Gearing up for action

By YAM PHUI YEE THE


heat is on for the country’s debut small formula-style race team as it preps for a big event next month. You can liken it to the Ferrari team in action, the Renault engineers in their top form, and that there are Alonsos and Schumachers in the making. The team in question does not comprise aged hands but is made up of over 40 students from the Universiti Teknologi Petronas Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (UTP FSAE) who are anticipating the adrenaline rush in the Formula SAE Australia to be held in Melbourne, Australia. Also known as Formula Student in Britain, Formula SAE provides aspiring motorsports fans a professional start. The restrictions on the car frame and engine pose a challenge to the knowledge, creativity and imagination of its makers. As such, the cars are usually built over a year and then pitted against other vehicles from other colleges and universities at the annual competition. “Our team consists of students from Mechanical, Electrical and Electronic and Civil Engineering disciplines. In addition, we also have students from Information Communication Technology programme,” said UTP FSAE management head Ng Choon Hoong, 21, who is a mechanical engineering student himself. Planning and preparation works which began two years ago are beginning to take shape and the team even visited their counterparts at the National University of Singapore. “After the visit, we came up with our initial design and the design has been modified and optimised to the final design that we have right now,” he said. Despite their hectic student lifestyle, the students are happily cocooned in a large workspace area where the car morphs from blueprint to reality. Here, minor fabrications, assembly and fine-tuning of the cars are done. “In terms of more technical preparations, a few members from the team have been chosen to undergo a two-month drivers’ training course. Drivers’ training is done using fun-karts during the preliminary stage and an 80cc go-kart for the advanced level. When the car is fully fabricated and functional, the drivers will then be trained using the FSAE car,” explained Ng. The UTP FSAE’s sleek car is called Steel Feather. Technical department head Mohd Faizan Ahmad Zuhdi, 22, explains that it is a replica of a Formula One vehicle.





Universiti Teknologi Petronas Formula SAE members beaming with pride as they pose with their first mock-up car.