THE COMPETITION

           In 2004, SAE Brasil (Brazilian branch of the Society of Automotive Engineers) started a collegiate competition that already had a name worldwide: Formula SAE. In this event, Engineering undergraduate and graduate students must design and build a formula vehicle that fulfills certain demands specified by SAE International, and then compete with it in dynamic and static events. FSAE Electric competitions, just like Internal Combustion ones, aim at developing teamwork and forcing students into raising funds, planning and analizing costs involved in the development of a new product. In the end, it improves drastically the participants' learning spectrum, aiming to attend the market's future demands, since engineers with polyvalent knowledge are still a rarity worldwide.

          The vehicle that must be developed is an electric monopost, with electric motors of up to 80kW, fed by a pack of batteries. Some of the events that test the car are: design, manufacturing, cost and business presentations, acceleration and endurance.