Bimasakti Formula Car of UGM will be released officially on Tuesday (19/7) at Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri Cultural Center to compete in the 9th Student Formula SAE of Japan 2011. The competition will be held from 5 to 9 September 2011 at ECOPA (Ogasayama Sports Park) Japan.
Bimasakti is a formula car created by UGM Bimasakti team which is chosen as the only representative of Indonesia to compete in the prestigious international competition. Bimasakti will compete with 86 teams of prestigious universities from several countries. Some of them are China, India, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, and Thailand.
UGM Bimasakti team consists of 16 students of Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering. The sixteen students are accompanied by three lecturers, namely Dr. Fauzun S.T., M.T., Dr. Muhammad Agung Bramantya, S.T., M.T., M. Eng., and Dr. I Gusti Budi Dharma S.T., M. Eng.
Technical Coordinator of the Bimasakti team, Akmal Irfan Majid, to reporters explained that Bimasakti is a formula car according to the standard of student’s car with qualification below formula one car, but still above the go-kart car. The making of Bimasakti car has been conducted since January and now has gone on the manufacturing stage and the completion of the vehicle. Talking to reporters on Friday (15/7) at Stana Parahita UGM, the student of Mechanical Engineering Department said that to test the vehicle’s feasibility, a test drive will be done on Saturday (16/7).
Akmal said that Bimasakti car uses machine of Suzuki Thunder 250 cc which is an aid from the Association of Automotive Technology (IATO). To get maximum performance, the team made modification by doing displacement to the 322 cc. With this engine capacity, the car can glide at a speed of 140-160 km/ hour.
According to Akmal, the making of Bimasakti car costs up to 140 million rupiah that is used to fulfill the material needs of the car. The funds are backed up overall by Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering UGM. The amount of funds expended for the assembly of Bimasakti car is high because some materials have to be imported from abroad. "For the material frame, we use the type above 0.1%, while the one sold in Indonesian market is below 0.1%. So, we have to use imported materials. For a car, it takes about 12 rods of frame, whereas 1 rod costs about 1.5 million rupiah," he said.
Non-technical coordinator of Bimasakti team, Andika Rinaldo Asry, hoped the Bimasakti UGM team can achieve the best result in the next competition. "As a newcomer for this event, we don’t expect much. At least the award as the Best Rookie Team, a special award for best newcomer team, can be achieved," he expressed his hope.
Coordinator of Supervisors of the Bimasakti team, Dr. Fauzun S.T., M.T., mentioned that the 9th Student Formula SAE of Japan 2011 competition is an annual competition held by Japan's Society of Automotive Engineers (JSAE) for making formula vehicles with 600 cc engines. At the competition, the vehicles that are contested will be judged in two categories, namely static event, which includes cost analysis, engineering design, team presentation, and dynamic event, which includes acceleration of vehicles, fuel efficiency, durability, autocross, and skid-pad.