The Formula SAE competition is for SAE student members to conceive, design, fabricate and compete with small formula-style racing cars. The restrictions on the car frame and engine are limited so that the knowledge, creativity and imagination of the students are challenged. The cars are built with a team effort over a period of about nine months and are taken to a host institution for judging and comparison with approximately 140 other colleges and universities throughout the world. The end result is a great experience for young engineers in a meaningful engineering project as well as the opportunity of working in a dedicated team effort.

In order to accomplish this goal, team members must use the engineering knowledge and work experience that they have gained throughout the course of their education.

The car is judged by industry professionals in the following areas:

Engineering Design
The designs are left open ended while limiting cost, size, weight, and providing restrictions for safety. The intended sales market is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Therefore, the car must be very high performance in terms of its acceleration, braking, and handling qualities while being relatively affordable. The result of these designs will outperform any production car in terms of acceleration and lateral acceleration.

Presentation
Although the dynamic event of racing the FSAE car is the most enjoyable, a final design presentation along with a question and answer session is used to judge the students engineering reasoning behind the car. This presentation is more of a marketing presentation that is meant to "sell" the car to the amateur autocross racer.

Cost
The LTU Formula SAE is a prototype race car that must be reproducible at a cost of $25,000 at a rate of four cars per day for a limited production run, 1,000 in total. However, due to single-unit fabrication increasing material costs, equipment, and extensive testing, our prototype cost will be well over the production cost usually anywhere between $40-$70,000.

 Performance
The race car's performance is judged through the following dynamic events:

• Acceleration
• Skid-Pad
• Autocross
• Fuel Economy
• Endurance Race