Competition

 

 

About Formula Student

Formula Student is the Europe’s biggest educational motorsport event. The competition promotes careers and excellence in engineering by challenging university students from all over the World to design, build, develop, market and compete as a team with a single seater racing car.

History

Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has launched Formula SAE in early 1981 based in United States. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in a partnership with SAE and few well established companies from the industry runs the competitions in Europe since 1998. Currently the competition events are held in USA, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Austria, Italy, Germany, Hungary and the one that take place in UK is called Formula Student. It is “truly international event, with more than 130 from over 20 countries taking part”. The same rules are used for all the competitions (with some minor changes) which mean the University teams have the opportunity to enter multiple events.

Rules

For the purpose of the competition, the students are to assume that a manufacturing firm has engaged them to produce a prototype car for evaluation. The intended sales market is the non professional weekend autocross or sprint racer. Therefore, the car must have very high performance in terms of its acceleration, braking, and handling qualities. The car must be low in cost, easy to maintain, and reliable. In addition, the car's marketability is enhanced by other factors such as aesthetics, comfort and use of common parts. The challenge to the team is to design and fabricate a prototype car that best meets these objectives. Each design is compared and judged with other competing designs to determine the best overall car.

Formula Student competition has 5 different classes that teams can enter:

Class 3  is the lowest entry possible into Formula Student. In this case the teams are required to presents their
               design of a racing car according to the rules. The feedback received from the judges afterwards helps
                team to prepare for next classes of the competition.

Class 2  is for teams whose car is not yet fully built, but which may has completed chassis and other
               components. Therefore they only take part in the static events.

Class 1  is where the racing cars are designed and built especially for the purpose of the event. Teams are judged
                in the static and dynamic events, where each discipline brings different points for a total of 1000 maximum.

Class 1 (200)  is for teams using their cars from previous years but developed and modified for a better performance.

Class 1 (A)  allows alternative fuelled and sustainability built cars. Despite the fact that the cars from this
                      class  compete in the same dynamic events as in Class 1, the racing vehicles are judged and
                      scored separately with greater emphasis on carbon emissions measured during the endurance event.

                  “Formula Student competitors are pushing the boundaries
                 with some very exciting, revolutionary technology emerging.”