Organised by the Japan Society of Automotive Engineers (JSAE), Formula SAE Japan 2025 was held between Sept 8-13 at the Aichi Sky Expo in Nagoya, Japan, where 93 teams of students from a range of international universities were challenged to design, build and race a single-seater formula-style car.
The competition was divided into two classes: Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle Class, with 58 teams participating; and Electric Vehicle (EV) Class, with 35 teams participating. The latter was the first ever four-wheel drive electric car category in the competition and the one that the PSU team entered.
Through its Faculty of Engineering and under the team name “Lookprabida”, the PSU students submitted an EV-class car that they had designed and constructed, which was smaller than an F4 car but larger than a standard go-kart. In doing so they became the first foreign team to pass the EV-class safety inspections in the competion.
Team Lookprabida scored a total of 192.87 points in the EV competition to finish a respectable 14th place out of 35 teams, with teams from Japan, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Unied States, Germany, Spain, Bangladesh and many other countries involved.
The awards won by team Lookprabida were as follows: first place in the EV safety inspection category; second place in the best 3D drawing design category; second place in the “coolest car” category; third place in the overall engineering design category; third place in the best mathwords category; seventh place in the cost and manufacturing category; and 17th place in the overall presentation category.
The PSU team was led by: Assistant Professor Dr Nikom Suwannaworn, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering; Assistant Professor Sawit Tantanuch, Director of the Electric Vehicle Development Center (PSU EV); Associate Professor Dr Charoenyut Dechwayukul, Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering; and Assistant Professor Dr Watcharin Kaewapichai, Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, who also served as general team supervisor.
Technical errors
In a general statement released by Lookprabida after the event the team expressed thanks to everyone for their support while admitting to slight frustration with technical errors that cost them the opportunity to perform at their optimal level.
“Thank you for all your support and encouragement. We worked hard and to our fullest potential in this competition,” the statement read. “However, our car experienced an electrical issue in the Autocross RUN 1 Dynamic Event and, despite the team working hard on-site to resolve the issue, were unable to do so within the allocated timeframe. This meant we were unable to achieve lap times in the acceleration, skid pad and remaining autocross runs, resulting in no points awarded in these races.
“The team sincerely apologises if we were unable to meet the expectations of all the support and encouragement, but we will use this experience and the lessons learned to improve for future events,” the statement added.
“Although we were unable to achieve the success levels we aimed for we were still delighted to perform so positively in the EV class and become the first foreign team to pass safety inspections in the Japanese arena. This has shown the world that great work is being done and that the future of automotive design is bright in Thailand.
“The entire team would like to thank everyone for their support, especially the President, Dean and the Prince of Songkla University Engineering Alumni Association. We look forward to continued support and hope to receive the same encouragement as we move forward in the future,” the statement concluded.
Formula SAE is a student design competition organised by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International, with the inugural competition taking place in 1980, arranged by the SAE student branch at the University of Texas at Austin in the United States.
Wikipedia explains the concept behind Formula SAE as follows: “a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a student design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules, whose purpose is both ensuring on-track safety (the cars are driven by the students themselves) and promoting clever problem solving.
“The volunteers for the design judging include some of the racing industry’s most prominent engineers and consultants including the late Carroll Smith, Bill Mitchell, Doug Milliken, Claude Rouelle, Jack Auld, John LePlante, Ron Tauranac and Bryan Kubala.”