About our Society

We are SAE @ UIC. We are a student-run engineering organization at the University of Illinois Chicago centered around the task of designing, building, and competing race cars. These competitions contain tasks that challenge not only the dynamics and reliability of the vehicles, but the management and documentation of the team as well. It is these challenges that ultimately give us the engineering and problem-solving experience that is invaluable in our search for greater careers beyond the classroom. 

SAE @ UIC competes in both the Baja SAE® and the Formula SAE® competitions held each year. In addition to these competitions, the program here at UIC takes part in many outreach opportunities including K-12 school lectures, STEM events, company visits, and a booth at the Chicago Auto Show.

Engineering: Innovation is strongly emphasized by allowing teams a wide range of freedom with their designs. Designs are evaluated by industry professionals and students are asked to defend their design decision with supporting analysis.

Business: To simulate the most realistic business and engineering challenge, students must present detailed manufacturing and cost analysis that coincides with a business plan in order to take concept to commercialization.

Competitions: SAE competitions are international engineering design competition hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). The competition challenges students to design, manufacture, and race cars in. The competition is internationally regarded as one of the most rigorous collegiate competitions. Today, Formula SAE’s presence is worldwide with over 8 worldwide competitions and over 200 participating universities and those numbers continue to grow.