Build Season Underway

CMR69 is shaping up quickly. The garage is consistently saturated with the sound of grinders and welders. 5 pm on December 4 in Porter Hall 100, is the final design review of 2008. System leaders will present engineering designs to their peers, faculty and alumni. Please feel free to attend. Read entire article

CMR79 at Family Weekend

CMR 79 was displayed at Carnegie Mellon's annual Family Weekend. Swarms of parents and family members of students learned about the work performed by the Society of Automotive Engineers. A few lucky young kids were allowed to sit in the race car for a unique photo opportunity as well. Read entire article

Registered!

The morning of Monday Oct. 6, the Carnegie Mellon Racing Executive Board Members were all seated at their computers monotonously hitting the F5 key. Right at 10am, registration for the 2009 Formula SAE Michigan competition opened and within ten minutes, over 100 teams, including Carnegie Mellon, were registered for the competition. Carnegie Mellon Racing now has its place as team 069 in 2009 Formula SAE Michigan.

As with the traditional Carnegie Mellon Racing naming scheme, our 2009 car in development will now be referred to as CMR69. CMR69 is being developed as our most ambitious car to date. CMR69 will look unlike any other car we've built yet. We aim to impress.
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CMR Promotional Video 2009

Carnegie Mellon Racing held its annual Informational Meeting on Monday, September 8, 2008. Over 80 new faces arrived to learn about the organization and the Formula SAE competition.

The Info Meeting started with a brand new promotional video (view above) and then featured a keynote on the structure of the team, the systems of the car, and the details of the Formula SAE competition.

With recent rule changes and one of the smallest number of returning students to Carnegie Mellon Racing, the team is faced with it's most ambitious season yet. With a complete re-design of the car including the chassis and suspension setup, a brand new body and overall "style" and many systems that are planned to be designed to much higher standards than previous generations of our cars.

An increased effort to expand the club into all departments and interests across campus will hopefully lead to new talent that will greatly improve the quality and performance of our 2009 design, build and race season.

The small group of returning members have already been designing and planning the course of the 2009 car in order to facilitate a well organized design and build environment for new members. Read entire article

2009 Informational Meeting

Carnegie Mellon Racing will hold the annual information meeting on Monday September 8, 2008 at 4:30pm in the Scaife Hall 125 Auditorium on campus. This is the best way to jump into the club and learn about the team.

The team will also be driving CMR79 on the Morewood Parking Lot on Saturday, September 6, 2008 from 10:00am to 4:00pm. We welcome anyone to join in watching and prepping the race car to run.

With the influx of new interest in Carnegie Mellon Racing, we've had over 150 students sign up for our email announcements in the first two weeks of the fall academic season. It is our goal to at least double our active membership this year. Read entire article

CMR Welcomes the Class of 2012!

Carnegie Mellon Racing, the CMU chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers, would like to welcome all incoming freshmen of the Class of 2012(+) to the Carnegie Mellon campus. We encourage students of all disciplines to learn about Carnegie Mellon Racing and to explore what our organization has to offer to them. We especially welcome new students to participate in our learning experiences and to have fun doing it.

Expect to see CMR79, our newest race car, out on campus alongside the dedicated students who built it. Our team will be out on The Cut in the center of campus to display CMR79 for a few days in the first weeks of school. Come by and learn about the work and play involved in our organization.



Carnegie Mellon Racing seeks new membership from students passionate in excelling in and applying skills in the science, business, design, and engineering fields.

Carnegie Mellon Racing will also feature CMR79 at the Fall 2008 Student Activities Fair, Wednesday, September 3rd at 4:30 on the CFA Lawn (Rainsite: Weigand Gym). This is an excellent opportunity to view the race car, talk to current members and grab the latest information on attending team events and meetings. In the week of September 1st, we will post an invitation about our yearly fall information session here on our website and on campus bulletin boards. Check our calendar for the latest events.



To learn more about Carnegie Mellon Racing, please email us and explore this website. We look forward to seeing and meeting new faces, we'll see you around campus and welcome to Carnegie Mellon!
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CMR Runs at PVGP Autocross

CMR 79 racing at the PVGP Autocross. Photo by Ethan Connor.

Jimmy Chow and Danny Chao drove CMR79 at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix Autocross at BeaveRun this past weekend. The autocross is part of the week-long events run by the PVGP with 100% of proceeds benefiting the Autism Society of Pittsbrugh and Allegheny Valley School.
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CMR at Annual ASEE Conference

CMR79 was on display Monday, June 23 through Wednesday, June 25 at the Pittsburgh Convention Center for the annual American Society of Engineering Education Conference & Exposition. The car was exhibited as part of the SolidWorks display.

Car 79 showed a real world, practical use of SolidWorks CAD software and demonstrated the capability of Carnegie Mellon Racing's student members to design and build a very complex mechanical system with Solidworks

Over 3,500 professors, deans, instructors, and students gathered to share their research along with nearly 100 vendors displaying their products. Carnegie Mellon Racing would like to thank SolidWorks for their continued support of Formula SAE at Carnegie Mellon. More information about the conference can be found at the ASEE site. Read entire article

CMR at Michigan International Speedway

Andrew Charters ('10) in Car 79 on the tilt table, one of several parts of the technical inspections.

As most members of the Carnegie Mellon community were finishing exams and packing to go home, a small team of dedicated students prepared Carnegie Mellon Racing's Car 79 for the 2008 Formula SAE Competition on May 14-18 held at the Michigan International Speedway near Ann Arbor, MI.


Many members of the team pulled all-nighters to see that the car was ready to race. A delayed and problem ridden build forced the team to pack an unfinished and untested race car on its way to Michigan. Arriving late on the night of Wednesday, May 14, the team worked under the light of motel issue lamps in order to get Car 79 ready for the static events and technical inspection the next morning.

The team rushed to the Design competition the next morning, with a car that was still unfinished and untested. The limited preparation of the team in the design event and marketing presentation yielded only 61st and 100th place finishes in the two events respectively.

Technical safety inspection further delayed the team in its efforts to race. Several small issues, particularly with driver fit and hardware security prevented the team from passing technical inspections on the first day of static events.

The following day, May 15, after the car was reinspected and passed for technical safety, the team found their next time consuming hurdle in the noise test.

Car 79 put out 118 dB of noise, many times louder than the 110 dB required to pass. After some restricting modifications of the muffler, the team barely passed the noise test, right at 110 dB. Lack of testing and a faulty throttle position sensor also prevented Car 79 from quickly passing brake test. The delays proved to be extremely costly as Car 79 missed its opportunity to compete in both the Skidpad and Acceleration events. As all seemed to be lost for Carnegie Mellon Racing and its efforts, Neel Nayak ('08) made a final brake test run, successfully locking all four wheels and allowing the team continue on to the Autocross event late that afternoon.

Danny Chao ('10) giving the signal to start the Noise test.

Jimmy Chow ('08) took the wheel of Car 79 in the autocross event and dealt with a car that demonstrated massive understeer problems in tight turning conditions. The unwieldy driving experience gave the team a minimum of points in the autocross and placed the team 75th in the event.

Every member of the team turned wrenches to re-adjust Car 79's suspension and replace faulty suspension dampers. Danny Chao managed to work with the Land & Sea dynamometer booth technicians to remedy the TPS problem and achieve a quick re-tune of the engine. These efforts neutralized the steering and engine problems of Car 79 for the final day of racing in the most difficult of dynamics events: Endurance.

Ian Norman('10), Jimmy Chow ('08) and Andrew Simmons ('10) work on Car 79 to prepare for Endurance.

The Endurance race, a 22 km race driven by two drivers, is the most failed event in the Formula SAE competition. The majority of cars that raced this year never finished, suffering catastrophic technical failures that forced them to forfeit the race. Carnegie Mellon Racing has only finished the endurance event once in its young seven years of history competing in the Formula SAE competition. The past success was with the Car 51 in 2005. Last year, the team failed to finish Endurance when Car 37 blew a radiator hose and subsequently overheated.

Jimmy Chow drove an extremely fast first ten laps of the endurance race, his driving ability allowed him to pass at least five other cars. An inadequate fuel pickup design forced Neel Nayak to drive a more conservative final ten laps as he dealt with fuel starvation problems as Car 79's fuel tank started to empty.

Jimmy Chow ('08) passes Brown University during Endurance.

Tremendous anxiety built up in the stomachs of each and every member of Carnegie Mellon Racing as they watched Neel Nayak come down to the final lap of the Endurance Race. An entire school year of design, and build, countless problems and delays and thousands of hours of sleepless man hours led up to this final lap. Car 79 was expected to fail at endurance. There were so many delays in its build and so many problems encountered by this small team of students that it was expected that Car 79 would follow the fate of the majority of race cars in the endurance race.

The teams spirits were lifted and each team member cheered as Car 79 passed a waving checkered flag. For only the second time in the history of Carnegie Mellon Racing, the team's race car, numbered 79, finished the Endurance race. The driving of Jimmy Chow and Neel Nayak awarded Carnegie Mellon Racing a 26th place finish in the event.

Neel Nayak ('08) finishes the endurance race in Car 79.

The 2007-2008 season was a tremendous learning year for new members of Carnegie Mellon Racing. The problems encountered prevented a finishing position as high as the team had hoped for but the experience was a success for every member involved. The skills they learned and problems they solved in the course of the year turned a dedicated few Carnegie Mellon students into a team of engineers, designers, businessmen and leaders. Read entire article