BGU Students Build and Design a Racecar
BGU Students Build and Design a Racecar
June 17, 2013
JTA.org — BGU student Rani Dekel found himself in the unique position of driving the only Israeli-made racecar in the Formula 1 Peace Road Show that transformed the historic streets of Jerusalem into a racetrack.
The rest of the cars in the Jerusalem race were built by world-renowned car manufacturers such as Audi, Ferrari and Mercedes. View video of the event >>
“It was like being Madonna’s opening act. To make so many people happy was like magic,” says Dekel.
The racecar driven by Dekel was built by Ben-Gurion Racing (BGR), a team comprised of students from BGU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
The only Israeli team to have participated in the prestigious Formula SAE competition in Italy, BGR has been moving up the ranks each year. Last year, the team placed 11th of 42 teams.
At BGU, building a racecar is a collaborative process. The team began working toward this year’s Formula SAE race last summer, when the students split into pairs, each tandem choosing a part of the car to design. View a video of BGU’s racecar lab >>
“The racecar involves a huge number of different specialties that go into one machine,” says Dor Efroni, one of BGR’s project managers. “No one thing is more important than the next. Each small aspect needs to be perfect.”
The main difference between last year’s model and the current one is that the motor oil is now in a container next to the engine rather than under it, which allows for the engine to be lower and the car to be faster.
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