Gdańsk Tech students’ racing car ends the season with success in the Formula Student competition | Gdańsk University of Technology

Formula Student races are competitions for engineering teams of universities from around the world. These teams build the car themselves and then compete with it in static and dynamic terms against other teams and their cars, with a total of 1,000 points to score. The team of Gdańsk University of Technology, associated with the "Mechanik" science club at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Ship Technology, is called PGRacing Team and since its inception it can boast the fifth consecutive car of its own idea and design.

As the students themselves emphasize, compared to the July competition in Most in the Czech Republic, they managed to significantly improve several aspects before the start in Varano de' Melegari in Italy in October this year.

– First of all, there is a visible improvement in terms of better preparation for the technical inspection, which we went through on the first day of the competition without any problems. The best results were recorded in the Skid Pad and Endurance competitions. We found ourselves in the top ten, which is a great success with such strong teams that we had to face during FS Italy - says Dawid Ossowski, leader of the PGRacing Team.

First of all, own projects

The car was designed and built by students from scratch. This is the fifth generation of the vehicle, which is based on the three-cylinder Triumph Street Triple 675 engine and a steel frame. Pneumatic gear shifting has been replaced with a lighter electric one, a start procedure module and a data display for the driver have been added. This year, we also managed to significantly reduce the weight of the car in the Powertrain group, which deals with the engine and driveline.

It is extremely important for students to create their own projects.

– At the best universities in the world, i.e. MIT and Stanford University, students mainly work on their own projects, which is extremely developmental - says prof. Andrzej Seweryn, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Ship Technology. - We want to give our students space for similar activities. Collaboration, sharing knowledge and experience already at the level of studies are very important in integration and communication, which can bring many benefits in their later professional life. Members of science clubs are constantly improving their projects. This is the case, for example, in the PGRacing Team, which spends many hours in protolabs when designing and building a car, using innovative applications and modern materials, such as carbon fibers. Team members research vehicle motion, aerodynamics, suspension modeling, and more. The PGRacing Team project does not cover only one field, but allows students to test themselves on several levels and opens many doors to their careers.

Students are currently working on a new car, which will hit the tracks in the Formula Student competition next season. It will be a groundbreaking project of the team. The steel frame will be replaced with a carbon fiber body. The group also creates new suspension geometry, an aerodynamic package and an advanced telemetry system.