Every year, a group of senior mechanical engineering students at Virginia Tech builds, or works on, a race car for their senior project.
“The goal of the projects are reliability and safety,” said Michael Wiciak, Virginia Tech mechanical engineering student and Virginia Tech Grand Touring team member. “Every two years we will cycle a new car in. We will get a Facebook [marketplace] car, put a roll cage in and basically, once the safety requirements are done, any project can go.”
As part of the mechanical engineering degree, the student-led team is tasked with organizing a project from start to finish and recording the results.
For the Virginia Tech Grand Touring team, that means getting a car to survive a 12-hour endurance race.
“Our goal is to finish the race every year and that is a feat of accomplishment,” said Wiciak. “Getting a whole new system we didn’t design, we don’t know how it works and then adding our own input into it and really saying ‘Hey, let’s see if this thing breaks or runs or not.’”
The team of fifteen brainstorms its ideas and then each person on the team has a specific part of the car they have to improve.
“Everybody was very aware of the fact that we picked up this car in mid-October and we need it to be ready by March 2,” said Dominic Hanna, co-captain of the Grand Touring team.
They said as the race got closer, everything was going fine until disaster struck.
“A week and a half before the race, oil pan went in, sealed it up, tried to test the kill switch--there was power,” said Wiciak. “[We] went to start the car, didn’t start the car, didn’t work at all.”
After ripping the dash out of the car, they found the issue and how to fix it.
“We put the key in, we’re all standing there waiting,” said Wiciak. “I have a little iPad I had to buy because I was trying to diagnose the system, turn it on [and] all you hear is ‘vroom.’”
With just hours to get to the track, the team was still able to race their car.
“We were able to finish, 25th out of 26 and that’s all we can ask for is finishing,” said Wiciak.
They said with this project, it has already helped in the search for jobs post-graduation.
“Having that knowledge knowing you are able to set those goals and meet them within such a timeframe really gives you the confidence to kind of go into the workforce,” Hanna said.
Next year, the rising seniors will take this car and improve on it.