What is Berkeley Formula Racing?

Who We Are

We're so happy you took the time to visit our page! We are Berkeley Formula Racing, a student-run organization that designs, builds, and races a single-seat car each year against 100+ other universities from around the world. Our goal is to give our members an opportunity to use what they learn in the classroom in a real-world application. We're thrilled to be able to inspire students and showcase our engineering knowledge. We rely heavily on the donations of people like you to be able to build our car.

Since the team’s founding in 2001, we have expanded from a small team to one of the best in the nation, with 2nd place out of 120 teams in Autocross highlighting our recent achievements. We're proud to have ~65 active members this year from a variety of majors and different backgrounds. Our team is made up of 9 subsystems: Aerodynamics, Brakes & Driver Interface, Business, Chassis, Drivetrain, Engine, Electrical, Suspension, and Vehicle Dynamics. We work to ensure that everyone is welcome on our team, regardless of experience or background.

During the Fall semester we enter into the Design Phase in which each subsystem undergoes multiple design reviews with sponsors and alumni to ensure that they are working efficiently toward the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Once design is complete, we begin our Manufacturing Phase. During these two months, student machinists make over 300 unique parts for our vehicle and student welders weld our steel space frame chassis. The rest of our members assist by preparing and assembling steel tubes for chassis welding and fabricating foam molds and carbon fiber sheets for the aerodynamic devices.Once we assemble all these components, we move into the Testing Phase where we work to debug the car, validate our designs, and tune the car for optimal performance. At the end of Testing we will be to able to go to Competition fully prepared in May of next year!

STEM education is important to our members because we strive to create opportunities for innovation and education outside of the classroom, which not only help to improve our car for competition but also help improve the our knowledge in design and project management. This would not be possible without sufficient funding so we thank you for your time and consideration. Berkeley Formula Racing is riding a tidal wave of performance, with a vast majority of our major achievements in our 22 year history coming in the last couple years. With a little extra help, we earnestly believe we can contend to be the #1 Formula SAE team in the nation, a monumental achievement for us. Your support is so important, now more than ever, to help get us as close as possible to that goal. We hope that this crowdfunding campaign will fund us to get the support and parts we need to continue through our design and manufacturing process for B24 this year.

Where Your Donation Will Go

We need $10,000 to be able to complete our car. To see exactly where your money will go, we’re breaking it down:

$3500 - Wheel Package Assembly

Our drivetrain team is working on optimizing our wheel centers and machining them using a 5 axis CNC. We need enough sets of wheel assemblies to comfortably test with and run at comp with a set of wets as well!

$4000 - Chassis Manufacturing

Manufacturing our chassis to our design specifications requires a lot of precisely cut tubes, jigging, and welding. A well made chassis is the foundation of a successful race car.

$1000 - Engine Exhaust System

We are focusing a lot of attention on our exhaust system this year as we struggled to past to balance noise level and engine performance. We are exploring several strategies to reduce noise without limiting the power of the engine.

$1500 - Vehicle Dynamic Sensors e.g. IR Rotor Temperature

Using simulations to design our car is only the first step of a successful vehicle. Validating that our designs work in the real world and behave how we expect is essential for safety. Sensors like a brake IR rotor temperature sensor also help to tune the car so we can optimize the performance of the car.

We would not be able to succeed without the generosity of our community, and we are thankful for anything you are willing and able to donate. Please reach out to us with any questions or comments. Thank you again for your time and support!

For any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at calfsae@gmail.com. Check our website out at fsae.berkeley.edu, and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/calracing) and Instagram (@calformulasae).