Using a shell mill to flatten piece of aluminum for the engine spacerAbout to fall out of the car...
At the start of my freshman year, I knew nothing about cars and had no experience in designing or making parts. By the end of my freshman year, I've designed a few parts, big and small, and made parts ranging from materials as soft as brass and as hard as titanium. Oh, and I learned a bit about cars.
This upcoming season (2026-2027), I am honored to serve our team as the Technical Director. I have no doubt that this role will be a huge learning experience for me; this will be the ultimate "getting thrown into the deep end" college experience for me, and I'm excited to learn how to swim while helping my teammates stay afloat.
I've gotten this far in large part due to what I've learned over the past three years. I've listed a few learning goals for the new season and will update the list as the season goes on.
2024-2025 Learning Goals
Design
1) How contact forces relate to loads seen in real life
2) When to conduct a part-level vs assembly-level simulation
3) What material to choose/why the material was chosen
Manufacturing
1) How cutting conditions affect different materials
2) How material properties determine cutting methods
3) What ideal chips should look like
2025-2026 Learning Goals
Design
1) How to use code to model complex mechanical systems to determine unknown load values
2)
Manufacturing
1) How to operate a CNC mill/lathe
2) How different tools affect quality of cuts
Organization
1) How to design software to be more user-friendly
2) How to start a subteam from scratch
2026-2027 Learning Goals
Design
1) How to conduct large assembly-level FEA (i.e. front outboard)
2) How to model assemblies in layout files effectively
3) How to collect and analyze meaningful testing data to inform design decisions
Manufacturing
1) How to TIG weld
2) How to operate a CNC mill/lathe (carried over from 2025-2026)
Organization
1) How to utilize resources and team members to design an entire vehicle...
I designed the steering rack housing for the SR24 (2023-2024 vehicle). The goal of this housing was to fit the new dual-rack steering system (previously, the team has used a single-rack system). These few slides I created for our Detailed Design Review in November 2023 explain the differences between SR24 and SR23 (2022-2023 vehicle) and the benefits of the new design.
This project helped me start learning how to conduct finite element analysis (FEA) in SolidWorks. While my teammates were helping me set up part-level and assembly-level FEA, I took some notes, which extended into notes throughout the entire rest of the design process of the steering rack housing and steering rack housing pillow block.
Steering Rack Housing in SR24
Manufacturing
Click to see more!
After a year on CWRU Motorsports, I've made some really cool parts with the help of my more experienced teammates (and with a lot of standing at a machine for an entire day...). I helped others do the same as the Manufacturing Coordinator for CWRU Motorsports' 2024-2025 season.
Suspension Inserts
These suspension inserts are titanium and were made on the lathe.
Heim Joint Inserts
These inserts are locationally fit into the tie rod ends' spherical joints, connecting to the uprights.
Heim Joint Insert SetManufacturing Notes for Heim Joint Inserts
Spherical Joint Inserts
These inserts are locationally fit into the spherical joints in the uprights.
Spherical Joint Insert in LatheSpherical Joint Insert in ProgressManufacturing Notes for Spherical Joint Inserts
Clevis-Side Heim Joint Inserts
These inserts are locationally fit into the tie rod ends' spherical joints, connecting to the steering clevises.
Manufacturing Notes for Clevis-Side Heim Joint Inserts
Front Hub Spindle Yokes (Pre-CNC)
These spindle yokes are titanium and were made on the lathe. They connect the front wheel hubs to the drive shafts.
Finished Spindle Yokes (Pre-CNC)Manufacturing Notes for Spindle Yokes (Pre-CNC)
Spindle Yoke Key Slot Setup in MillSpindle Yoke Key SlotManufacturing Notes for Spindle Yoke Key Slots
Project Management
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Going into the 2024-2025 season, our team started putting a great emphasis toward improving our workflow and team culture.
Notion
One huge change we made from previous years was a teamwide shift to using Notion as an organization software.
Parts Tracker
The shift to Notion started with the creation of a new Parts Tracker for the upcoming season. To provide some context, our Parts Tracker was primarily meant for tracking the manufacturing status of our car parts, and it started out on a Google Sheet with tons of formulas and manual labor (I guess you could call it that...).
With the new season, there were many new features that the 2023-2024 Manufacturing Coordinator and I were thinking about implementing, so I wanted to test these features out.
Testing these features out on a Google Sheet just seemed arduous, and would probably have led to tons of roadblocks that impeded on the feature-testing. So, I turned to Notion instead, as I use it for my own personal planner which gave me some Notion experience to create a Parts Tracker.
After rolling out my first draft to the 2023-2024 Manufacturing Coordinator, there was huge support to actually keep the Parts Tracker in Notion. We ultimately ditched Google Sheets since all of the automations and features I set up would've been absolute chaos and, in some cases, impossible to set up in Google Sheets.
In addition to the automations, the new Parts Tracker also gave room for more information with less clutter. With Notion's ability to have different views of the same information, our team can now view part design status, analysis status, manufacturing status, vendor/sponsor order status, and so much more.
SR24 Parts Tracker in Google SheetsSR25 Parts Tracker in Notion
The Spread of Notion
A few other subteam leads appreciated the possibilities of Notion as well, so they started making their own spaces in our team's Notion workspace. With everything that I learned from setting up the Parts Tracker in Notion, I guided other team leads in making their own integrations with Notion's colorful palette of features.
This signaled a huge shift for our team, as now we had planners and timelines accessible to everyone on the team, and much of our written documentation was now housed in our Notion workspace. Google Drive is no longer the go-to for meeting minutes and other written documentation, and our transition to Notion birthed a robust team wiki, design tracker, part analysis tracker, onboarding planner, purchase order tracker, and so much more.
The Sky is the Limit
Genuinely, at the end of my tenure as the Manufacturing Coordinator (2024-2025), I thought I had learned nearly everything there was to learn about Notion and how to use it effectively for our team. However, I was proven wrong when I started the next season as the Finance Lead (2025-2026).
My goal as the Finance Lead was to set a budget for the entire season and track our expenses against that budget while earning plenty of money along the way. With Notion, I learned how to use the Rollup and Relation properties to create a budget that automatically updates based on the expenses we track in our new and improved Purchase Order Tracker. This way, I could show our team how much of our budget we had left at any given time, and I could also easily see which expenses were taking up the most room in our budget.
SR26 Finance Dashboard in Notion
Other new features unlocked as well, such as bulk editing and Notion AI, which both saved me SO much time. Access to unlimited Notion AI is a huge thank-you to Notion; normally, student organizations are gifted the Plus Plan with limited Notion AI, but our team asked for and received the Business Plan with AI meeting notes, embedded Claude models, and so much more.
How much more can our team do with Notion? The sky is the limit.
