JCU Motorsport FIRST TIME entry into FSAE-A!!!

[Venom3050]

Hey everyone

We thought we'd drop you a line by saying that James Cook University (Australia) will be particpating for the first time in this year's FSAE-A!! woooooooooooooooo!

We have a vague idea on what is expected on race day...so any advice and information bout this would be awesome!!

[Superfast Matt McCoy]

Don't die.

-Matt

[LSU Dave]

Originally posted by SoonerMatt:
Don't die.

-Matt

[Mike Cook]

Get your car done four months ahead of time.

[Venom3050]

any advice on approaching sponsors? we see lots of ford, holden and major supporters on the car, how do we get them on our side?

[Jersey Tom]

I dont know what the timetable for FSAE-A is, if you have done design already or not, but..

Get as many friggin sponsors as you can. Not just automotive stuff. Apparrel, food, drink, tools, steel, aluminum, blah blah blah. Just find some contact info and roll with it.

Here's my boiled down design check list -

1) Get good people on your team. Kids that know how to wrench on things, are mature, and are ACCOUNTABLE.

2) There are three independent variables on the car; tires, engine, and driver. Figure those out, everything else falls into place from there

3) As a first year team, keep it simple and somewhat robust (as you have no previous cars to rip stuff off of).

4) Manufacturing will take more time than you think. Find at LEAST one solid, dedicated, good machinist and welder. Bust ass.

5) Be thorough when setting up the car. Check EVERYTHING.

6) Win.

Oh yea, and buy lots of zip ties.

[Venom3050]

yeah the competition is in 14 December

We already have preliminary design and trying to start construction. We are getting an engine now and seeking more sponsors.

[Jim bob]

Originally posted by Venom3050:
any advice on approaching sponsors? we see lots of ford, holden and major supporters on the car, how do we get them on our side?

WIN HAHAHA

[Jim bob]

Seriously though, who has finally extracted the didget and decided to support this thing? Who up there said yes?

When I was at JCU I dreamt of participating is FSAE but do you think I could convince anyone?

If it didn't have anything to do with sugarcane or the reef then generally JCU mech eng is not interested. They only want to know about what will benefit them.
Good to see it finally happened. If I was up there I would love to come along and give a hand. Would be great to see JCU represented at FSAE.

[Jarrod]

first place to look is the supplier sponsors

http://www.sae-a.com.au/fsae/sponsorship.htm

at the bottom there is a list of companies that offer sponsorship to all teams, should get you a pretty good start on a few things. Ford/Holden/Mits./Toyota sponsor the competition, they do not offer support directly to individual teams. Local dealerships may be interested though. Approach sponsors from the point of view of the project being about education, not about racing, people are more willing to help that way. Small local businesses such as machine shops will often be very helpful, but be careful of asking too much first up.

[aussie_]

When we first tried to convince the uni that there was enough of us interested to form a team, they weren't very interested in seeing it happen. So we basically said, well we're doing it with or with out you, and we put in the hard yards and formed our team and came up with our designs. They were quite impressed with how much we achieved on our own and now they're helping us in any way they can http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif, sometimes being stubborn actually pays off.

[Micko..]

JCU Boys/Girls,

Given that I was in your shoes two years ago, and the fact that you guys are another QLD team I thought that I'd share our experiences.

Firstly have you got your $6k first year grant from SAE?? (I think they still have this)

I would approach the university for cash $ approach the dean or head of school, DON'T do this unless you are fully prepared, i.e. timelines, budgets, public events that you will attend, team member responsibilities, etc. I would also approach the external relations department for your uni, as our ER people almost exclusively use us as their marketing tool for engineering systems.

Another uni avenue is that most unis also have grants for different things, such as innovation and university promotion, we find that conveniently SAE fits most of these criteria and we usually get a few grand each year.

Never underestimate the value of in-kind sponsorship, for the first few years we really pushed for pure cash and then just purchase parts, however in-kind sponsors for areas like machining, bodywork, paint, electrical and tuning are absolutely invaluable. So approach these respective companies as well. Again don't do this unless you are fully prepared. Personally I would write a sponsorship proposal mail it out to posible companies and then follow up with a phone call, make sure the person calling up has some phone skills, a lot of engineerng studnts DONT.

An example of our 05' brochure.

http://www.qutmotorsport.com/media/pdfs/QUT%20Motorspor...0Brochure%202005.pdf (http://www.qutmotorsport.com/media/pdfs/QUT%20Motorsport%20Sponsorship%20Brochure%202005.p df)

Like Jarrod said approach sponsors from a learning perspective not a racing one, as far as racing is concerned FSAE gets bugger all exposure, also hit up companies that would be looking to recruit engineers from JCU.

Make sure that if you get a sponsor that you service them properly, i.e. all the events that you attend, regular updates etc

As far as race day is concerned just make sure that you will pass ALL of the scrutineering before you get there, special note to noise, belts, firewalls, safety wire and make sure 2 threads are showing through the nylocs!!! no one likes cutting bolts on race day.

Hope this helps a little if you have any other questions shoot me an email.

m.mcinnes@student.qut.edu.au

cheers

[Venom3050]

sweeeeetttt, thanks for the advice

[Sathersc]

Is there any grant analogous to that for first year American FSAE teams? I haven't been able to find any sort of grant information on the SAE website. Thanks!

[Bart Smith]

Firstly congrats to JCU for making the comittment to this years competition.


My reccomendations are to keep it simple for the first year though. Biting off more than you can chew could backfire. Excellent post by the way Miko...

If you have any questions flick me an email, as I am the team manager here at USQ, at: bart_smith@bigpond.com

[Jim bob]

How is JCU going with their entry? Are you guys going to make it to SAE this year?