A team of 8 engineering students flew to UK to take part in the Formula Student UK 2019 competition in the class 2 category. As the first team from Hong Kong to attend formula student UK, HKU Racing (team name), successfully secured runners up in the design event and 3rd position overall in the class 2 category. A commendable achievement for their first attendance at the event.
Out of the 8 team members, 6 of the students were from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The team members are Luv Khanna (ME); Ho Ho Man (ME); Ho Shui Ho (ME); Mok Ka-chun (ME); Jasper Yeung Chun-Hong (ME); Yau Lai Ho (ME); Kurukulasuriya Vishmika Sachintha Fernando (ElecE) and Kenneth Hui Ka-chun (EE). The team supervisors are Dr. Match W.L. Ko (ME), Dr. C.K. Chan (ME), Dr. C.K. Lee (EEE) and Dr. C.K. Chui (InnoWing), and external advisor is Ir. Alexander Wong (ME).
Formula Student is Europe’s most established educational engineering competition. All students taking part in the competition get a chance to demonstrate their technical analysis, engineering design and manufacturing skills. The Formula Student UK (FSUK) 2019 competition, organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, took place from 17th – 21st July at the Silverstone Racing circuit. HKU Racing took part in the class 2 category and competed against 36 other universities from various countries across the globe including UK, US, France, India, Turkey and Egypt. FSUK is a well-respected competition sponsored by prestigious automobile companies such as Mercedes AMG High-Performance Powertrain, BOSCH and MAHLE Powertrain.
The competition requires teams to design and build a formula-style vehicle and compete against each other in various dynamic events such as skip-pad, acceleration, autocross and endurance where the quality and performance of the vehicle is tested. During the event the teams are also required to take part in the static events which include engineering design, cost & manufacture and business presentation. Class 2 category of the competition accommodates only the static events. During each static event, the class 2 teams have an hour of rigorous discussion and Q&A with the judges, some of whom are engineers from the top formula 1 teams, on the design of the vehicle, the project cost, manufacturing methods and the proposed business model of the team. For the class 2 competition, even though a fully built vehicle is not required, yet it is essential that some component parts are manufactured and displayed during the competition for the teams to demonstrate an understanding of manufacturing. The team came 2nd, 4th and 10th in the design, cost & manufacturing and business event respectively and secured an overall 3rd position in the Class 2 category.
The following links are news articles published on the competition website. The 1st article covers the interview with the HKU Racing and the other article covers the competition results where the team has been given a special mention:
