Dubai students’ formula-style racing car vrooms to the Netherlands for contest

A Dubai team has developed a formula-style racing car and has entered the Formula Student Netherlands (FSN) 2022 competition.

BITS Pilani Dubai Campus (BPDC), which has entered the contest as ‘Team Al Fursan’, is the only team selected from the Middle East and North Africa region. They will compete against 18 teams from around the world.

FSN is the Dutch edition of the world’s largest student engineering competition, which challenges students to understand, design, and develop a formula-style racing car.

The BITS students' car has been designed specifically bearing in mind the health, comfort and safety aspects of a driver, drawing upon biology, psychology, engineering and design, that create vehicle environments in which drivers have a lower chance of injury.

Al Fursan team head Shobal Philip Roy explained that the students built the car adhering to the rules and regulations of the Formula Student Rule book.

He said, “It took us nine months to plan, execute and complete the car; we started off with a blank paper and then worked throughout to build a race car that we engineered ourselves. It’s great being part of such a passionate and dedicated group, the entire team is eager to learn, adapt and execute things that are new to them under difficult circumstances.”

The 14 member team comprising of engineering students from different disciplines collaborated in the fall of 2021 to design this car that focuses on ‘Driver Ergonomics’.

Driving ergonomics aims at fitting the driver to their car so they can drive in a way that maximizes the natural ability of their body to move and respond to physical stress.

“I appreciate my team for their constant support and cooperation throughout all stages of development. We aim to develop more cars in the coming years that will be eco-friendlier and lean with high performance and efficiency. We thank all the sponsors that supported us with monetary and technical help. We hope they extend their support in the coming years as well,” Roy added.

Celebrating its 5th anniversary, the event is scheduled from 11-14 July 2022 at Assen TT Circuit (Netherland) known for its high speed corners, long straights and world-class events such as MotoGP and DTM.

Dr Srinivasan Madapusi, Director of the BITS Pilani Dubai Campus, opined, “One of the biggest factors that sets us apart is the career-focused style of education. With competitions like FSN our students get so much real-world work experience in the field before graduation. This is an excellent example of translation of learning in the classroom to a high performance application environment accompanied by highly efficient use of resources.”

He adds, “It also underscores the passion, enterprise and teamwork displayed by our students. The Formula Student Netherlands is one of the biggest of its kind, competition at a European and a global level. I am proud that our students are representing not just the UAE but the entire Middle East and Africa region.”

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