YCP Racing Team Headed to SAE Competition

Members of York College's Racing Team, who leave for a Formula SAE competition in Michigan this week, were recently featured on WGAL and Fox43. The team hosted a send-off event on May 7 in the Kinsley Engineering Center parking lot to show off and test their race car before the competition.

BACKGROUND: YCP Racing has evolved over the past five years. The Mechanical Engineering Program entered two cars in an SAE Mini Baja competition in 2005, placing 19th and 44th out of 142 competitors. More recently, York College has transitioned into Formula SAE events (beginning in 2007). Over the last three years, the team has progressed substantially with continued innovation.

YCP RACING 2010: A major component of the mechanical engineering curriculum is the senior design capstone project, in which students apply the technical skills they have learned in their studies and Co-Op experiences to a real-world design problem. The Class of 2010 will compete in a Formula SAE competition, a challenging experience that involves complete automotive design and fabrication including drive-train, chassis, suspension and body.

Under the direction of faculty advisors Jennifer Dawson, PhD, and Stephen Kuchnicki, PhD, the team will travel to Michigan International Speedway to compete in the Formula SAE ® Michigan, May 12-15. To be eligible to compete, team members must be enrolled as undergraduate or graduate students. Currently, 120 teams plan to participate in the competition.

WHAT IS FORMULA SAE? Formula SAE® is a student design competition organized by SAE International (formerly Society of Automotive Engineers). The first competition was started back in 1978 and was originally called the Mini Indy.

The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules whose purpose is both to ensure onsite event operations and promote clever problem solving.

Formula SAE promotes careers and excellence in engineering as it encompasses all aspects of the automotive industry including research, design, manufacturing, testing, developing, marketing, management and finances. Formula SAE takes students out of the classroom and allows them to apply textbook theories to real-work experiences.

THE 2010 YORK COLLEGE TEAM:

Clark Arnold ’10 (Manchester, Pa.) - Intake / Exhaust

Andrew Bailey ’10 (Railroad, Pa.) - Intake / Exhaust

Adam Bean ’10 (Pottstown, Pa.) - Body

Dave Coyle ’10 (Fairless Hills, Pa.) - Upright Design

Steve Gore ’10 (Sparks, Md.) - Frame

Chris Guest ’10 (Boyertown, Pa.) - Differential

Nicole Stenpeck ’10 (Columbia, Md.) - Brakes

Andrew Stowell ’10 (Mechanicsville, Md.) - Suspension

Dillon Mason ’10 (South Riding, Va.) - Impact Attenuator / Cooling System

Wade McKain ’10 (Elizabethtown, Pa.) - Team Captain / Engine Team

FACULTY ADVISORS: 

Jennifer Dawson, PhD 

Stephen Kuchnicki, PhD