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Fast and Furious College Kids

Engineering Students Speed to the Finish Line in Mini-Cars They Designed and Built

July 1, 2009

Engineering students built, tested and drove miniature race cars to compete in a formula car competition. The cars were judged based on their design, acceleration, endurance and handling. Various tests determined the scoring: for acceleration--a drag-race; for endurance racing -- long distances. Cars were required to conform to a set of rules in their design, which involved countless hours of tweaking by the students.

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Science Insider

WHAT ARE G FORCES? Acceleration is motion in which either an object's speed or direction (that is, its velocity) changes. Mathematically, acceleration and gravity are equivalent, just like energy and mass. A g is a unit for measuring acceleration in terms of gravity. g forces arise whenever something accelerates (as opposed to standing still or moving at a constant speed). 1 g is the same as the force that pulls a person toward the ground. When a roller coaster goes around a corner at high speed, the extra pressure riders feel would be measured by a measurement of more than 1 g.

WHAT IS CAD: A computer-aided design system combines hardware and software to enable the user to design everything from furniture to cars and airplanes. The user can view a design from any angle and zoom in or out for close-up or long-distance views. CAD systems typically rely on a combination of a keyboard and conventional mouse to control what's on the screen.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.-USA, and the American Association of Physics Teachers contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

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To Go Inside This Science:
Nancy Lewis
Corporate Communications Manager
SAE International World Headquarters
Warrendale, PA 15096-0001
nlewis@sae.org
412-977-2894

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
IEEE
IEEE-USA
Pender McCarter
p.mccarter@ieee.org

American Association of Physics Teachers
College Park, MD
301-209-3311