By Sara Elizabeth Payne
His alarm clock flashes 5:00 and he knows he has no time to hit the snooze. He steps out of bed, eats a banana and prepares for the full day ahead of him.
Long before sleepy students in Provo are coherent enough to decide whether or not to hit the snooze button, Miles Jackson, a senior mechanical engineering major from Gig Harbor, Wash. is brushing his teeth, eating breakfast and stepping out the front door.
The 5:55 a.m. bus picks him up from his home in Lehi, where he?ll make his 45-minute journey to BYU. He arrives in the engineering computer lab just shy of seven o’clock.
?Of course it?s worth it,? said Jackson, the team manager. ?I love the project and race car design. I will do anything that would help my career path into designing race cars.?
Jackson, along with 18 other mechanical engineering seniors elected to subject themselves to this early morning ritual six days a week for the course of two semesters so they could be involved in BYU’s first competition race car team. The racecar, which will go 0-60 m.p.h. in less than three seconds and reach speeds of 150 m.p.h., will face stiff design competition from hundreds of other student-built cars across the globe next summer.
The event is sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers, which organizes several other engineering-based competitions throughout the year. For eight years, BYU entered and had more first through fifth place overall finishes than any other universities, including two first place finishes in SAE mini-Baja, an off-road collegiate design competition.
The department this year shifted from Baja to this racecar project called Formula SAE, which team members say is an inexpensive, collegiate version of Formula One cars.
Josiah Hughes from Mission Viejo, Calif., said ?this is the sexiest project.?
The team officially meets three hours each morning Monday through Friday and additionally throughout the day and weekend planning and designing the car. Although they’re technically supposed to arrive in the “CAEDM (pronounced cay-dum) computer lab? in the top floor of the Crabtree Building by 7 a.m., some stumble in blurry-eyed and shabby-haired several minutes late, claim a computer and begin their assignment from analyzing dimensions, digitally creating the frame in computer-aided design (CAD) or testing strength.
The group is divided into two specialties?engine team and vehicle team?which are led by students Jon Burton and Ryan Blanchard respectively.
Right now, the team is about two weeks shy of finishing the initial working model of the car. If everything goes as planned, the men will work through the Christmas holidays to test drive the prototype before students come back to class in January.
UNDERQUALIFIED NEED NOT APPLY
The dedication and time commitment required for this capstone project was a prerequisite, said Robert Todd, the faculty advisor who oversees the Formula SAE vehicle team. While most of the 31 other engineering capstone projects were open to any mechanical engineering senior, those wanting to work on the racecar needed to apply.
?In anything like this, heart is one of the biggest factors,? Todd said. ?How interested are they really? Where?s their heart??
An applicant?s GPA, resume, experience and engineering capabilities were all determining factors in being admitted to the team. Desire, however, was the biggest factor in selecting the team, Todd said.
About half the applicants to the Formula capstone project were rejected, leaving only what Todd said were the truly dedicated.
Although the team works a minimum of 15 hours a week, realistically about 30, it is a requirement for their three-credit senior capstone class?Integrated Product and Process Design?which lasts two semesters.
None of the men seem to mind. They don?t complain that it?s still dark outside when they go to school. They don?t dwell on the persistently arctic-cold temperature of the computer lab. Eric Bowman?s face lights up before telling someone that he has new pictures of the CAD model.
?It?s designing and building a vehicle from the ground up,? Todd said. ?All of these things have literally thousands of design decisions so they?re putting in much more time, but they [the team members] have a passion for it.?
The project, while demanding more time and effort, also requires thousands of dollars. Jackson said they budgeted $70,000, but Todd said the project will realistically reach $50,000 for supplies, instruction and transportation to the event.
The 31 other capstone projects are given $18,500 in educational grants from their company sponsors and may request more when needed. Todd said he?s seen projects top $40,000, but it?s too early to tell whether the Formula team will be the most expensive project this year.
A HARD SELL
This will be the first year BYU will participate in the competition, which will take place June 2006 in southern California. Vehicle team leader Ryan Blanchard said in previous years, students tried to ask permission to enter the competition, but failed.
?When we went to go to speak with the department chair the first time he said, ‘Every year someone comes in wearing jeans and a T-shirt and say, ‘Hey Dr. Howell can we have forty grand to go do formula?’? Blanchard said. “We tried to be a little more formal. We had done a lot more research and I think that was one of the big keys to getting
our foot in the door.?
The estimated $50,000 price tag associated with designing the racecar turned off many faculty members to the idea. In years past, parts of the competition took place on Sunday, which also prevented BYU from participating.
?I contacted them [SAE] and asked if they had thought about expanding the competition in the west (in the past it was only in Detroit),? Todd said. ?They said yes, and I said would it be possible that we could influence you not have any of the events occur on a Sunday.?
SAE agreed to run the competition Wednesday through Saturday in exchange for BYU helping to find course workers to help at the competition.
Today, it seems like the faculty are excited about the Formula team as much as opening a package on Christmas morning. A nine-foot by four-foot blue poster displaying a representation of the final car commands attention in a faculty meeting room. During a monthly report to faculty member Carl Sorensen in October, the only major critique he gave the presentation was the oval shape of the normally circular BYU logo in their PowerPoint presentation. The team received an A on the presentation.
EXCITEMENT COUPLED WITH EXPERIENCE
Joey West said he, along with everyone else on the team, is looking forward to test-racing the car. As far as the actual competition goes, however, they will have try-outs to determine who will drive.
Two team members Dolan Hall and Scott Pruett have experience racing cars. But West, like most men on the team, does not have any experience behind the racing wheel. He’s
relying on his sheer love of this project to motivate him.
“We have lots of fun,” he said. “We enjoy it a lot.”
West says he looks forward to driving the car and hopefully being the one chosen to race it at the competition. But then again, so does pretty much every member of the team.
While many are still learning as they build, others view this college credit as an extension of their hobby. Eric Peery of Orem is building a Ferrari on the side. Bowman is working on a Baja racecar 1000. Tim Huntzinger, the team?s industrial designer, rebuilt a 1971 Karman Ghia. Jackson built a 1927 street rod from scratch before leaving on his mission at age 19.
?I?ve loved cars ever since I was born,? Jackson said. ?It would take me hours to choose the coolest [matchbox car] at the store. My parents would get really frustrated.?
This love propelled him to finish a 1927 T-bucket with no experience other than a how-to article in a magazine. His team follows him in his passion.
Jackson’s goal is to work overseas for a racecar company, and is hoping this project will launch his career forward. Until then, he’s content sleeping six hours a night, working 30 hours a week designing the car and leading a team of equally dedicated engineers and designers toward a hopeful victory at the California competition in June.
