Ricardo volunteers inspire the next generation of engineers at Formula Student

We’re so proud of our engineers Max Zimmer, Tom Holloway, Tom Quaye and Jeremy Dalton from our automotive engineering team in the UK who have volunteered as scrutineers at the prestigious Formula Student event which takes place at Silverstone on 18-21 July.

At the event, Max is a scrutineer for electric vehicles; Tom Holloway is undertaking technical scrutineering for mechanical engineering; Tom Quaye is a design judge; and Jeremy Dalton is a design judge for electric vehicles.

Formula Student is Europe's most established educational engineering competition. The flagship event of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and backed by industry and high-profile engineers such Patron, Ross Brawn OBE, the competition aims to develop enterprising and innovative young engineers and encourage more young people to take up a career in engineering.   A kite-mark for real-world engineering experience, combining practical engineering experience with soft skills including business planning and project management, the event enables students to transition from university to the workplace.

This was certainly the experience of three of the four Ricardo engineers: Tom, Max and Tom who all took part in the competition as undergraduates themselves. Now, together with Jeremy, they have all been keen to volunteer and ‘give back’ to the industry and profession, to help encourage and pass on some of their expertise and learning to up and coming engineering students.

Tom Holloway shared his experiences of taking part in Formula Student and how it helped his career. He said: “I took part in Formula Student with the University of Surrey as the Head of Vehicle Dynamics and Head of Cost & Manufacturing for Team SURTES.”

“Unfortunately, the year I went to Silverstone with the team (2023) we did not pass all of the scrutineering checks but did get to the final stage: the water ingress test. Although we didn't make it all the way through scrutineering, 2023 was the first time since before Covid Team SURTES had taken a car to the competition so there was a massive sense of achievement and pride for getting to where we did.”

“The highlight of Formula Student for me was experiencing how well the team worked together at the competition under extreme amounts of pressure, with 16-hour days in the pits for the 4 days of the competition being needed to make sure the car was ready to pass the next step of scrutineering.”

“So far competing in Formula Student has benefitted my career by allowing me to develop the skills required to work in a diverse team, pulling on the different strengths of members of the team. This is as well as the invaluable skill of being able to quickly problem solve on the go and in a high-pressure situation. Taking part in the Design and Cost & Manufacturing judged events, where design and manufacturing decisions are put under a microscope by the judges, helped me develop the skills required to justify engineering decisions and identify where weaknesses are within a design and what could be improved for the next iteration.”

Max was part of both the University of Exeter's and Imperial College's teams. He said: "My highlight was getting to drive a car that I helped design and build around Copse Corner! Possibly not quite a the 180 mph the Formula One cars do but still very cool…

“Formula Student gave me a great platform to practice working on real engineering projects with others and working together to solve complex technical problems. Through past team-mates and the other current volunteers, Formula Student has been a great to build a professional network of people.”

We wish Max, Tom, Tom and Jeremy well at Formula Student.