Case Study: USC Racing achieves rapid prototyping and major time savings with Stratasys

USC engineering students capitalize on one of 3D printing’s foremost benefits

USC Racing, the University of Southern California’s Formula SAE team, faced the recurring challenge of designing and building a competitive race car under tight time and resource constraints for an annual international competition. To accelerate development and expand design freedom, the team turned to Stratasys FDM additive manufacturing technology, using materials such as FDM Nylon 12CF for structural parts and ULTEM™ 1010 for heat-resistant battery segments.

Stratasys’ FDM solutions let USC Racing produce about 40 3D-printed parts on the 2024 car (up from five in 2023—a 700% increase), including the steering wheel, aerodynamic whiskers, tooling jigs and accumulator enclosures, enabling design iterations in as little as 24 hours. By using Stratasys printing for rapid prototyping and complex tooling, the team cut manufacturing time “to near zero,” improved assembly accuracy and build quality, and saved time and money on machining and tooling.

USC Racing

Lucas Dudley

Chief Engineer