Professor William Ripper was the first Head of Department having been the first professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Sheffield Technical School. From these beginnings the department has grown and now has 180 members of staff and over 1,150 students from all over the world. 2017 is a proud Centenary year for the Department and we are happy to welcome them back for another year at Formula Student to help celebrate.
The Department is home to Sheffield Formula Racing, which was co-founded by Marissa Bole (now a Programme Manager for Project One, the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains F1 Hypercar) and Joshua Peckett (now Race Engineer – Race Support Team at Renault Sport F1 Team) due to their interest in motorsport.
They said: “The opportunity to manage, design, manufacture and present a single seat racing car at the Formula Student Event at Silverstone seemed like the perfect fit, so in 2009 we secured some initial funding through an external sponsor, iSport International and the University of Sheffield’s Alumni Foundation to start the team. We were able to appoint a team of 40 from 150 applicants which, after many of the trials and tribulations of a new start-up experiences, building the chassis out of newspaper and wood to get going, then went on to become the University’s first successful entry to the competition.”
Now with 48 members and split into five design groups it is managed by three senior leadership roles: the Team Principal, Technical Director and Manufacturing Director, with secondary positions including sponsorship management leading the cost and business events at the competition and being responsible for marketing activities. These roles allow second year members to develop their leadership skills on a smaller scale before taking on a Design Team Leader role in their third or fourth year.
Although the Department supports the team financially, progress so far would not be possible without the help of a number of external companies including Meggitt PLC, who have supported the team for the last four years. Additional financial support also comes from the University’s Alumni Fund and manufacturing support from across the wider University (AMRC, NAMRC, Mercury Centre, Composite Systems Innovation Centre and AdAM).
Current Team Principal Isabel Brown said:
“This year I have placed a large focus on helping the team to become more organised in their approach to all tasks and ensuring we are laying good foundations for future years. One way I have approached this is through introducing progress trackers that allow individual team members to track which activities they have completed for the design and manufacture of their parts and highlight the areas that are causing issues.”
The team have had much success at Formula Student over the years, progressing from 62nd to 38th in the opening seasons and going on to record a best place finish of 37th overall in 2012. Notable achievements also include a second place finish in the cost event. Although reliability has hindered the team at the more recent competitions, they now have a fantastic platform to build upon and hope to celebrate their Centenary year with a new best placed finish.
The experience gained through the process means they will join an already impressive list of alumni now with companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Aston Martin, McLaren and Rolls-Royce to name but a few.
To catch up on the celebrations, visit the university's website.