The UK Formula Student competition was another huge success with 2,500 students in Silverstone this July. The competition challenges student teams to produce a working prototype of a single-seat race car, with a combination of formal presentations and on-track dynamic events used to test their engineering skills.
This is the fifth year that IPG Automotive UK have been proud to be a sponsor of the competition and to donate complimentary CarMaker licenses as part of their virtual Lap Time Simulation (LTS) competition. Each team can submit a car which they can easily develop, adapt and improve using CarMaker. The course this year had been adapted to test their cars around a new track designed by our engineers to stretch their vehicles dynamics.
Congratulations to the overall winning Australian team, ECU Edith Cowan University Racing, who were this year’s champions, also taking home the coveted Engineering Design trophy, whilst SUFST University of Southampton were crowned overall FS-AI Champions.
It is great to see how much FS-AI has grown and continues to push the boundaries, with over 20 teams competing. This year we were heavily involved in the FS-AI events at the competition with our Business Development Manager Emma Penney taking on the role as Formula Student FS-AI Head Judge. Teams compete in a trio of static events similar to the main FS competition, Design and Business Plan Presentation but with Cost & Manufacturing replaced by a Real-World Autonomous event where teams must demonstrate their understanding and practical solutions for the integration of autonomous vehicles as a future transport solution. In addition, teams must complete a series of autonomous missions, again mirroring the main FS competition, with Acceleration, Skid Pad, Sprint Track Drive (Endurance) events.
The winners of the IPG Automotive Lap Time Simulation Concept Class were UGR, the team from University of Glasgow continued their winning streak from 2023!
Our IPG Automotive UK team had an extremely busy stand in the Silverstone paddock showcasing their Static Driving Simulator which was pre-loaded with the teams’ final submission LTS competition cars, all ready for the students to drive! The teams’ enthusiasm and interest in using CarMaker was really encouraging and we had some great conversations in demonstrating the improvements and tweaks students could make to improve performance. This year we added a leaderboard for the teams to try out for the fastest lap and University College London were victorious with a time of 59.38 seconds and only hitting 12 cones!
Well done to all of this year’s participants for making the 2024 event a showcase of innovation and ingenuity. From concept to the checkered flag, it was inspiring to see the next generation of engineers in action.
The full list of award winners and scores are available on the Formula Student website.
