The FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences is home to some 40 courses of study in areas of International Business, Information, Design & Technologies, Environmental Studies and Health Sciences. The following project was made possible through the cooperation of students with a background in (almost) all of the aforementioned fields of study and I’m proud of the fact that I was also a part of it once.
Formula SAE® is a student design competition organized by SAE International (formerly Society of Automotive Engineers) dating back to 1979. To quote their website:
The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules whose purpose is both to ensure onsite event operations and promote clever problem solving.
Our University took part in this competition in 2003 in the UK and won the Marketing portion of the competition with no actual car constructed. University of Toronto won the Overall Event in this year, by the way 🙂
In 2004 I joined the team and was in charge of marketing, advertising and designing a website for the “joanneum racing” team, as it was called at the time. As soon as I heard that extra points were added for the marketing presentation and that there were close to 200 teams, I knew that the team name and appearance had to be unique, distinguishable and easy to remember. After spending some time browsing basketball, American football, hockey and other team sport websites, I came to the conclusion that we also needed a mascot, an animal that would depict the characteristics of the team spirit and the car itself.
The car was an aggressive, all-wheel drive monocoque bullet that wrinkles the race track behind it; fast, deft and highly maneuverable. First a rabbit came to my mind, but a rabbit is usually running away and I needed something that attacks – and wins. Meet “The Weasels” 🙂
I was really happy that the animal name was pretty much the same in both German (wiesel) and English.
I designed the promotional matierials, the website and car renderings.
We took part in the competition and took the 43th place in the overall placement despite the malfunctioning vehicle. Two transmission gears broke and we had to manufacture new ones in England and to fly in an extra set from Austria. Losing an entire day of competition was compensated by the fact we were one of only 17 teams that successfully completed the endurance event
For this coordinated effort we were awarded the „FISITA Award of Best Endeavour“ for the best team spirit.
Since then, each year there is a new team with new ideas and each year a new car is built.
This year’s car, the jr11, features the weasel mascot on the side.
I wish the guys all the luck in their future competitions!
