Formula Student in industry is seen you know it's quite hard thing you know
you're put into a situation where you've got deadlines to meet you've got the
regulations and you're in a team and I think that you know really puts you ahead of a few people.
Formula Student is many things but one thing in a very
practical sense it is is an opportunity for students to work together to design
and make a racing car to a strict set of rules which are set out by the institution of Mechanical Engineering
You do Formula Student because you love engineering or racing cars or aspire to work with it one day.
We're fairly new team and this would be the first car we've ever made this
absolutely clean sheet from the ground up but I don't need a third car that
we've ever made so it's still early days and I'm actually quite pleased with where they are.
It's quite intense I won't lie there is a few times when
there's a lot of stuff going on and there's a lot of second guessing with what you're
doing but in the end I think it's completely worth it.
Every week I need to bring something new to the table and I'm working with such a big group with so
many different personalities and stuff it's really good life experience to get
just to be able to work with other people.
And that's a good lesson for engineers to learn so they can end up working in teams of people having to
make compromises in the end it's not about who can make the best parts it's who can
make the part that can be fitted into the car and still work well and that's
where they can learn here and they get help from the staff technically and with
the planning and organization of things with what we provide but also they learn
to do that themselves and they need to that's one of the things they
are making one of them to do as part of this it's one of the reasons where
people want to employ them afterwards.
Having to go to Silverstone is a bit of a gut-wrenching thought
deep down because something you've designed and
spent so much time on it's being tested against 120 other universities and being
essentially graded by professionals. Most people at university haven't done that
There's a lot of pressure because we want to get this car done and we
definitely want to go to Silverstone we've paid the fee so we you know it's
it's a lot of stress and we really really want to get there when we go up
there there's a few tests that we have to do before we could potentially
start racing so if we don't pass those we don't get to race it would be nice to
pass all those and we're trying our hardest to make sure that we do.
There we go a big cheer goes up for the 160
this might be the first time they've ever run in endurance at University of Brighton
another team that I think you know give them a bit more development more support
you know could be a real front runner into the UK ranks in a few years time
It's so undescribable because it's something you've spent hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of hours on and then seeing it go around Silverstone of
all places in an international competition and just keep going around
and keep cutting out and then it starts again and then it stops and then it
overheats and then it keeps going it's just it was incredible especially
because every single person in the grandstand was cheering us on every time it kept going
To see us come that far and to get all the support from everyone
was fantastic, it feels good but it feels a bit sad to be leaving this
behind but I'm proud of what I've done.
It's incredible I mean I can't think of anything that I'll be a better fair segway into industry really
and the challenges that we face the things we achieved were just second to
none. It's easily the hardest thing I've ever done I mean
to design and build an entire race car from scratch in nine months it's not something
that can be done by anyone it takes a lot of grit and a lot of really good teamwork
They've done something measurably incredible because they've designed and made a whole car starting from nothing and
done that on time and to a certain cost and made sure that all their different
parts actually fit together and that's actually one of the hardest things and
they've made sure that they will fit together as well how they get on with each other
It was I really can't think of a word it was just amazing
I think it's pushed me a lot to realise that I am a lot more capable than I thought I was
a few times have been a bit like oh this isn't going very well but then
seeing everything come together and working you know it's really
solidified the fact that you know I can do this and I am more than capable of
achieving something great.
Taking that amount of experience in over a year it's priceless
I would 100% recommend the University of Brighton for Formula Student
It feels like you know all your dreams coming true and that's what
they have done in that shell suppose it's turning dreams into reality to take
concepts of design and engineering put into practice that fact that it's being seen on a
global stage as it is when you make a car like this get involved a competition
like this that's something for them to remember for the rest of their lives