9 June 2008

Accolades for NUS car at global inter-varsity race

THE CENTENNIAL 4: The NUS team with their race car at the 2008 International Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) Competition.

THE NUS race car The Centennial 4 revved to its best showing ever at the 2008 International Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) Competition – an annual inter-varsity car race held in Michigan, USA. The team achieved an overall position of 22nd out of 121 teams, putting NUS in the top 20 percentile worldwide. Its previous best performance was a 27th placed-finish in 2006.

They were up against well-known universities such as Cornell University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Western Australia which emerged the overall champion. The NUS team more than held its own by coming in first in the category of Marketing Presentation, and was ranked 4th in Fuel Economy as well as 10th in Engineering Design where it was the only semi-finalist from Asia.

The team, supervised by Assoc Prof Seah Kar Heng from Department of Mechanical Engineering, took about a year to design and build the car. It comprised 11 students from Department of Mechanical Engineering and two from Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The chief judge described the NUS race car as “neat, clean and well thought-out” with tremendous effort put into details.  Its sound engineering and reliability was evident when the race car successfully finished the 22km endurance race — unscathed. Only 42 cars finished the race.

Said team leader Nah Zhong Hui, a graduating student from the Department of Mechanical Engineering: “I was on my knees and praying hard by time the car went on its last lap because the last thing we want is for the car to fail just a few metres before the flag.”

Assoc Prof Seah said the team had shown a great deal of perseverance. Up till the race itself, they were still rectifying unforeseen mechanical problems that hit the car.  

“I was wondering if we could pull through all five days of the competition. I can only thank God everything went well. However, we are not resting on our laurels, for we have started work on the 2009 race car months ago,” he said.