The brief

Shell Eco-Marathon is about going as far as possible on as little fuel as possible, and that starts with a chassis that's as light as the rules and physics allow — without flexing where it shouldn't.

What I did

• Designed the chassis in SolidWorks.
• Used FEA to check it held up to the loads at the lowest sensible weight.
• Worked within the competition rules, the team's budget, and what everyone needed from it.

The interesting part

Lightweighting is a game of trade-offs — every gram you take out has to come from somewhere that won't bite you later.