Powercat Motorsports

How to Join

how to join

  • Attend Weekly Meetings

    • Powercat Motorsports has meetings every Thursday, unless other wise stated. Meetings are held in various spots throughout the Engineering Building including: lecture halls, classrooms, and in our shop that is located in the Alan and Jan Levin Design Suite Room 0087. Announcements are made in our Microsoft Teams group each week that details the meeting location and details of the meeting. Microsoft Teams is an app that allows for organized communication for teams like us, to sign up for a Microsoft Teams account follow this link, Microsoft Teams. For information on how to join our slack page, contact our President or ask us at a meeting!

  • Familiarize Yourself

    • Attend test days, autocross events, shop days on the weekend, homecoming events and parade, volunteering opportunities at the College of Engineering, any other event mentioned in Slack.

  • How do you become involved with projects/design opportunites?

    • Become a pest. Get to know the team leaders and never be afraid to ask questions regarding any aspect of the team or car.
    • Projects that you can get involved with include manufacturing, assembly, test day volunteering, CAD design, and other tasks that leaders assign when possible.
    • There is almost always someone in the hanging out in the shop, stop by during the day if you have any questions.
    • A racecar is a very complex system. It isn't something that can be fully understood overnight, we never want people to be discouraged away from the team because of this. The purpose of joining the team is to develop design skills, gain experience working with a team, develop networking skills, and develop yourself as a future leader. Regardless of individual starting positions, if persistent enough you will find yourself developing the aforementioned skills. Resulting in a net positive.

  • Understanding Formula SAE

    • If you're yearning to understand Formula SAE and the culture surrounding the event, there is a great book written by a former Oklahoma Formula SAE Alumni, Superfast Matt Brown. His book, "RACECAR: Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE" is an all-encompassing dialogue of his Senior year experience as the Chief Engineer. Throughout the book Superfast Matt details the fierceness of competition, dealing with winning and losing, lessons about engineering, teamwork, friendship, and yourself. We encourage all member to read the book!

  • Becoming a Team Leader

    • Be a regular member of the team.
    • Decide on a system to be a part of, then become an understudy of that system learning what the leaders do throughout the year.
    • To become a design leader, you must be elected into the position. Elections are held at the end of the spring semester, which allows the opportunity for current leaders to prepare the new leaders for the next year.

  • Benefits of being a Team Leader

    • Ultimately, the greatest benefit of being a team leader in Formula SAE is how it helps with securing a job. A few of the companies that our team alumni work at include:
      • Fiat-Chrysler
      • Tesla
      • Spirit Aerosystems
      • Microsoft
      • Honeywell
      • Garmin
      • Textron Inc.
      • Altec
      • Black and Veatch
      • Burns and McDonnel
      • John Deere