Engineering students competing in Europe’s biggest educational motorsport event have benefitted from sponsorship by Huddersfield-based precision component supplier Accu.
The Honley company – which employs over 90 people and supplies over 50% of the world’s top 100 manufacturers – gifted precision engineering components totalling £6,000 to 11 university racing teams designing and building cars to race in the 2023 Formula Student competition by The Institute of Mechanical Engineers.
Tessa Waldron, team lead from Oxford Brookes Racing, said: “We love that Accu are supporting the future generation of engineers. Their support keeps the team going and we’re so grateful for the free access to both their precision components and CAD models. This has been invaluable in helping us to design and build our race cars.”
Alastair Morris, UK managing director at Accu, said: “The Formula Student project is viewed by the motorsport industry as the standard for engineering graduates to meet and is a kite-mark for real-world engineering experience, and it has been our pleasure to support eleven of this year’s competing student teams with total credits worth £6,000 to purchase Accu components online to build their racing cars.
“As a business that will ultimately supply the next generation of engineers with their components, we are hugely passionate about supporting them to be successful during their time at university as they forge their path to a career in engineering.
“The enthusiasm and dedication from all the students taking part in this year’s event was inspiring, and Accu components were used to design and build a whole plethora of racing cars including combustion engine, all-electric, and AI autonomous vehicles.”
Mr Morris added: “We’re also delighted that the University of Edinburgh, sponsored by Accu, was the overall winner in the AI autonomous vehicle category, and that Oxford Brookes University and University of Glasgow came second and third respectively in this category – one which saw a record 20 entries this year and where some real innovation in design and engineering was displayed.”
The 11 teams competing in this year’s event using components supplied by Accu were:
- Oxford Brookes Racing
- UGRacing (University of Glasgow)
- University of Strathclyde Motorsport
- Formula Trinity (Trinity College Dublin)
- Staffordshire University Racing
- Brunel Racing (University of Brunel)
- SHU Racing (Sheffield Hallam University)
- HW Racing (Heriot Watt University)
- Southampton University Formula Student Team
- UH Racing (University of Hertfordshire)
- Edinburgh University Formula Student
The competition is the fifth time Accu has sponsored teams taking part in Formula Student, donating components totalling £9,000 in the last five years.
