An Engineering Student Formula SAE team from Japan that is not lost in translation!

The least we can say is how pleasantly surprised we are to see how much student sponsorship program is growing and spreading its wings… Every year, it enables us to help out university engineering students and teams from around the world whose projects might benefit from 3D scanning technology. “Around the world” especially takes its full meaning this year… since we even have an engineering student team from Japan!

They hail from Tokyo-based Kogakuin University, one of the oldest private engineering school in Japan. The team takes part in the Student Formula SAE Competition of Japan, and therefore plans, designs and builds a small Formula-style race car. During various competitions, their vehicles are inspected for rule compliance and raced according to specific criteria, such as acceleration and speed.

As one of our selected teams in the Creaform Student Project Sponsorship Program, the KRT team received a loaned HandySCAN 700 to help out with their project. It was used to optimize the design of their racing car body, in order to accommodate the radiator within the (tight) space available, while making sure that they still met all the requirements of the engineering competition.

The KRT built a clay model of the left side fairing, in which the radiator had to be fitted, for optimal cooling performance. Some challenges were encountered, as the side fairing could not be higher than 500 mm above ground, and this limitation hypothetically made the radiator protrude by about 10 mm.

Racing car clay model of the left side fairing ready to be 3d scanned by the HandySCAN

By using the mesh model and CAD model from the 3D scan, the team was able to redesign the width of the side fairing, thus making it possible to include the radiator while obtaining a overall height of 477 mm. In their own words, the team was “very relieved !”

CAD mesh model from the 3d scanned racing car part

The engineering student team additionally plans to use their 3D scanner in other projects, such as the assessment of the wing shape. If you want to brush up on your Japanese, here are their website and Facebook page. All the best to the Kogakuin Racing Team engineering competition, which race will take place in September !

Test driving a racing car from student engineering team on a speedway