Formula Student UK 2018

On the 11th July 2018, 15 members of the LJMU e-Racing Team set off in a mini-bus from Liverpool and started the long journey to a camp-site in Towcester to take part in the Class 2 competition of Formula Student UK.

The competition took place at the famous Silverstone Circuit, lasting 4 days in total. This year we saw universities from all over the world, including teams from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, present their design ideas and race around Silverstone Circuit in a number of challenging tests, after passing a vigorous scrutineering process.

Formula Student (FS) is the world’s largest student engineering design competition. This year saw the 20th anniversary of FS in the UK, we were lucky enough to see (and hear!) the incredible car that won the very first FSUK competition in 1998 from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).

While some of the Team set up the campsite on the Wednesday of competition, 3 Team members, Ellena Harkins, George Growcott and Mathew Lindley, stayed behind to represent the LJMU e-Racing Team at the annual Vice Chancellors Graduate dinner held at the impressive Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.

A short presentation was given to the prestigious guests at the event to thank the Vice Chancellor for all he has done for the Team over the course of the year. It was an amazing event, and having the Team’s 2016 Formula Student car in the cathedral as the star of the show was incredible!

The Team set up camp on the Wednesday in time for the first Class 2 presentations on the Thursday.

Class 2 means we didn’t take part in the dynamic events of the competition, and focused on the 3 static events; a cost and manufacturing presentation, a design presentation, and finally a business ‘dragon’s den’ style pitch. Since the majority of the Team hadn’t attended any FS competitions before, it was a great learning experience and a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Out of the 36 entries to the Class 2 competition we placed 4th in all 3 static events, resulting in coming 5th overall, and we finished as the 2nd best UK-based University! Due to a prior promise made by our Team Manager, Aziz Makkan, he was bound to shaving his head back at the campsite!

The statics events were completed by the Friday, giving the Team the rest of the weekend to watch the Class 1 events, and talk to other teams about the challenges they faced on the lead up to competition, and during the events or scrutineering process. It also gave us a good opportunity to discuss the innovative designs, such as the brake disc below, advanced in weight saving and heat dissipation abilities.

This year’s competition saw the debut of FS-AI, a driverless element to the competition, where the teams involved were asked to develop and implement a cost-effective software package. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) car allows it to make its own decisions, learn and improve from its previous performances. We were lucky enough to watch the start of this amazing new technology, and look forward to seeing more teams join this event in years to come.

Many of our alumni continue to volunteer their time and help out at Formula Student competitions. We caught up with former Team Manager and friend to the Team Ed Bond who is a judge for the cost and manufacturing event.

FSUK 2018 saw 16 teams enter electric vehicles to the competition, only 3 of these teams finished the final, and most challenging event – the endurance race. This endurance event saw teams that had passed the previous day’s scrutineering, and the other events without issues, complete a difficult 1km track 22 times, designed to test the cars abilities in acceleration, braking and vehicle handling. The other events included a figure of 8 skid-pad race, a timed acceleration run, and a sprint race.

The majority of the EV teams failed to pass the tough scrutineering phase of the competition, this goes to show how tough FS is as an electric team.

On the Saturday 14th July, were lucky enough to be joined by a filming crew from Half Cut, who alumni of LJMU. They made an incredible and fun short film all about what we do at the LJMU e-Racing Team and why Formula Student is such an amazing experience for undergraduates! Go to our YouTube to watch the video!

‘Going to competition to represent the team was a really great experience. It provided an opportunity to talk with all the other competing teams from around the world to listen to their ideas as well as sharing the same passion for engineering and Formula Student as a whole. To see the work that we had all put in throughout the year pay off was very rewarding. By coming in 5th place in Class 2, it provides the team with an excellent foundation to push ahead with our Class 1 entry for 2019’ – Marc Johnston, Frame and Body System Head

The Team would like to say a massive thank you to our sponsors for their continued support during the course of this year, we look forward to carry on working with you throughout the build of our very first electric race car!