The Rocket Motorsports team tends to keep busy in the spring, transforming their designs for an open cockpit racecar into a fully functional vehicle ahead of a national competition in May.
This semester the team is gearing up for that race in brand-new digs in the recently renovated North Engineering Building.
From left, senior Tyler Zeller, sophomore William Ezakovich, sophomore Tim Del Signore and senior Ian King, all of whom are mechanical engineering students, work on the Rocket Motorsports team racecar.
“The space is better utilized than where we were last semester,” said Tyler Zeller, a mechanical engineering senior and president of Rocket Motorsports. “The way everything is laid out is a big improvement. It’s given us more room to work.”
“And the garage doors are nice,” he added, gesturing to another key element of the new lab on the first floor of North Engineering. “It makes it easy to get the car in and out.”
Bradley Kistner, another mechanical engineering senior on the team, agreed. They used to work further inside North Engineering, in a lab that was eliminated during renovations. Kistner said it’s not likely anyone will miss carefully rolling the racecar down the hallway, doing their best not to run into walls and corners, whenever they needed to test or transport it.
“It was always a hassle,” Kistner said. “But now we roll it right out the side of the building.”
Rocket Motorsports is the student organization that’s been representing The University of Toledo in Formula SAE since 1994-95, when a team of student engineers first designed and built a Formula One-style racecar in line with the governing body’s extensive list of rules and requirements. It was also the first year the team put their vehicle on the starting line alongside others built by competing national and international teams at the Michigan International Speedway.
This year the team is one of approximately 120 signed up to compete at the speedway on May 8-11.
“We have some new design elements that we’re implementing this year,” Kistner said. “It’s going to be a unique car for this competition, and we’re excited to see how it does.”
UToledo’s College of Engineering champions opportunities for hands-on learning, with its freshman and senior design courses and a co-op program designed so that graduates head into the job market with at least one year of paid real-life work experience on their resumes. That support extends to Rocket Motorsports, where success demands real-world skills that extend beyond those taught in courses within the College of Engineering. Students are responsible not just for the welding and wiring, for example, but also for securing partners and sponsors and managing the business side of the operation.
“Rocket Motorsports serves as an excellent platform to involve students in hands-on engineering applications that complement their classroom learning,” said Dr. Ala Qattawi, a faculty advisor for the team and an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. “The team’s achievements hold significance for the College of Engineering, and both the college and the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering provide ongoing support by granting access to manufacturing and fabrication facilities in the newly designated space.”
Twenty to 30 students are on the team that moved into the new and improved lab this semester, just in time for the hands-on stage of vehicle assembly. On a recent afternoon, a 3D printer was humming, adding layer after layer to a set of wings that will be integral to the aerodynamics of the vehicle.
That’s one of the new design elements this year.
“Most teams have composite wings, and we’ve worked with partners to design and build composite wings in the past, too,” Kistner said. “This year we’re leveraging additive manufacturing to make the most of our design elements, so it’s a lot cheaper and easier.”
Kistner has been contributing to the team since first semester on campus. He and Zeller, who joined in his second year at UToledo, can attest that students who join early often find themselves learning about elements of aerodynamics, engines, suspension and the like ahead of their coursework.
“You get a head start,” said Kistner, whose interest in racing stretches back to childhood memories in the stands at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, and Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio. “When you get to it in class, you’re reinforcing what you’ve already learned.”
It’s also a head start on the job market.
Rocket Motorsports is a line item on a resume that tends to impress within the automotive and manufacturing industries, according to team members who can speak from experience in landing co-ops and post-graduation jobs.
“This is what got me my interview for my co-ops,” said Kistner, who will begin working after graduation at the same electric powertrain company where he completed his co-ops, TWIG Power based in Novi, Michigan. “Rocket Motorsports kind of opened the door to my full-time job.”
