This year’s Formula Student was a tremendous success drawing nearly 3,000 students from 38 countries to Silverstone, between July 9th and 13th.
Run by the Institution, Formula Student is Europe's most established educational motorsport event. The event challenges student engineers to design, build and race a single seat racing car in one year.
The cars are then judged on their speed, acceleration, handling and endurance in a series of time-trial races, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills.
This year, 106 student teams entered and 37 of them were from UK universities. The event also continues to have a strong international appeal, with teams coming from as far away as Pakistan, Australia and Egypt to participate. For the first time ever, China fielded a team. This year, 280 women took part, which is a new record, but one that the Institution aims to beat next year.
This year’s Formula Student also included a Big Bang fair. Aimed at younger students, the event helped to reinforce the message that engineering can be an exciting and rewarding career choice.
The institution also took the opportunity to launch its Teacher Industrial Partners’ Scheme (TIPS) at this year’s event. TIPS aims to help STEM teachers explain to their students the highly diverse career opportunities available in science and engineering.
This concerted approach to raise the profile of engineering at all levels paid dividends, with all participants enjoying the excitement and buzz of a high profile event that attracted thousands of budding, young engineers.
The President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Group Captain Mark Hunt commented: "This year's Formula Student was exceptional. It was a very close competition and the atmosphere at Silverstone was fantastic. We saw some innovative technologies developed and the quality of engineering on display has never been higher. Well done to the 3,000 students who invested thousands of hours in designing and building their cars for this year’s challenge. You should be proud of your achievements.”
“Thank you to all the students, judges, volunteers, sponsors, supporters and Institution staff who made the event such a successful and memorable one.”
Dr Colin Brown, Engineering Director of the Institution, opened the event. He reflected: “This was, personally, my 10th experience of Formula Student and it’s great to see how it has gone from strength to strength over that time.
“This year it provided inspiration not only for the teams taking part, but also visiting teachers and schoolchildren, ably demonstrating that engineering can offer exciting and rewarding careers. The close involvement of sponsor companies across a range of specialities brings home the opportunities that now lie ahead for these international students.”
The event also had a large following on social media, with over 105,000 people reached via Facebook through broadcasted posts and the linked tweets, including videos and photographs. Formula Student has over 6,072 followers on Twitter, and around 800 new followers were gained over the course of the event.
How do students benefit?
Formula Student is a high-performance engineering project that is valued by universities and the format provides an ideal opportunity for the students to demonstrate and improve their abilities to deliver a complex and integrated product in the demanding environment of a motorsport competition.
Alumni of previous Formula Student events now occupy senior positions in Formula One teams, and returning this year as Ambassadors were:
- Paddy Lowe, Executive Director of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1
- Mike Gascoyne, Caterham’s Technical Director
- Willem Toet, Head of Aerodynamics at Sauber F1, and
- Dallas Campbell, a BBC science presenter
Willem Toet, Head of Aerodynamics at Sauber F1 describes the value of Formula Student: “Many students leave university with a good engineering degree or masters so how does an organisation decide which applicants are best? For us, it is important to see what else a potential employee can offer over and above their course.”
“Anyone who has spent at least a year on Formula Student usually shows that they have practical skills, not only linked to engineering but also to project planning, budgeting, working in a team and problem solving under pressure. Formula 1 teams, including ours, value the additional skills/knowledge that a student develops with their involvement in Formula Student but we also and particularly value the additional drive and commitment needed to become genuinely involved in Formula Student”.
Formula Student is viewed by the motorsport industry as the standard for engineering graduates to meet, transitioning them from university to the workplace - the kite-mark for real-world engineering experience. As such Bosch, Shell, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, GKN, SAE International and Jaguar Land Rover all support the event. It gives them an excellent opportunity to raise their profile among the young engineers, who will be their talent pool going forward.
GKN sponsored the event for the first time this year, Sarah Humpidge, Group Graduate Development Manager explained: “We were really impressed by the high calibre of the students competing, particularly their innovative and technical skills. We appreciated the support of the Institution in using social media, particularly twitter, to increase our reach and raise awareness of our brand."
"Our engineers who were involved in judging really got a lot out of working with the young engineers and enjoyed the experience.”
Despite it being highly competitive, the event also has a festival atmosphere, partly due to the camaraderie generated by those students who camped nearby and created a ‘tent village’.
The results
Hundreds of people packed the paddocks to cheer on their teams, as a year of work and thousands of hours spent in the garage came down to eight technical and dynamic events.
TU Delft, from the Delft University of Technology, claimed the first prize in their electric car with a total of 855.5 points. “I am not sure what gave us the edge, I can only say that our focus on an extremely lightweight car allowed us to be very quick in the dynamic events” reflected Tim de Morée, Team Manager, Formula Student Team Delft.
“For me personally, the best moment was to see the team perform at its best when we finished the brake test at 12:05h and we had to set a time for Acceleration and Skidpad in 25 minutes. Everyone performed their tasks and it went really smoothly even though the pressure was on. Such a moment makes a team manager really proud”.
The University of Stuttgart claimed second place with 836.7 points and their compatriots from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology came third with 828.1 points. Three UK teams made the top 10 - Oxford Brookes University took sixth place with 733.6 points, while the University of Bath (732.4 points) and the University of Cardiff (649.3 points) took seventh and ninth place respectively.
Oxford Brookes Team Lead, George Simmons, said: “The most incredible part of the competition was winning design. We felt lucky to be in the finals although we had put particular focus on a three-step plan of simulation, testing and validation during the year. We think that the true 'amateur weekend racer' spirit of the car helped elevate us through to the top spot”.
The Silverstone UTC students supported the University of Northampton’s inaugural race car. Neil Paterson, Principal at Silverstone UTS said the highlights for his students were that: “They learned a huge amount about the design and build process, and it obviously made an impression. They want to submit their own entry next year and are confident of their abilities!”
Richard Folkson, Formula Student Chief Judge and President-elect of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: "This year's competition was absolutely fantastic, and the quality of engineering on show has never been higher. TU Delft were deserving winners - they built a tremendous vehicle which contained various innovative technologies that we'd never seen before in Formula Student."
Big Bang @ Silverstone
Accompanying the main competition was The Big Bang @ Silverstone UTC, which was aimed at school children. The event helped show school students the exciting opportunities that studying STEM subjects open up to them.
Hundreds of pupils from across Northamptonshire and Warwickshire enjoyed a variety of interactive stands, hands-on sessions and lectures. The students built balloon cars with Bloodhound, tested their reactions with F1 in Schools, tried out pneumatic circuits with FESTO, conducted physics experiments with Bosch Rexroth, and looked at problems faced by Mars chocolate engineers.
Jo McGrath from Saint Matthias CE Primary School in Malvern took 20 students, aged between nine and 11-years-old, to the event. She said: “The Big Bang event has been a brilliant opportunity for the students to see how engineering can be applied to real life. The students have had an opportunity to see engineering in action and to do some hands on activities. They have loved seeing the cars and we’ve had plenty of ‘wows’ from the students.”
With thousands of competitors, the Big Bang attendees, teachers, judges, volunteers and students of all ages on site each day, this multi-strand approach really achieved its mission to excite and encourage young people to take up a career in engineering.
Mark Hunt commented: “The Big Bang @ Silverstone was also a resounding success. The feedback we’ve had from schools was that it was incredibly well organised and that children were all buzzing with excitement when they returned to school. They also said that students had a much better, and broader, understanding of what it is to be an engineer and why they might want to consider a career in engineering.”
TIPS partnership launches
Also at Formula Student, the Institution launched its new Teacher Industrial Partners’ Scheme (TIPS), which will see Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths teachers being offered two-week work placements within industry. The scheme was launched in conjunction with Project ENTHUSE, the National Science Learning Centre and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). It is an exciting partnership of employers, professional bodies, charities and educationalists, which will provide teachers with a fantastic opportunity to see first-hand what it’s like to work in modern industry. This will enable them to explain the highly diverse career opportunities to their students.
Peter Finegold, Head of Education and Skills at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “The perception the UK public has regarding secondary school careers advice is entirely accurate – it just isn’t good enough at the moment. We presently face a massive skills gap in the UK and it’s absolutely vital that we are encouraging young people to study STEM subjects and take one of the many highly rewarding careers that science and engineering have to offer. Good careers guidance in our schools is the engine of social mobility. We know that young people look to their teachers for advice, yet only 9% of the UK population feels that teachers have a good overall understanding of business and industry”.
More information
View the results of Formula Student 2014
Watch videos from Formula Student 2014
View photos from Formula Student 2014
Read about TIPS