Car acquired for new SRU racing club
Slippery Rock University is set to give the green light to an ambitious new group, Rock Racing Club, after the purchase of a Formula SAE race car.
The club is comprised of eight members involved in the new engineering program, and they are looking at next steps to get the organization on track.
Aaron Fry, sophomore finance major and secretary of Rock Racing Club, said the group came to fruition after multiple students approached professors with the idea.
“The club initially started when kids expressed an interest to a professor, who brought them together,” he said. “There are a lot more in the organization now than at the beginning of the school year.”
The single-seat, lightweight vehicle was acquired for $10,000 last month, Fry said, and was formerly raced by Rutgers University’s club. According to him, Rock Racing plans to get involved in Formula SAE races, which require competing college teams to create and build a car from scratch every year.
Teams at bigger schools, like Penn State University and Carnegie Mellon University, are often big in number and allow 24-hour access to their vehicles, Fry said.
“The plan is to use the car as a dummy to test certain ideas and engineering functions,” he said. “It’s also a way to get people interested and excited about (the club).”
While paperwork for the club is still being approved by Slippery Rock officials, the club has plans to start engineering, marketing and management teams.
“The endgame is to gain experience in our fields,” Fry said. “It’s engineering heavy, so we’ll have four engineering teams for the car competitions. We need people from all departments to gain experience and take cars we build to the events.”
Fry said SRU is trying to push the engineering program forward, and the racing club is a good place to start.
According to Chris Gioia, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and faculty adviser for Rock Racing, the first class of mechanical engineering majors will graduate next year.
“This car will enable (engineering) students to have hands-on experience while still in school, as well as experience in project management and working as a team,” Gioia said.
The race car is currently housed in the machine shop of Vincent Science Center on campus. According to Gioia and Fry, the team is most excited to get it in a garage space and begin working.
“We need a dedicated space for the club to build, test and develop,” Gioia said. “Optimistically, we could be up and running next year.”
“This is a huge initiative by students, a student-driven thing,” Fry said. “What we’re most excited for is getting a space to start working in and getting more hands-on.”
