10/13/2025 - 10/19/2025: Catalyzer Update! / Composites Education / Upcoming (P)DR's / Chassis Lead Highlight

[Anton Walvoord]

Northwestern Formula Racing

@nufsae | northwesternformularacing.com

Fall Newsletter - 10.19.2025

---

Catalyzer Update!

Hello Formula Fans! Thank you to everyone who has supported our Catalyzer campaign so far! I wanted to give a little update on where we are with the campaign. Right now we're 70% of the way to our $5,000 fundraising goal. We've received support from 30 donors across 12 states and 2 countries. There are currently 12 days remaining in our campaign! Any support you are able to provide is greatly appreciated! Whether it be donating directly or just spreading the word, everything makes a difference. Help support us at giving.nu/NFR26!

As a reminder, these funds will go toward supporting major design improvements which will push our engineering capabilities as a team. Our most ambitious goal this year is to implement hub motors for the first time and drive them with custom motor controllers iterating on last year's design. Your help makes a major difference in making this possible.

---

Composites Education:

This year our mechanical education program has placed extra focus on exposing new members to composites manufacturing. Over the past weeks new members have had the opportunity to learn about how to design for composites manufacturing and how it differs from other manufacturing methods.

New members practicing wet layup composites manufacturing

Now that they have some background on composites and how they function, today they had a chance to have hands-on experience doing a wet layup. Each member used a 3D printed mold to cure their own small airfoil. When the curing process is complete they will receive feedback on their completed parts and will be able to keep them!

Curing practice airfoils

---

Upcoming (P)DR's:

This coming week is one of our busiest yet! We have a large number of preliminary and final design reviews all in quick succession.

On the mechanical side of things, today we reviewed the brakes, suspension tab jigging, and our penthouse of our accumulator. Over the course of this week we'll also have PDR's for the motor sprocket and differential sprocket adapters, our rear wing, ergonomics, and steering!

Brake Rotor PDR FEA

As for electrical systems, yesterday we had a DR for our power distribution module and today we had a final review of our vehicle control unit before purchasing it this Tuesday. Tomorrow we will have a final review for our dashboard driver board as well. Then later in the week we have PDR's for our tire temperature monitoring board and our harness.

Preliminary Harness Routing

---

Chassis Lead Highlight:
Our third mechanical lead highlight - Rahwa Tesfay!

Rahwa is a sophomore from Silver Spring, Maryland studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Earth and Planetary Sciences. She joined the Chassis subteam as a freshman, designing the Motor Sprocket Adapter for the drivetrain. This year, she will be leading Chassis, responsible for designing and manufacturing the frame, drivetrain, and all ergonomics for NFR26. In her free time, Rahwa enjoys running, listening to K-pop, and cheering on the Baltimore Ravens.

Rahwa has been pushing her members, building their design skills and emphasizing a focus on the timeline. Beating deadlines for several projects early on, we're looking forward to seeing chassis designs manufactured under her supervision.