Cutting tool manufacturer Imco Carbide Tool recently donated thousands of dollars worth of end mills to help student designers build a Formula SAE racecar from the ground up.
A team of engineering students from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City recently visited Imco Carbide Tool (Perrysburg, Ohio) to present a Formula SAE race car built with the aid of products donated by the cutting tool manufacturer.
The visit coincided with the Formula SAE design competition at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan May 7-14. Every year, the Hardrocker Racing team—named for the school’s Black Hills locale and mining programs—builds a racecar from the ground up to compete against more than 100 other teams from engineering schools throughout the country. All of the more than 30 team members who participated in this years’ competition are volunteers.
Engineering student and team member Jordan Krell said he e-mailed the top 30 Google results of a machine tools search in December. Imco was one of just two that responded. The company donated an estimated $5,000 to $10,000 worth of tools, including Streaker M20 end mills for aluminum, Pow-R-Feed M904 end mills for general-purpose machining, EnDuro M525 end mills for titanium and hardened steels, FR10 reamers, and prototype tools for cutting carbon fiber body components.
“The reason I did it is to encourage future engineers and problem solvers,” says Matt Osburn, vice president, operations at Imco, who fielded Mr. Krell’s initial e-mail. “We need those people because they strengthen our manufacturing base, and that strengthens our country. You can’t have a strong nation without a strong manufacturing base.”
The FSAE team is one of 14 teams at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology’s Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing and Production (CAMP), which provides students with opportunities to apply developing technical skills in real-world situations.
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