When a team of engineering students asked several cutting tool manufacturers for tools to help build a race car for a contest, IMCO Carbide Tool Inc., Perrysburg, Ohio, was eager to assist, according to the company.

With the tools from the company, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology’s Hardrocker Racing Team was able to design and build a race car from the ground up (according to very strict Formula SAE rules) and enter it in the Formula SAE Competition at Michigan International Speedway.

IMCO’s Matt Osburn and Steve Avers join the engineering students of South Dakota School of Mines & Technology and the 2012 Formula SAE racecar they designed and constructed with parts machined using IMCO tools. (Clockwise starting with left front: Ashley Locke, Eric Lee, Matt Murphy, IMCO’s Osburn, Alex Kotten, Jordan Krell, Evan Hoglund, IMCO’s Avers and Callen Schmalz.)

Typically, competing student teams can’t afford all the cutting tools they need and they seek corporate sponsors.

Engineering student Jordan Krell e-mailed information on the project and the need for cutting tools to several cutting tool manufacturers looking for a sponsor.

When Krell’s e-mail reached Matt Osburn, IMCO vice president and technical director, Osburn was intrigued. “We’re always looking for new ways to test and prove our end mill designs,” he said. “I thought, ‘That sounds kind of cool.’”

Osburn says the project was a perfect fit for Perrysburg, Ohio-based IMCO. “Power. Precision. Performance. That’s what we do. And this project is an excellent example of the application of all three.”

However, he says the main incentive was to encourage future engineers and problem solvers. “We need those people because they strengthen our manufacturing base and that strengthens our country,” Osburn says. “You can’t have a strong nation without a strong manufacturing base.”

A $10,000 value

When IMCO expressed interest in supporting the program, the team e-mailed Osburn the materials the team was using: aluminum, steels, carbon fiber and titanium.

Osburn started pulling inventory. “We just rounded up a bunch of tools for working with those materials,” Osburn said, estimating the first shipment at more than $10,000.

“It was like Christmas,” Krell said. “It was amazing.” The assortment included Streaker M20 endmills for aluminum, M904 endmills for general-purpose machining, M525 endmills for titanium and hard steels, IMCO FR10 routers and prototype tools for cutting carbon fiber for body components.

“The Streaker’s worked really well in aluminum,” said Evan Hoglund, the team member responsible for all machining, in a statement. “And we couldn’t even run the CNC at the higher speeds, where the tool would be most efficient.” Its limit is 6,000 rpm.

Hoglund used a POW•R•FEED M904 endmill to machine parts in steel such as braces and connectors.

IMCO offered the team more than just tools—they also offered advice.

The team contacted IMCO with a special need. “We needed a really big tool we couldn’t get locally,” Hoglund said. IMCO didn’t have a tool that size, so Hoglund described what he needed to do and Osburn helped selected an IMCO tool that would do the job.

The team members don’t have any formal machining training. So, throughout the car’s development and assembly, the students consulted IMCO on speeds and feeds, techniques and more.

The relationship paid off. At the 2012 Formula SAE competition in May, the Hardrocker Racing team took 11th place in design, 5th in autocross and 4th in skidpad—out of 120 teams.

Several members of the team visited IMCO before the competition. They were welcomed by IMCO executives, employees and reporters from several local newspapers, and the team was given a plant tour.

“We’re all going into companies that will use cutting tools,” said Hoglund. “We may not be in positions to actually spec the tools, but we can certainly make recommendations based on our experience.”

The Hardrocker Racing team builds a race car from the ground up every year to compete against other engineering schools nationally at the Michigan Formula SAE competition, which is held at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich. More than 100 teams from around the world compete in seven categories.

The Hardrocker Racing team is one of 14 teams at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology’s Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing and Production, which provides students with opportunities to apply their developing technical skills in real-world situations that involve teamwork, planning, designing for easiest and fastest production, fund raising, deadlines and international competitions. Participation on the project is voluntary and students don’t earn credits.

More information about the team, the Formula SAE competition and the Center can be found at www.hardrockerracing.com or www.camp-sdmines.com.

Posted June 21