A team of fourth-year students using Pro/Engineer 3D software created a Formula Vee racing car that successfully completed the Altech Grand Prix Race at Kyalami.
The students, Jean Pitot, Lloyd Clark, Zaahir Essa, Claire Hean, Lyndie Schwikkard and Jamie Ramsamy, from the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), had to design the car as part of their final year studies.
The car, driven by professional driver Claude Janisch, completed two races, being placed 31st out of 41 cars and 26th out of 41 cars, with an overall result of 26th place.
Professor Evgeny Morozov, head of the vehicle design project and the UKZN-Bearing Man Formula Vee project supervisor, describes the achievement as "pretty remarkable", since 18 of the cars taking part in the two races failed to complete them.
The 3D software used by the students to design the car was Pro/Engineer Wildfire, supplied by Centurion-based ProductONE, the local distributor of the software.
UKZN is one of several tertiary institutions participating in ProductONE`s broad-based education programme, says company spokesman, Dayne Turbitt.
"We have embarked on an aggressive and expansive programme to bring production capable software into the classrooms around this country. It is not enough to teach our students on outdated software and techniques. We need to bring them up to speed and give them the tools and the knowledge to compete at the cutting-edge," he says.
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