A team of Trinity College Dublin students has revealed its latest Formula Student race car, named Bruce, as it prepares to compete at Silverstone later this month. Bruce is the fourth-generation car built by Formula Trinity, following Betsie, Bertie and Bella, and will represent the university in one of Europe's most competitive student engineering events.
What is Formula Trinity?
Formula Trinity is a student engineering team made up of more than 150 students from engineering, computer science, business and other disciplines. Bruce has been fully designed, built, and tested by students over the past year as the team's fourth internal-combustion race car. The project is entirely student-led, with each generation of car built on the knowledge passed down from previous teams.
What is Bruce the Formula Trinity race car used for?
Bruce will compete in Formula Student UK at Silverstone Circuit later this month. Formula Student UK brings together more than 90 university teams from around the world, with more than 1,000 universities participating globally in the wider competition. The event tests engineering design, manufacturing, and on-track performance.
Alongside the main entry, Formula Trinity will also compete in the FS-AI category, developing autonomous systems for a driverless racing car.
Does Formula Trinity have form at Silverstone?
Last year marked a milestone for the team when its previous car, Bella, successfully passed scrutineering at Silverstone and competed on track for the first time in team history. This year, the team aims to build on that achievement with improved performance and reliability from Bruce.
How do students build a Formula Student race car?
Ellen Quigley, Chief Operating Officer of Formula Trinity, said the project gives students the chance to turn classroom learning into real engineering work. She said, "Formula Trinity is about much more than building a race car. It gives students the opportunity to take ideas from the classroom and turn them into something real. Every component of Bruce represents hundreds of hours of voluntary work from students balancing their degrees, jobs and other commitments.”
"What makes this team special is the way knowledge is passed from one generation of students to the next. New members join with little experience, develop their skills, and eventually become leaders who mentor the next group coming through.”
In fact, the team runs STEM outreach programmes across Dublin and delivers free engineering workshops to more than 1,000 primary and secondary school students. "Engineering should feel accessible to everyone,” added Quigley. "Through Formula Trinity, we want students to see that they can be creative problem-solvers and that a future in STEM is open to them.”
Has Formula Trinity won any awards or competitions?
Despite operating on a smaller budget than many competitors, Formula Trinity has achieved strong results in recent years. These include a Cost and Manufacturing award and the Aston Martin Racing Pride Diversity and Inclusion Award.
Who sponsors the Trinity College Dublin Formula Student team?
Formula Trinity is supported by sponsors and technical partners including OpenAI, Susquehanna, Cadence, Irish Steel, Trinity Association and Trust, Movelocity, Esmark Finch, Xsens, Ansys, Realis, SolidWorks and EPLAN.
The project also receives support from the Eddie Jordan Foundation and academic staff across Trinity College Dublin, including faculty advisers in the School of Engineering and the School of Computer Science and Statistics.
Bruce will now head to Silverstone later this month, where the team will once again represent Trinity College Dublin on the international stage.