Gaucho Racing FSAE
Program Overview
Formula SAE electric vehicle development team member contributing to
chassis manufacturability, cost documentation, steering system fabrication,
and structural compliance. Served in both technical and organizational roles.
Technical Contributions
- Chassis Manufacturability: Coordinated with steel supplier to ensure weldment geometry and tube specifications were producible and compliant before order release.
- Generated detailed part drawings and BOMs from SolidWorks weldments to support fabrication and assembly schedule.
- Structural Equivalency (SES): Designed and documented tube inserts to meet FSAE structural equivalency requirements.
- Mentored new members in SolidWorks modeling and drawing standards for chassis development.
- Steering Wheel: Designed and fabricated final steering wheel assembly (see dedicated project page).
- Seat Concept: Designed composite seat using mechanically tested laminate from materials project (ergonomics package concept, not implemented).
Cost & Competition Engineering
- Managed $40,000+ FSAE cost report spanning dozens of assemblies.
- Researched FSAE cost rules and developed documentation guidelines for all subteams.
- Trained members on proper submission through official online cost system.
- Improved competition scoring at Michigan event through complete and accurate documentation.
- Implemented system-level cost tracking to align design decisions with scoring strategy.
Leadership & Operations
- Served as Team Secretary.
- Organized meetings, secured campus facilities, and maintained internal communication cadence.
- Supported cross-functional coordination between chassis, powertrain, and business subteams.
Engineering Themes Demonstrated
- Design for Manufacturability (DFM)
- Supplier coordination and production planning
- Rule-driven design compliance
- System-level cost engineering
- Technical mentorship and documentation standards
Image Gallery
Supplier-facing chassis drawing with bubbles to ensure manufacturable tube geometry.
Iterative chassis weldment refinement to resolve manufacturability and compliance constraints.
Structural Equivalency (SES) tube insert documentation supporting rule compliance.
Final steering wheel assembly integrated into vehicle (see dedicated project page).
Vacuum-bag fabrication of composite sandwich panel used for seat concept validation.
Early-stage composite seat concept developed for driver ergonomics package.