Social distancing regulations restrict a number of activities allowed at San Jose State, but that hasn’t stopped the Spartan Racing team from building cars on campus.
The Spartan Racing team is a club that designs, builds and tests Formula and Baja-style racing cars to compete in national and international student race car competitions.
The club consists of three racing teams: a combustion team that makes cars with motor engines, an electric team that builds electric cars and a Baja team that creates off-road vehicles. Each team has its own officers and sub-teams to construct their own respective cars.
John Schubert, an aerospace engineering senior and chief engineer of the combustion team, and his team are excited to finish building their car, despite the social distancing guidelines that prevent them from working in the shop together.
“[It’s a project] we’re really enthusiastic about,” Schubert said over the phone. “I get to start from a blank piece of paper and [in six months] the car is on a track and one of my friends is driving it. It’s really motivational.”
The racing team is a chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers International, an organization that promotes automotive engineering among college students.
Racing team members would spend the Fall and Spring semesters designing, manufacturing and testing their cars. The cars would be completed in the summer before the organization’s student car design competitions began. During these events, the team presents its Formula or Baja-style car to industry professionals and races them against other colleges.
When SJSU announced there would be a limited number of on-campus activities this semester, the Spartan Racing team took their club and turned it into a class within the mechanical engineering department.
The department’s administrators decided to create multiple classes and labs for the racing team members to enroll in for the Fall semester. The administration decided this so members are able to access machine shops and continue building the cars they left unfinished last semester when the campus closed.
The racing teams also decided to create Zoom workshops to train new members and catch them up to speed with the projects. However, some club members said this makes it difficult for them to form friendships.
“A big part of the team bonding aspect is building the car together [in person],” James Wong, a mechanical engineering graduate student and chief engineer for the electric team said over the phone. “[The electric team] not being able to work [and bond] together has been a major sticking point for me.”
Though the team cannot support one another in person, they are still able to answer questions, welcome new members and continue current efforts.
“[The team] are not going to let new members sit there and be lost in the information,” Ashana Patel, an electrical engineering junior and member of the electric team, said over the phone. “They’ll teach them and answer any question they have. I think that’s one of the nicest parts [of
the team].”
