.”
For over a year, nearly 60 students enrolled in the Engineering and Economics departments worked together as the “E-Agle Trento Racing Team” under the direction of Paolo Bosetti, team advisor and professor of Technologies and production systems in the Department of Industrial Engineering at UniTrento.
The result of their work was a car with a particular attention to the environment, powered by electric propulsion. The design phase was carried out in the department’s mechatronics labs but then moved over to the mechatronic prototype labs (ProM facility) of Trentino Sviluppo, recently opened at the Polo Meccatronica (Mechatronics hub) in Rovereto.
The project was able to count on the support of over 28 businesses in Trentino, which provided know-how, materials, machines and replacement pieces to the university team.