Formula Student at the Virtual Engineering Centre
Formula Student at the Virtual Engineering Centre
In December, the Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) played host to the University of Liverpool’s Formula Student Team for 2013/14 at the Daresbury Campus. The VEC, along with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Hartree Centre and Virtalis Ltd, introduced the team to new specialist software and Virtual Reality laboratories to support this year’s design.
Formula Student is an international competition in which top engineering students design, build and race a single seat racing car.
Formula Student attracts entries from universities all over the World, from the UK, mainland Europe and from the Americas, Asia and Australasia. For the universities, Formula Student represents a valuable project that blends academic work and learning with the development of practical engineering skills.
The team, consisting of third and fourth year students gathered to give presentations on their design to a combination of experienced engineers, university supervisors and graduates from last year’s team that are now working as engineers for companies such as Ford and BAE Systems. Key Note speaker, John Eldridge, Principal Engineer at Sellafield Ltd. discussed plans for the new racing car with the students and commended their enthusiasm for the project.
The VEC along with Virtalis Ltd (leaders in advanced visualisation and 3D immersive soluitions) will be providing this year’s team with access to the latest virtual engineering tools and facilities, along with expert support from the VEC Virtual Test and Engineering Reliability team to help inform their design and develop a virtual prototype of the new car for the first time.