Imperial Racing Green

Our mission is to create a student-led platform where students from multiple disciplines and diverse backgrounds can practice a wide range of skills from team building to technical skills and engage in a large automotive engineering project, designing and building their very own Electric Vehicle (EV). Students can partake in research, learn engineering in a real-life setting and widen their technical skillset though hands-on experiences working on various areas of the vehicle, driven by the pressure to compete and perform at a high level with teams from around the world at the Formula Student event each year. Formula Student is an excellent project for providing industry-relevant engine... read more Our mission is to create a student-led platform where students from multiple disciplines and diverse backgrounds can practice a wide range of skills from team building to technical skills and engage in a large automotive engineering project, designing and building their very own Electric Vehicle (EV). Students can partake in research, learn engineering in a real-life setting and widen their technical skillset though hands-on experiences working on various areas of the vehicle, driven by the pressure to compete and perform at a high level with teams from around the world at the Formula Student event each year. Formula Student is an excellent project for providing industry-relevant engineering experience to students while still at university. The project is student-run, so team members must learn the crucial aspects of running a team including project management, budgeting and reporting alongside the technical skills. It allows students to be a part of a large multi-disciplined project, which is common in industry but often rare at university. The project has helped several members secure placement years and graduate jobs in Formula 1 and at other automotive engineering companies. Being a student-led project gives excellent opportunity for ideas-sharing and more senior team members find the experience of passing on their knowledge to younger years extremely rewarding. This process can be of considerable benefit to younger members who are introduced to new techniques and ideas before they would otherwise in their lecture courses or in industry. Being multi-disciplinary means that students doing different degrees (Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautics, EEE, physics and more) can learn to understand each other's strengths and combine their skills. Regular seminars and talks from alumni of the team allows students to see where their engineering career may take them. Formula Student provides a platform for our students to be representatives of Imperial College London, and as academic staff and colleagues are immensely proud of the student's efforts and contributions no matter how they perform at competition (out of 100+ entries there can be only one winner). Formula Student is also integrated into our degree program which allows students to undertake FS projects as 3rd year group projects in Aero/Mechanical Engineering (which include sub-systems like chassis, powertrain and suspension) and 4th year research projects (areas of advanced materials and vehicle dynamics). Having worked through a tough year of COVID-19 restrictions, the team has prepared a vehicle design with a new spaceframe chassis, the objective of which was to be more adaptable than the hybrid monocoque of the previous iteration. Due to a lack of lab access in the previous academic year, the construction of the vehicle has not yet been completed. It will be the focus of the team this year to purchase, manufacture and assemble the car in preparation for the Formula Student UK competition in July 2022.