Big changes for 2012 competition: Formula Student attendees announced

The Formula Student (FS) event has long been the flagship competition for the Institution, as university students from all over the globe aim to outdo each other with ingenious single seat car designs and forms of propulsion. This year’s event could be the most diverse so far, and significant changes have also been unveiled.

The 2012 event, which is set to take place over the weekend of the 13-15 July at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, is gearing up to be the most competitive weekend in the competition’s history. The programme once again aims to prepare graduates for industry, and also help promote the skills needed by engineers in the real world.

This year has seen a big change in the competition rules with it being the first time that alternative fuelled powertrains will run alongside the traditional combustion fuelled powertrains. It will certainly be interesting to see how this change affects the final overall results.

FS Project Manager Fiona Pawley explained a little more about the direction which the competition has taken: “The big change this year is the combination of Class 1, which is combustion engines, and Class 1A, which is alternative fuelled engines. With the different powertains competing head to head, it will be interesting to see how the low carbon cars will compete. We hope that there will be a mixed top ten of each type when it comes to the final results.”

The event has once again drawn attention from all over the world with 110 entries selected from 34 different countries, 76 of these will be running on petrol while the remainder will use an alternative fuel. For the first time ever a team from South Africa has been entered: the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. While the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi will be one of seven teams from India that will be in attendance.

It is also interesting to note that both the University of Stuttgart, Germany, has entered both a petrol and an alternative fuel run cars, whilst Delft University of Technology, from The Netherlands, has entered both electric and hydrogen run cars.

There are also a total of 39 teams from the UK, including the University of Sheffield and Team Leader David Rhys gave his view on this change of rules: “I think this year’s competition is going to be the best yet; it’s going to be a really competitive field, with us hopefully competing alongside them. I believe that the inclusion of the alternatively fuelled cars in the Class 1 event should provide for a very exciting competition.”

One team in this year’s competition has an exciting feature, with the University of Birmingham containing a total of eight female team members, including Team Leader Amy Collin.

Amy said: “I’m really proud and pleased that we have managed to get so many women interested. The other day someone asked me, what have you done to get all these women involved? I don’t think that I have done anything in particular. The only thing I can think of is that by having a female Team Leader it might have made it more open and accessible for them, especially as I’m not your typical engineer.”

“It also means that I understand people who are coming from that background of wanting to learn and that is something I’m always conscious of as Team Leader by helping with the development of my team. The benefits of having females on your team can be great as there are a lot of women out there who do know a lot about cars and can add something different to a team.”

Fiona is very supportive of encouraging more women into FS and engineering generally: “It will be interesting to see how University of Birmingham perform and whether Amy and her fellow women team mates bring a different dynamic to the team. It is great to see more women getting involved in FS. I think role models like Leena Gade, race engineer for Audi, who became the first female race engineer to win the world famous Le Mans 24 Hours race last year, is inspiring to all women. It is also important to recognise and promote to younger women that they can have very successful careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects.”

This is something which Amy and her team will be aiming to do in the coming months, as she explained: “One thing that we are trying to do, is to use the eight women and do more promotional work in schools. We are talking at the moment about going to all girl schools and trying to inspire these youngsters that engineering is an option for them.”

Even if those women are not aware of engineering at this point in their careers, there is still time for them to take up an interest. Something which Amy can relate to: “I actually started doing maths and computer science at university in my first year, then I realised that that wasn’t for me. So I assessed my options and had heard about mechanical engineering. After attending an open day I realised that it was what I had been looking for. When I was in Sixth Form, my perception of mechanical engineering was something completely different; I had no appreciation that it would include what we are doing today. That’s why it’s good to talk to young people to show them that this career can take you places.”

Amy went onto state how life as Team Leader had treated her: “It’s a challenge as it’s hard work at times but to be honest it’s just so worth it. Right now we have got a team of 80 students and I’m proud of each one of them. After all of the hard work that I have put in I’m starting to see the benefits of it and I’m feeling quite confident of our team’s success this summer. Even with the personal sacrifices that I have to make, I know that the benefits that it will have upon my career are worth it.”

Another change to this year’s event saw teams having to submit a Business Logic Plan (BLP), as Fiona explained: “This has formed part of the FS 2012 registration and selection process. I have heard from students in the past that timetabling, deadlines and staying on course is always one of the biggest challenges, as they try and fit the demanding FS workload around their studies, as normally FS is extracurricular. The BLP has required the students to document their business plan and help cement exactly what they intend to build for the competition. It has certainly been well received by students in order to focus their attention.”

The University of Sheffield’s Team Leader David backed up this theory despite it falling at an unfortunate time for him and his fellow students: “I think the new Business Logic Plan is brilliant, it takes three previously separate static events and pulls them together under one coherent concept. I particularly like the provision to allow teams to pick their own cost and production volume in response to their business strategy.”

“Sadly for us this submission came in the middle of our first semester exam season. I believe that next year our initial concept will be based completely around the Business Logic Event, where much of the content would have been completed well in advance of the deadline.”

Amy also felt strongly about it: “It was something new for us to think about, but we started to read the document quite early and asked a few questions to make sure we were going along on the right lines. We made quite a shift this year in that we had a dedicated business team, whereas in previous years business events seemed to get left to the last minute.”

Tickets to watch the event went on sale from the 12 January and there has been a great response to date. If you are interested in attending the event then it is strongly advised that you purchase your tickets in advance. Members are able to do so at a special discount price of £5.00 while non members’ tickets cost £7.00; both of these prices are excluding VAT. On the weekend of the event ticket prices will be £10.00 and £12.50 plus VAT respectively.

So why not come along and support your university colleagues or if you yourself have taken part in the competition before, come down to Silverstone and see this year’s crop of engineering stars of the future.

For more information on Formula Student, please visit: www.formulastudent.com

To purchase advanced tickets for the event, please visit: www.imeche.org/events/O1462