Taking part in external competitions for students to showcase their talents is always encouraged at Harrow, Richmond & Uxbridge Colleges (HRUC) and our students love to get involved.
Six of our engineering students did just that by entering the prestigious F1 in Schools competition with a car that they designed, manufactured and tested… all in the College’s workshops.
Through the engineering department’s vision to get students involved and take part in the competition, with over a year of development and planning, the F1 in Schools opportunity has flourished into an excellent student development programme for Uxbridge College’s Level 3 mechanical engineers, all with the support of the dedicated teaching team.
The vision came to reality when the student F1 Team, named H-Rock, took part in the regional heats held at RAF Benson, coming first in their race and gaining overall second place - beating stiff competition from a number of schools and colleges - an amazing achievement!
The students have not only benefitted from applying the knowledge and skills gained from their course to this project, but also dedicated much of their spare time over several months, all whilst keeping up with their academic commitments.
With the support of the teaching staff and engineering technicians, the students managed the project plan to ensure they produced a race car that was going to win the heats. As part of their planning work, they designed and built their very own wind tunnel (see it in action here https://youtu.be/AvPrV8-CY3Q) to test out the race cars that they also designed and manufactured at college. This was all made possible using the College’s state-of-the-art, industry spec equipment and workshops – including the CNC machines which were used to build the race car.
The students also used their skills to create their very own team website, which you can use to learn even more about the team and all the impressive work they've done: https://www.h-rock.co.uk/
The future for our F1 student team, H-Rock, is very exciting as they are now heading to the national finals held in June at Leeds University. However, there is lots still to do in the next phase to perfect their car and fine tune their project plan, which includes developing their portfolio with costings, a balance sheet with profit & loss as well as maximising sustainability and zero waste opportunities to embed into their design and build methodology.
It’s not a surprise that they are already back in the workshop to look at these continuous improvement methods which factor in Karban, 6s and Kaizen methods, plus they are also working with our T Level engineering students who will support them and provide inputs.
The journey has already been extremely rewarding for the students and also for the department with the academic and technical staff that have supported them throughout. There is no time for a pit stop though, as if they get through the national finals the next stop is the international finals which are held overseas.
We wish them all the best - watch this space for updates!
For more information about our engineering courses visit: https://www.uxbridgecollege.ac.uk/courses/engineering