Monash Motorsport from Australia has won the 20th edition of Formula Student, the annual international racing competition for budding engineers.
Run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the Silverstone event attracted 129 teams from more than 30 countries this year. Monash, hailing from Melbourne, won the overall competition, with university teams from Spain, Egypt, Germany, the US and the UK also honoured at Sunday’s awards ceremony.
This year’s Formula Student was also notable for the first ever appearance of an all-female crew, as Team AUJ, from the National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan, transported their car 4,000 miles by air freight to take part. Best placed of the UK teams in the overall standings were Oxford Brookes (2nd), University of Sheffield (5th) and University of Birmingham (6th).
“Formula Student, now in its 20th anniversary year has been producing highly sought-after graduate engineers, who have then gone on to very successful careers in leading automotive companies around the globe,” said Terry Spall, chief judge at Formula Student. “Around 40,000 students have been through the FS experience, emerging as superbly rounded and work-ready graduates, with a skill set the automotive community craves.
The 2018 edition of the event also saw autonomous racing make its Formula Student debut. FS-AI tasked some teams with developing a cost-effective software package to enable an Artificial Intelligence (AI) car to make its own decisions, and evolve to improve its own performance. The new aspect of the competition aims to ensure that FS continues to support industry by addressing the skills gap and providing mechanical engineering students with the opportunity for real-world experience of integrated electronics, software and systems engineering.
“With the emergence of autonomous vehicle technologies and the possibilities of driverless cars entering the market in the coming years, Formula Student has recognised it has a role to play in producing the new skill sets future automotive engineers will need,” said Spall.
The post Australia’s Monash team takes Formula Student title appeared first on The Engineer.