Self-Made Automotive Competition for Korean University Students

The area called Baja California, Mexico, adjacent to California, USA, where deserts and obstructions are everywhere, is very popular to riders of bikes or four-wheel drive cars who gather around this area and enjoy the off-road racing.  Then, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) began to host a championship named Baja as one of the activities for the education of student members, and this is the origin of the Self-made Automotive Championships for university and college students. At the same time, the On-Road championships such as FSAE (USA) and Formula Student (UK) are also held actively around the world. Recently, the championships branched into various areas such as the electric vehicle championship and hybrid vehicle championship. The Society of Automotive Engineers of each country holds the university and college students' self-made automotive championships to get the students to acquire automotive technology and cultivate future human resources for the automotive industry. 

The Korean Society of Automotive Engineers has been holding the university and college student’s self-made automotive championship, representing Korea, every year since 2007. The championship boasts the biggest scale and has the most participating teams in Korea. The goals of the championship are:

1) supplying university and college students with the opportunity to acquire technology to design and make vehicles by themselves,
2) arousing the motivation to study through automotive sports,
3) contributing to the development of automotive engineering and industry, and
4) fostering the future experts in the automotive industry.

The championship is held in 3 divided parts:
1) Baja competition (off road type),
2) Formula competition (on road type), and
3) Automotive Technology.

In 2020, a total of 117 teams from 74 universities and colleges from all over Korea participated in this championship which was held in Kunsan, Korea from August 7 to 9. The competition proceeded successfully and the participants competed with a passion to win the prizes in one of the three parts: BAJA (off-road), Formula (On-road), and Design and Technical Ideas.

 

Fig. 1 Baja competition at the 2020 KSAE students self-made automotive championship

The Kyungsung Motors Club (KSMC), the self-made automotive club consisting of the students from the Department of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering (School of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering), of Kyungsung University (President Song, Su Gunn) in Busan, Korea, participated in this championship. The team won two prizes, the Silver Prize of the Design in the Technical Part and the Best Prize at the 3D Experience Technology sponsored by Dassault Systems.  The team also won the Bronze Prize at the same championship in 2019.

 

Fig. 2 Awards ceremony of Automotive Technology Part at the 2020 KSAE
students self-made automotive championship

In 2019 right after the same championship was finished, Team AMG (Leader Jeon, Hye Ryeong, and 14 students who were majoring in mechanical and automotive engineering) had started to draw ideas for making a new electric self-made automotive, gave shape to the various figures utilizing CAD software on the 3D experience, checked the whole shape of the vehicle when completed by assembling the parts in the 3D space, and completed the conceptual design, by the teaching of Professor In Chul Guem (Advisor)  and professors in the department. The students could build the Self-Made Automotive while improving the practical field skills by performing FE analysis of structure and collision for the optimal design of bumper and CFD analysis of car body by utilizing various CAE software and designing the body mold by utilizing CAM software. Finally, the electric vehicle, the ARTOIS (The Art of Infinite Speed), was made with the support from various programs such as field study class of seasonal session of LINC+ supervised by the Ministry of Education, other club activities, and so on.

Team leader Jeon, who led the AMG (Aglow Manage Gusto), said " To build ARTOIS the best Self-Made Automotive, we, team members, discussed many days and nights upon the concept design, analysis, and making and this was a good opportunity for us to understand how to apply the knowledge from the classes in the fields and learn the cooperation spirit. These awards are also motivation for us to challenge further and win the better prizes next time."

The Department of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering in Kyungsung University was established in 2018, and has been equipped with the latest actual training equipment, and has educated students majoring in mechanical engineering and automotive fields with the IDEA (Imagine- Design- Establish- Assess) education system for improving the ability of various design. In 2019, the students won the Grand Prize of the electric vehicle part in the "International University Students Creative Automotive Competition" and the Bronze Prize in Design parts of Technology part in "KSAE University and College Students Self-Made Automotive Championship". And 2020, they achieved more successful results of winning two prizes of The Best Prize and the Silver Prize. The educational goal of the department is to equip the students with the technology and talents necessary to work in the whole world in the field of mechanical engineering and electric automotive fields. 

Fig. 3 Formula competition at the 2020 KSAE students self-made
automotive championship

Author Biography:

Professor Jun-Hyub Park is a Professor in the School of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering of Kyungsung University, Busan, South Korea, since 2018. He earned his Ph.D. and MS, all in Mechanical Engineering under the guidance of Professor Ji-ho Song, from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, in 1995 and 1987, respectively. He received his BS from Korea University, Seoul, Korea, in 1985. He was a leader of Fatigue Test Team in GM Daewoo Motor Co. from 1992-1996; a Senior Researcher in Korea Railroad Research Institute in 1997; a Senior Researcher in Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. from 1998-2002. His other careers include; a visiting scholar in Vlassak Group at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University in 2011; a professor in Tongmyong University from 2002-2018. His primary research interest is in the reliability and fatigue life prediction of MEMS devices and mechanical structures.