UG Racing the first team from Scotland to win, Edinburgh win FS-AI Dynamics overall.
The team’s internal combustion car overcame strong competition from other teams and the July heat to secure victory at the awards evening of the Formula Student event 2022. Receiving the award during the evening of 10 July at Silverstone, the team were overjoyed to lift the trophy and validate their hard work and steady improvements in recent years.
The biggest event of the Institution’s calendar and the most established educational engineering event in Europe, Formula Student tasks teams of university students to design, manufacture and run a single-seater race car. These culminate in the finals event held at Silverstone, which combine formal presentations of their work throughout the year with a range of on-track events that demonstrate the capabilities of their car.
“Unusually for Silverstone the weather has been kind to us and while the only record we’ve seen broken is the temperature at a Formula Student event, it’s been great to see so many teams come back after COVID,” remarked Andrew Deakin, Formula Student Committee Chair. “We hope everyone has enjoyed the chance to compete, learn, get feedback on their cars and enjoy the competition. Congratulations to all winners, especially Glasgow!"
With more than 45,000 engineers having taken part since the UK competition was launched, it continues to develop the skills and talents of students who go on to become engineering leaders in industry, such as University of Bath alumni and former Team Bath Racing members at McMurtry Automotive, who were on-site to showcase their Goodwood-record-breaking vehicle.
With the COVID-restrictions lifted, this year’s competition saw the return of UK and International teams join at Silverstone for the chance to showcase their hard work, as well as the return of thousands of spectators join over the weekend to watch all the on-track action and support the dozens of teams fielding vehicles at the event.
Teams not only had to contend with getting their cars prepared for on-track events but also the hot and dry weather at Silverstone across the five-day event, in a change from conditions at the British Formula One™ Grand Prix held only a week earlier.
Other notable winners in the on-track events this year included University of Malta who won the Endurance event, Cardiff University who won the Acceleration event and Coventry University, winners of the Skid Pad award.
The 2022 competition also saw record numbers of FS-AI participants, with more than a dozen teams from the UK and oversees taking part in presentation events of their work and on-track activities designed to test their team’s autonomous driving systems across a number of real-world driving simulations.
“This is the year FS-AI truly thrived. With six teams making great attempts at the dynamic events and two teams completing the dreaded Trackdrive event, 2022 has demonstrated the clear progress all the teams have made in their autonomous driving systems,” said Holly Watson-Nall, FS-AI chief judge.
Extracted from IMechE, Professional Engineering - read more here