UBRacing has just started up again after finishing their best season yet! In our seventeen years of building cars we have never come so high in a decade at Formula Student, after finishing 6th out of all of the UK teams this year, 5th in the Business section of the competition and 19th out of 106 teams overall. We have had a brilliant recruitment period with somewhere in the region of 100 new students added to the team this year. The chassis design is nearly there and the other design teams are starting to be able to make concrete decisions about how UBR18 is going to shape up. The mood in the team is extremely high as the position that UBR17 has put us in is the best start we could ever ask for for our season. There is a major push this year to include students from other departments both from within the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS) and from outside the EPS Community. There are discussions with academic staff and module co-ordinators so team members can incorporate some of the work they do at UBR and integrate it into their academic assessment and allow students to gain even more from the project.
Every year this project costs us somewhere in the region of £30,000 to completely design, manufacture and to source parts. This year we are moving from the large 13" wheels to 10" wheels to improve our performance which requires us to completely overhaul the braking system and source new calipers, disks and a brand new pedal box. With the help of students from the School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering (EESE) we are looking to implement wireless telemetry (transmitting information from the car to our pit whilst the car is racing). These bold changes to the car, along with the involvement of students from the Schools of Business, Economics, Computer Science, Materials and Metallurgy and Physics and Astronomy, is making our team more diverse than the tradition of the team being very heavily made up of Mechanical Engineers. This year is certainly a fun one to be a part of. As well as these changes the team is striving to make the car lighter and more efficient. This design philosophy is shown throughout the design areas and with the support of our sponsors and alumni, the first concepts for the car are looking extremely promising. If you would like to contribute towards our team please visit our JustGiving page . For news about the team’s progress please follow our Twitter (@UBRacing) and head to our website.