Osprey Racing earned their highest finish in six years of competing at the Society of Automotive Engineers International competition, placing 48th out of 120 teams in the competition.

Each year Osprey Racing has to build a brand new car (this year’s iteration was called the Swoop D6) from scratch. The car must be ready by the date of the competition; This in itself is a huge task as 14 schools couldn’t compete because they didn’t have their car ready in time.

Other Florida universities competing against UNF annually are the University of Florida, University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and University of South Florida. This year, UNF beat UCF, Florida Institute of Technology, and USF.

The racing team has participated in the Formula SAE competition for five years. In 2015, the team placed 60th and in 2016 they placed 102nd.

The goal from here on out from the Osprey Racing team is to be part of the top-20 teams at the competition, stated Austin Hindman, a Mechanical Engineering Junior.

The competition consists of two sections: static and dynamic evaluations. The dynamic section of the competition evaluates the speed and the endurance of the car while the static section evaluates the design and the production behind the car. There are also eight sub-scores that are totaled over the period of the competition.

“I think we had a really good car this year, it pretty well in the dynamic events,” said Albin Alex, a Mechanical Engineering Junior and Vice President of the club. “So next year we will be focusing on the static events and basically working on the design event, the cost, the business, that aspect of the club, which we didn’t do so well this year.”

The team has already started on the design for next year’s car and will be inspired by this year’s car.

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