Formula Manipal, the only team from Asia to participate in FSAE Italy 2008, is a team of 15 young engineering students from MIT (Manipal Institute of Technology). The team has designed and built a car with a Honda CBR 600cc engine and data systems from National Instruments and will race it at FSAE Italy, which will take place from the 20th – 22nd September 2008 at the Ferrari racetrack at Maranello, Italy.
“Our team comprises of Mechanical, Electrical as well as Electronics engineering students from various batches. We have worked together for over two years to achieve an optimal design. Although each of us has our own specialty and skill-sets, we have learned to make use of our individualities and work in unison to successfully complete this massive team project. The manufacturing cost of the car is $15000,†said Kaushik Mani, Team Leader, Formula Manipal.
Formula SAE (FSAE) is a student-based engineering design competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). It began 25 years ago in the USA, with just a handful of universities competing. Since then this event has grown to host over 140 teams from all over the world and has led to similar competitions held in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. Formula Manipal is only the fifth Indian team ever to participate in FSAE. This year they will be the only team representing India and Asia.
The objective of the competition is for students to design and fabricate a 600cc concept racecar worthy of mass-production by a hypothetical manufacturing firm. The teams are evaluated first on the car's dynamic performance in several gruelling tests. The competition not only involves entering the car into a series of demanding races but also requires the students to justify their design with events aimed at business, costing and marketing the car. The competition is very tough; deadlines must be met; performance delivered and resources used effectively.
The Formula Manipal Team comprises of Kaushik Mani (team leader), Vineet Jain, Shelav Jain, Ankit Banka, Arjun Samara Divakera, DN Siddhartha Jain, Ratnesh Kumar, Srikant T, Nishant Jain, Sagnik Niyogi, Eklavya Singh, Aditya Raghunandan, Rachit Mathur, Aayush Gupta, and Dhawal Bavishi. The team has an official website - www.formulamanipal.com.
