Over the past 4 months students have been involved in fundraising and construction of a fully electric driveable car for the school’s Formula 24 programme, with the eventual goal of racing at the Lotus HQ test track in September. Whilst the first 2 months of the process was dedicated to securing sponsorships and grants, we are pleased to say, having received funding of £4750 that we have started the design and construction part of the project.
The programme is entirely student-led, giving sixth-form students vital leadership roles where in some cases management of 20 students is required. There has also been a great opportunity to enhance critical social skills too, with many of our members making multiple cold calls to companies to ask about sponsorships. We are pleased to say that we have a range of sponsors backing the programme, from Dyson through the James Dyson Foundation, The Institute of Mechanical Engineers, to Lakes Capital Partners, an investment firm based in Knightsbridge, and SachhSoft, a tech startup based in Chicago.
We have also partnered with the Formula Student team at Imperial College London, a similar programme to F24 but at a university level, for mentoring, advice and workshop experience. The team has been fortunate to go on a trip recently for a tour of their workshop, giving insight into how a student-led motorsport programme is run at a globally high-ranked university, as well as practical technical advice which we hope to implement in the future. I hope to continue providing special opportunities such as these to club members to better get a sense of engineering in practise, and see how worthwhile of a career engineering can be.
We are extremely excited to see what the future might hold for the programme, whether that be a wider calendar of races throughout the year or technical modifications and enhancement to boost students’ problem-solving and engineering skills. I would also like to thank all our sponsors, whose generous support fully funds the club and makes everything we do possible. We are very grateful for their commitment and backing.
Ethan P, F24 Team Leader