After a year of constant hard work, École Polytechnique de Montréal has finally officially unveiled its SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) prototypes -- Formula SAE, Mini Baja SAE and SAE Robotics -- designed and built by 45 of its students to participate in major SAE-organized international competitions. The prototypes and their creators will also be crossing the Atlantic to compete for the first time in a competition organized in England by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Very soon, these prototypes will be among those competing abroad on behalf of Québec's engineering universities and hopes are high, given the results of the past few years!

Formula SAE: 0 to 100 km/h in 3.98 seconds (faster than a Porsche 911)!
Since the 1990s, Polytechnique students have shown exceptional ingenuity in designing ultra-high-performance Formula SAE prototype race cars. The challenge is to design and build a single-seater, within a series of technical and financial parameters, that is judged at the competitions on the basis of design, cost, endurance, acceleration, handling and speed in time trials. Éclipse 5, the Poly team's latest model, equipped with an 87-hp, 600-cc motorcycle engine, is capable of attaining a top speed of 168 km/h and can accelerate 0 to 100 km/h in 3.98 seconds.

The many improvements made during the past year to Éclipse 5, a carbon-fibre prototype that cost about $27,000 to produce, give it an excellent chance to finish well in two major international competitions to be held this summer. The first is the Formula SAE, created in 1984 by SAE in collaboration with General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler, and whose 2004 edition will be held May 19-23 in Detroit, Michigan.
This will be followed by the inaugural edition of the Formula Student, which will take place July 9-11 near Birmingham, England, and will attract some 60 top student teams from Europe, Australia and Canada.

A year of intensive preparation
"We began designing the new car in the summer of 2003, immediately following that year's competition," says Jean-Sébastien Leclerc, director of the Poly's Formula SAE committee, which comprises 25 students, including two women, in École Polytechnique's mechanical, computer, electrical, industrial, physics and materials engineering programs. "Besides running private trials at the Autodrome Saint-Eustache and at PMG, we entered a  Solo 2 race organized by the Club Autosport des Laurentides (CADL). We also learned a lot from comments made by professional driver Bertrand Godin in a report on the Z network's Plein Gaz show."

The main improvement this year was to the prototype's structure itself. After conducting analyses using simulation software, the student team successfully increased the rigidity of the chassis by 160%, while adding only 12% to the vehicle's weight. This has improved the performance of the suspension and increased torsional strength in turns. Modifications made to the Honda CBR 600-cc motorcycle engine have boosted it by 10 horsepower. Finally, the seating position has been changed to improve driver safety.

In 2004, some 140 universities from around the world will be taking part in the Formula SAE, a competition that is becoming increasingly well-known and so popular that teams have only a few days to enter. École Polytechnique had its best-ever Formula SAE performance in the 2001-2002 edition, when it finished 19th among 140 entrants.

Mini Baja: a little endurance fiend
Equipped with a 10-hp snowblower motor that can power it to speeds of 61 km/h, and able to  handle jumps of up to five feet in the air, the Mini Baja is an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) designed and built to handle the absolute worst in driving conditions -- very steep slopes, repeated bumps and obstacles, mud holes, snow, etc. -- in competitions that attract the best North American universities.
There are a total of over 100 teams competing from Canada, the United States and a few other countries. When it was created in 1976, the Mini Baja competition pitted only about a dozen teams against each other. For the past few years, its popularity had forced organizers to limit the number of participants to 140.

In 2003, the Poly team won the event's most important trial, the endurance race, at the Midwest Mini Baja Competition in Troy, Ohio. It also led all Canadian teams in the overall standings, finishing fourth among the 120 entrants. The previous year, despite a mechanical problem, École Polytechnique's team finished high in the design category (7th among 108 participants).

This year, the Poly's Mini Baja team of 10 mechanical, chemical and industrial engineering students is determined to finish on the podium. Together, these students have devoted some 4,000 hours to designing and building two Mini Baja ATVs, 243 and 246 cm long and 150 cm wide, one of which is amphibious. The prototypes will be competing in the East SAE Mini Baja Competition, May 7-9 in Bromont, Québec, and in the Midwest Mini Baja Competition, June 4-6 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The vehicles, valued at about $18,000 apiece, will be judged in three categories: design, performance and endurance.

SAE Robotics: recognized expertise
Magoo is the name of the quadruped robot that a Poly team will be entering in the SAE Walking Machine Challenge in Schenectady, New York, April 28-May 1. This competition, which has been held across North America since 1987, brings together competing teams of students in the different engineering programs at universities in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Magoo was built during this past year by a group of 20 École Polytechnique mechanical, electronic and computer engineering students. The prototype is 130 cm long, 60 cm wide and 100 cm high, weighs about 30 kg, and is driven by nine DC 24V motors, four of them brake-equipped. Magoo's strides are 27 cm long.

 
The Poly's SAE Robotics team was created in 1991 and in 13 years it has developed acknowledged expertise in designing and building walking and wheeled robots. It has also innovated by creating several robots featuring unique mechanical architecture, electrical components or intelligence. The many awards that the team has garnered bear witness to the sense of wonder and excitement generated by its imaginative and highly functional robots.

Founded in 1873, École Polytechnique de Montréal is one of Canada's leading engineering institutions, in terms of both teaching and research. It is the largest engineering school in Québec as far as its student population and the scope of its research activity are concerned. École Polytechnique provides instruction in 11 engineering specialties and is responsible for more than one-quarter of university research in engineering in Québec. The school has 220 professors and nearly 6,000 students. Its operating budget is $72 million, in addition to a $40-million research and infrastructure fund. Polytechnique is affiliated with Université de Montréal.

Formula SAE: http://www.fsae.polymtl.ca
Mini-Baja: http://www.minibaja.polymtl.ca
SAE Robotics: http://saerobot.polymtl.ca

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Information:  
Andrée Peltier
Andrée Peltier Public Relations
(514) 846-0003