UC Irvine Giving Day

Who We Are

Anteater Electric Racing (AER) strives to promote sustainable automotive innovation by designing, manufacturing and competing with electric, formula-style racecars. AER, which was established at University of California, Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, provides students with practical experience in improving technical and leadership skills and collaborating in pursuit of excellence.

Progress Report

First and foremost, thank you again to everyone who supported our fall 2025 ZotFunder campaign. Because of your generosity, we were able to get our previous vehicle, KiloZott, running after 16 months of dedicated design and redesign, manufacturing and testing. This milestone is incredibly meaningful for our team and has given us a strong technical foundation as we move forward with our next-generation vehicle, MegaZott, which is already underway.

We are currently finalizing key design elements, completing testing on KiloZott to document improvements for the future and transitioning fully into manufacturing for MegaZott. Our team is placing orders for critical components, refining subsystem designs and preparing for intensive chassis fabrication and assembly. As we move deeper into this hands-on manufacturing phase, we invite our community to consider supporting us again for Giving Day. Additional funding will directly support battery cell procurement, powertrain components such as drivetrain and safety elements and travel assistance for our June competition. Your continued support allows our students to gain invaluable real-world engineering experience, all while proudly representing UC Irvine on a national stage.

Your Support So Far

Thank you again for supporting our fall 2025 ZotFunder campaign! Because of you, we raised $5,455, and we are excited to share how those funds have already been put into action. Alongside our other team resources and sponsorship support, your donations have helped us move from design into manufacturing for our new vehicle, MegaZott.

To date, we have invested:

$1,700 in MegaZott chassis tubing and chassis jigs to begin frame fabrication

$1,000 in high-quality mechanical hardware to support our suspension system, ergonomic assemblies, battery mounting and structural integration

$500 for new competition wheels

$500 for professional tube bending services for critical safety structures. 

We have also allocated $1,000 toward printed circuit boards (PCBs) for our electrical systems and $300 for 3D printing filament that will be used to manufacture molds for our carbon fiber aerodynamic bodywork. 

Remaining funds are being reserved for upcoming subsystem expenses as additional components arrive and fabrication continues.

We are excited to continue sharing updates as manufacturing ramps up and MegaZott takes shape. We hope you will consider supporting us this Giving Day so we can keep the momentum going! Thank you again for being a part of our community and for helping us make meaningful progress this season.