Momentum - October 2020 - 7

Student Generation
In the Formula SAE Michigan
2019 Acceleration Event, where
Northwestern received their
highest score of the dynamic
events, the rear wing was
unbolted from its downforceproducing position and
repositioned with a lower angle
of attack in order to reduce drag.

roommates on the Northwestern University Baja SAE team
suggested is to concentrate the rear wing supports to a single
point (in the Y-direction) and then drive in a straight line to
directly measure downforce; we're entertaining the idea. The
issue there is that Evanston doesn't have many accessible
straightaways for us to gun our engines on.
There's something to be said for our scrappiness. It's forced
us to be resourceful and creative, rather than reliant on
computers and conventional solutions. One of the saddest
moments of my Formula career was earlier this year when a
new member marched into the office and declared she had
used CFD to prove ground effect was a lie-what she had really
found out was you can't stuff an infinite amount of air under
the car; at some point, flow becomes choked.

more women feel comfortable stepping up and joining.
One step to improve the gender balance on car teams, and
in the workforce, is to value and retain the women already on
the team. That doesn't mean tokenizing women just for photo
opportunities; it means giving them the chance to actually
succeed. It's been shown that mentorship is a crucial step for
women entering the automotive industry. Having existing
women on the team to look up to and see how they've been
successful makes new female members believe they can do it,
too.
Having role models whom I could turn to and feel
comfortable asking questions to is part of why I've persisted in
engineering. In my freshman year, the chief engineer handed
me a big project, then helped me out while I figured out how to
do it.
Recognizing that women often enter car teams at a
disadvantage when it comes to knowledge-and recognizing
that with caring mentorship and space to be themselves, they
can reach the same potential as any man-is necessary for any
team that actually wants to move the needle. n
By Madeline Corrigan

MOMENTUM

So yes, validating CFD is important, but it's all the
knowledge that we've gained in trying to do it that has given
us the intuition that will actually make us good engineers. Since
the dynamic portions of the 2020 FSAE Michigan competition
were canceled, we weren't able to see our work pay off this
past May, but with everything we've learned this year we're
poised to start the 2021 season strong. n
Madeline Corrigan, a junior at Northwestern University
majoring in mechanical engineering, wrote this article for
MOMENTUM. She served as front aerodynamic devices
lead (i.e., the front wing and everything around it) for the
2019-2020 Northwestern Formula Racing team.

After the competition where they scored their highest design score yet,
team members gathered around the car to recap their successes and
downfalls in the 2018-2019 season.

October 2020 7
Momentum - October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Momentum - October 2020
