Autodesk will be the primary sponsor of Purdue University's third International Collegiate evGrandPrix to be held on May 12, opening day weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500.

The event is an electric go-kart race and engineering design competition involving colleges and universities from around the nation and Europe.

"In sponsoring the evGrandPrix, Autodesk is taking a leadership role in educating the next generation of engineers and technical specialists," said James Caruthers, Reilly Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the Indiana Advanced Electric Vehicle Training and Education Consortium (I-AEVtec). "The evGrandPrix is not just a go-kart race, but it is really an engineering design competition where the students get points from race placement plus their engineering design, energy efficiency and also community outreach."

Autodesk, a lead sponsor of the evGrandPrix, is providing licenses of Autodesk design and simulation products to all student participants - design and simulation tools that they can use in the competition as well as throughout their tenure at Purdue and the other colleges and universities that are participating in the evGrandPrix.

"Thanks to Autodesk, our students are now using those high-end design tools as part of their education," Caruthers said. "This is a very generous contribution, and one that will go a long way toward preparing our students with the advanced technical skills they'll need to compete for the best engineering jobs when they graduate."

Autodesk also is helping to promote the event across the nation and the world to millions of students who are members of the Autodesk Education Community.

Team members will be able to simulate their go-kart designs with Autodesk's cloud-based services.

"Students can create, visualize, analyze, simulate, and iterate their designs faster and more efficiently by performing computationally intensive simulation tasks in the cloud," said Thom Tremblay, industry manager at Autodesk. "With Autodesk Simulation 360 students can test multiple 'what if' design scenarios in parallel."

Specialized tools from Autodesk help engineers simulate fatigue, stress and cracking, which can help identify areas of potential instability or damage. Participating students are able to access the engineering and design software from the Autodesk Education Community. The site also hosts a variety of learning tools to help foster a stronger fundamental understanding of engineering and sustainable design principles.

"One dimension of the evGrandPrix is a focus on sustainable design," Tremblay said. "Our Autodesk Sustainability Workshop offers online resources that teach the principles and practice of sustainability in engineering and design."

This will be the third year that the Collegiate evGrandPrix has been held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was founded over 100 years ago to give automotive designers the ultimate facility to test new innovations and help advance vehicle technologies," said Jarrod Krisiloff, senior director of marketing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "In many ways, the evGrandPrix is a continuation of the original mission of the track and we are pleased to host this competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The evGrandPrix not only showcases the engineering and design experience that these students offer future employers, but it also exposes the students to real-life examples of how they can apply their learning in the automotive and associated technology industries, including IndyCar racing." 

More information on the Collegiate evGrandPrix can be found at http://www.evgrandprix.org