Triton Racing unveils their 2017 car

Triton Racing's 2017 Car

Triton Racing recently held an unveiling event for their 2017 car, which they will take to competition in Lincon, Nebraska June 21 – 24, 2017.

“It’s an iteration of the 2015 car,” said Ivan Voroshilov, Vice President of Triton Racing and a third year mechanical engineering major. “We have all year to test it.”

At the same time, the team is developing 2018 car.

“Our team is the best it’s ever been,” said Voroshilov.

Formula SAE started with six teams in 1981 and has grown to over 160.

The day of the unveiling event, Steve Fox, President of PowerTrain Technology (Chief judge of Formula SAE) and Tony Lyscio, Senior Structural Engineer at SpaceX were on site to meet with SAE chapters from multiple southern California universities and providing a lecture. They toured facilities, enjoyed a meet and greet, and saw test runs of racing team vehicles.

“We invited 10 other university teams from Southern California,” said Alex Tran, Sponsorship Director for Trion Racing and a fourth year bioengineering major. “This is a regional event every year, and this is the first time it’s been held at UC San Diego.”

“Formula SAE refines engineers,” said Fox during the lecture portion of the event. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to support this type of a program. Every engineer that graduates with Formula SAE experience under their belts gets cherry-picked into the best jobs.”

“At SpaceX, we recruit heavily from Formula SAE,” said Lyscio. “These are the types of mentalities that we want.”

It’s not just SpaceX – Hunter Industries, Triton Racing’s title sponsor, brought on Triton Racing members, including Daniel Morris and Ian Holmes, as interns over the summer, and recently hired Chris Campagnoni (BS, Mechanical Engineering, ’16) as an associate mechanical engineer.

“UC San Diego provides us with the highest quality of engineering talent in the region,” said Scotty Lombardi, Manager of Talent Management at Hunter Industries. “But the talent that comes out of Triton Racing comes with an extra skillset. It sets them apart from the competition.”

See more photos here

UC San Diego’s Formula SAE Team Places 24th Overall at Competition

2015 Triton Racing Team

UC San Diego’s Formula SAE team, Triton Racing, placed 24^th overall out of 80 teams at the annual Formula SAE competition, held this year at Lincoln Airpark in Lincoln, Nebraska June 17 to 20. This is better than a UC San Diego team has ever done in competition.

The competition included a number of events. On Friday, the team competed in the Skid Pad, Acceleration and Autocross events.

“We had a mechanical failure on Thursday that set us back,” said Natalie Fenaroli, one of the car’s two drivers. “The right front hub sheered – or rather, the wheel came off.”

The part that broke wasn’t one that the team had on hand in their stash of spare parts since they had machined it themselves. Luckily, the students were able to network with other teams and in doing so, got in contact with Speedway Motors, a local company with a machine shop.

“Speedway Motors helped us design and manufacture a replacement part,” said Fenaroli. “In addition, a student from the University of Nebraska stayed up all night to help us complete the welding. We included stickers from both Speedway Motors and the University of Nebraska on the car for the following day’s competition.”

After putting the wheel back on, the team was prepared to compete in the Endurance event on Saturday.

“I completed something like seven laps before we changed drivers,” said Fenaroli. “I could smell metal burning, but the driver change happened so fast that I didn’t have time to warn the second driver.”

The result? The same wheel came off, preventing the team from finishing the Endurance leg of the competition. The team learned a lot, says Fenaroli, about design processes.

“Sloppy bearings caused extra forces that we didn't take into account,” said Fenaroli. “Basically the wheel could wiggle around, so next year we will invest in higher precision bearings.”

Overall, the team worked really well together, said Fenaroli.

Triton Racing placed 9^th in the Business Presentation and 2^nd in Efficiency, earning them a trophy for the first time.

Watch the wrap up video here:

Triton Racing FSAE Lincoln Nebraska 2015
PLEASE WATCH IN HD!UC San Diego Triton Racing gives students hands-on experience in engineering, project management, and marketing by developing cutting-edge gasoline and electric race cars. Visit us at sae.ucsd.edu to learn more and to find out how you can participate.This summer, the team traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska to compete against 100 teams from around the world. The team took the international stage by storm leading to a 2nd place finish in fuel efficiency and a top 25 finish overall.Shot and edited by: Keita Funakawa (www.FKFilms.com)Special thanks to:Spark Aerial&Yaseen Kady
Posted by Triton Racing on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

For more on this year's car, click here.

Documentary

Since the 2015 race car is so unique, Triton Racing decided to film a documentary that follows the production of the car from start to finish. The documentary is being filmed by UC San Diego student Keita Funakawa. Stay tuned for news of it's release! In the meantime, check out this trailer:

Competition is less than a day away, here's a trailer for our upcoming documentary! Huge thanks to @keitawf
Posted by Triton Racing on Tuesday, June 16, 2015