IMechE UNITEN Student Chapter

Crossing the finish line While the race for a good graduate job once you finish university is probably taking up a lot of your time, there are other races going on over the summer that you should be interested in! This month’s IMechE newsletter is a motor racing special, packed with all the news from the Formula Student and Greenpower racing events. We tell you how participating in events such as these can turbocharge your career prospects in an interview with Peter Leipold, Chief Executive of the victorious University of Stuttgart team. We also discuss the future of racing in our Topic of the Month.          IMechE Member Profile Peter Leipold, University of Stuttgart, Chief Executive of Rennteam Stuttgart Would you recommend other students participate in Formula Student? Formula Student teaches you great soft skills: team work. being part of a project, discussing, communicating, keeping time schedules, keeping milestones, keeping all the issues of the project in mind (like cost issues, sponsorship,...) and leading a smaller group of students or the complete team. You also develop invaluable technical skills. After several months you are able to talk with professional engineers about solutions and designs for your car, and you get practical skills you can’t find in the classroom. You also gather a huge network of contacts from all over the industry, which becomes very useful once you graduate. On the other hand, you shouldn’t participate if you are only doing it to get your thesis work done. You’ll never feel as attached to the car as others who participate because they want to do motorsports. Being part of the team is hard work and if you come with the “wrong” expectations you will not make the most of it.       Stuttgart Storms to Victory Forget the battles between Hamilton, Alonso and Webber, the real racing drama occurred earlier this summer on the hallowed tarmac of Silverstone. With over 2,300 students in 125 teams from 34 countries participating in this year’s Formula Student event, there were plenty of fantastic engineering innovations on show. Teams were pitted against each other over four days at Silverstone, with cars judged on their speed, acceleration, handling and endurance, and teams tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills. “Vorsprung Durch Technik” was the order of the day again this year, as the team from the University of Stuttgart took first place in the headline Class One race, but there were other winners too. Read the story and get the full results. Got the power There are other ways you can get involved in racing events, and accelerate your job hunt in the process. In June, around 50 STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Maths) Ambassadors descended on the rolling hills of Yorkshire to help run the Greenpower electric car racing event for local schools. Each team was given the same motor and battery capacity, and had to build the best electric racing car they could for a four mile endurance race. Check out a BBC news report on the event. Volunteering at events such as these is not only great fun; you also gain excellent experience of managing a group, and it looks fantastic on your CV. Find more information on volunteering in your local area to boost your career prospects. Racing ahead Professional racing cars are already ruthlessly efficient machines. But with increasing pressure on oil supplies, engineers are looking to alternative fuel sources to power the race cars of tomorrow. With that in mind, we asked whether you thought Formula One would change much over the coming years as the teams adopt new technology such as that on show at Formula Student. IMechE member Paul Davis points out that other racing classes have already seen big changes over the past few years. He thinks Formula One could go the same way, but that the governing bodies need to relax some of the regulatory restrictions for it to happen. One thing is for certain; with the amount of engineering talent on display at events like Formula Student and Greenpower, the future looks good for racing!