Jul 11 2007
Altair Engineering, Inc., a leading global provider of technology and services that strengthen client innovation and decision-making, announced that it presented the University of Western Australia (Perth) and the University of Kansas (Lawrence, Kan.) with the William R. Adam Engineering Award at the 2007 Formula SAE(R) (FSAE) and the 2007 Formula SAE West competitions, respectively. The Formula SAE event was held this year at Ford Motor Company's Romeo, Mich., proving grounds from May 16 through May 20, 2007. The FSAE West competition was held at the California Speedway in Fontana from June 13 through June 16.
Initially conceived in 1981 as a road-racing counterpart to the established SAE Mini Baja(R), FSAE has grown to more than 20 times its original size in terms of both cars and participants. Altair's William R. Adam award recognizes and rewards teams that have invested time and effort to develop new and innovative engineering concepts in vehicle design. Honorable mentions were given to the University of Windsor and the University of Waterloo (both in Ont., Canada), Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The 2006 winners of the William R. Adam Engineering Award were Lehigh University at the FSAE competition and the University of California (UC) at San Diego at the Formula SAE West competition.
"This competition represents the future of innovative vehicle engineering," said Michael Heskitt, Altair's vice president of Global Engineering. "Top engineering students from all over the world are challenged here to take risks to fully develop new concepts, while adhering to sound engineering principles, exhibiting strong reasoning and properly executing the development process. Altair is proud to reward their efforts."
Representatives from Altair, led by University Program Manager Dr. David Schmueser, judged the contestants based on the degree of innovation, the engineering processes used and the effectiveness of those processes. In addition, judging is based on realistic engineering demands, including timing, cost, relevance to target market, production feasibility and ease of use. Altair, an FSAE Silver Sponsor, provides free Altair(R) HyperWorks(TM) licenses to all FSAE teams. HyperWorks -- the enterprise solution for product innovation -- is the industry-leading modeling, visualization, simulation and optimization software used by major automotive manufacturers worldwide.