An Indian Formula Student competition

Humans of Formula Bharat

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humansofformulabharat

(1/2) The best moment was when Stallion Motorsport

(1/2) The best moment was when Stallion Motorsports completed the endurance event at Formula Bharat 2018. That was the best amongst all. You know, as a team we always said that 2017 was the year for the team to know Formula Bharat, and 2018 was the year for Formula Bharat to know Stallion Motorsports. We used this tagline proudly amongst our juniors. Completing endurance, irrespective of anything, that is the moment you just enjoy! Even if you are not in the top 5 or top 10 or whatever, that moment is fire. The amount of cheering, the joy, the dancing - to the fact that our efforts actually paid off!

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One of the important things I learnt on the team w

One of the important things I learnt on the team was to be open to approaching people. I was on the far end of the introvert spectrum. I was the kind of person who could not even say a word to you even if you were to sit right besides me - not even a hello! But I had to bring about a change in myself. At the competition when you need something, you have to talk to the other teams and you have to ask for help. Unless you ask, they won’t know that you need something and you won’t get the help you need. I even became very proactive on the team - I wanted to know everything and learn everything possible under each department.

The next important thing I learnt was to always ask ‘why’ in design. The ‘why’ should be very clear if you are doing anything. In my first design event, I understood how the judges were framing their questions. They kept asking, ‘Why did you do this? And why not that?’ And so when I got to join the design team in my second year, whenever team members came up with a design idea, like this is the angle, this is the length and all, I would ask them to explain the ‘why’ of their design choice. If they were unclear or unable to explain their design decisions, I’d ask them to go back to the drawing board to re-evaluate their calculations and come back with a stronger proposal.

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There were a lot of challenges as everything had t

There were a lot of challenges as everything had to start from scratch. Generally everything is very unique, or perhaps odd, at Ather - depends on one’s perception. As it was a startup, funds were limited. We had to struggle a lot on how to validate our design since there was no benchmark. For example, our framework architecture was not the industry standard for two-wheelers at the time. Throughout the whole process, you had to understand the design, get a hold of it and figure out ways to test. So in validation, you have to find out the loopholes and how you get there is understanding the basics of your design. Figuring out standards, figuring out equipment, in a limited budget and limited time as we were launching every 6 months was challenging. What helped was that our design team had really strong basics which gave us an opportunity to experiment with validation.

Ather was a Formula Student continuation for many of us. The new joinees had an FS background and they joined because they wanted to build something. There is something nostalgic about the vibe of it all; the way we worked as a team, the last moment surprises and trying to mitigate those risks. And so giving back was never a hesitant thought. I could see teams taking feedback from the judging process and returning back with some improvements. So that motivates us as alumni even further to give back.

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When you are on a Formula Student team, you have t

When you are on a Formula Student team, you have to manage academics and the team also. On the team, you have to do a lot of work; you have to miss classes, you have to get a part manufactured, you have to purchase materials, you have to negotiate with a supplier, you have to get funds. During this time, a lot of members can begin to lose faith. They get worried about their academics, and especially if they are in their fourth year, then their poor marks will prevent them from getting a good placement as companies have a certain criteria for graduates joining them.

The thing is, I never wanted anyone to leave the team. This situation of someone leaving would scare me the most because if a team member left, the responsibility on other members to keep the project going would increase and the team would collapse. I never wanted the team to collapse. So if someone said they wanted to leave, the rest of us would get together and try to convince him and make him understand and offer to help him in his studies and other work. We would try to be supportive, try to provide advice.

This usually happened with our juniors. Because until they got to their first competition, they would not feel the responsibility. When they join the team, they are learning, so it is very easy for them to drop out. In the second year, you are more focussed on your studies, you don’t know much. Once you go to the competition, you learn a lot of things and when you come back, you are just so motivated. You come back with a positive attitude to do better in the next year for the team.

What I used to keep thinking was that if the team collapsed, all the hard work of the seniors would go in vain. Like if someone is leaving the team and his experience is not properly utilized, then it would affect the team’s timelines and our readiness in the competition. This situation used to scare me the most.

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(2/2) I remember Formula Bharat 2019 very well, as

(2/2) I remember Formula Bharat 2019 very well, as it was the first time in the history of our team that we made it as finalists in a static event. It was a proud achievement for me. I remember the cost judge’s name very well because he gave me his visiting card - he was very impressed by our discussion. The judge was Mr. Mudit Dandwate. We finished fourth, although it was a bit disappointing for me. I wanted for us to win this event because we put in a lot of time and effort in preparing for it. Anyways, since it was my last year as a student, I passed on all my learnings to the team, and as far as I am aware, they have adopted this process.

Once my final year was over, I decided that I will apply as a cost judge because after reaching the finals and seeing the level of knowledge a judge has and how they can help, I told myself, “Ok, I want to do this, I want to help the student community of India to be better.” So as soon as the positions opened up, I applied right away. I went through an interview and made it into the judging team.

The following year at Formula Bharat 2020, I arrived as a cost judge. While judging, I noticed that the teams were very hard-working; “They can do everything, but they just need the right direction”, I remember thinking to myself. As a student, the judges guided me - through FB2017, FB2018, FB2019 - so now it was time to give back and provide the same guidance.

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(1/2) At my first cost event at FB2017, we were ju

(1/2) At my first cost event at FB2017, we were judged by Devesh and Nikita and they shared a good amount of feedback on how we could do better. In the following season, I took on the sole responsibility of preparing the cost documentation. As a team we streamlined our ideology on what should be included in the BOM, what should be excluded, how we should structure our documentation, and everything else. But at FB2018, while we were better prepared from the previous year, the feedback we received from the judges was that this preparation was too much of a load on a single person. I had prepared everything by myself, because not everyone likes going through the rigorous process of preparing a Bill of Materials, and we didn’t have a particular set of people interested in this area. So I changed my strategy for the following season. I created a sub-team which was a mix of members from each design department. I guided them on their responsibility towards their sub-system in cost reporting. By forming this sub-team, these members were able to exchange knowledge amongst themselves and it also helped towards their understanding of the other systems on the vehicle. This was a really good exercise.

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(2/2) “With the written questions, we used to ma

(2/2) “With the written questions, we used to manage somehow because there were a fixed set of questions from MCAT. Then in the interview, they asked me to say something about myself, and I responded ‘Formula Student! Don’t ask me things from the courses. This is Formula Student - you ask me how to make a car and all that, and I’ll tell you. You make a car and I’ll also make a car. I think I should be a good fit!’ Then they said that when you enter into the industry, you won’t be working on the full vehicle, rather you will be given a particular process or something. ‘What are you good at?’, they asked. So I’m like, ok, fine, I am good at designing things and machining and engineering drawings, and others. Coincidentally, the interviewer was also in the same field. So then he asked me to make a technical drawing of the propeller shaft of a truck. I was like, well, cars and trucks are totally different! I had no idea what this shaft looked like. Our car’s half-shafts were like small teeny-tiny things, in comparison a truck’s. Fortunately, I had taken a portfolio of the drawings I had made of components which we used to provide to the tool rooms for machining. So I shared these with him, to which he exclaimed, ‘Oh! You made this yourself?!’ He saw all the tolerances and he continued saying, ‘Oh great! You know all these things! So do they teach you?’, to which I responded ‘No sir.’ He then continued to say that they do those very same things there and he started asking more technical questions till we reached an intermediate level where I was no longer able to respond. I think by then he was very impressed. In my mind, I was like, Chalo, ho gaya.”

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(1/ 2) “We were very new to machining components

(1/ 2) “We were very new to machining components as previously we used to focus on just getting OEM hubs and assembling them. But that year our seniors decided to design them. We were not sure on where to get them manufactured but we found one tool shop and it looked like their work was good. Also we checked elsewhere and it was expensive, and these guys were giving us a decent rate. It was more of a teaching institution. They ended up being very casual and we got the hubs at the very last moment, and when it came we realized that they didn’t know machining; they knew less machining than us! We ordered an apple and we got a banana, maybe something like that. We gave tolerances in microns and the dimensions were out in centimeters, not even millimeters! The hubs and the uprights - they were two different things and they would never fit in each other. Now what do we do?! It was a total mess and there was very little time left to ship out our vehicle to the competition, maybe 10 to 15 days at max. We had to go for emergency machining in a local place. They charged us a lot, but we managed somehow. I guess fortunately, it was just the rear hubs so we managed to get it done quickly.”

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(2/2) The recruitment process involved an aptitude

(2/2) The recruitment process involved an aptitude test and a rules test, followed by an interview. Fortunately, I had gone through the rule book thoroughly and I made it to the interview round. During the interview, I was asked whether I would be able to manage my backlogs, family expectations and the work on the team, to which I responded that I would. I really wanted to be on the team at that point, so I was willing to do anything. Shockingly, from the results, I turned out to be the strongest technically, and as such, I was added to the suspension team.

I have to give credit to the seniors on my team for being so flexible and open to change. I think at some point, they realized that technical work and all those calculations was not my strong suit. Over time, they realized that my strong points were management and people relations. For competitions, I would prepare for all the logistics and hospitality, and when it came to sponsorships and faculty connections, I was good at building relationships. And it wasn’t just me that the seniors had made adjustments for; they observed every single member of the team to determine their strengths and weaknesses. It was not unusual for juniors to be shuffled around amongst departments on the team.

I don’t think a lot of teams are open to this approach, especially when it comes to a team member who has not contributed to the manufacturing of the vehicle. But I am forever grateful that the team saw me as equal. From this experience and eight competitions later, I have been able to take my learnings in Formula Student and apply them in my family business. To put it in perspective, there is a 40+ year age difference between my father and I, and my experiences in conflict resolution on the team have definitely been put to the test here!

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(1/2) My parents always had their own family busin

(1/2) My parents always had their own family business, so it was already decided that I would be joining it after my studies. I was never interested in engineering and I never liked doing any technical work. In fact, the only reason I pursued engineering studies was because my parents wanted me to. Needless to say, I was struggling in my first year. On the entire team, I think I was the only one who maxed out the number of backlogs a student could have - 18 I think for me. I just knew that I needed an outlet aside from academics and that’s where the formula student team came in.

Originally, joining a race car team was never on my radar. I had come across it when I entered my second year of studies, while I was trying to figure out where my batchmate, Rahul, was all the time. I mean he was never in class, never in college, never anywhere, yet he was scoring good grades. So one day I was passing by the cafeteria and there I saw Rahul with a bunch of other guys in their team shirts working away at something. I still didn’t know what it was, but the entire premise seemed cool to me. Just like that, I made it my mission to join the team.

#humansofformulabharat #hofb #formulabharat #formulastudent #formulastudentindia #formulaindia

(2/2) At my first competition, I was still in my f

(2/2) At my first competition, I was still in my first year of engineering and I had just been on the team for six months or so. On the first day, when we reached the site and started setting up, we saw Claude making his rounds to each team’s pit, basically to interact with the team and share some critique on their vehicle. We had only known of Claude at the time - that he was from OptimumG and that he was an expert in his field. It wasn’t long before he showed up at our pit, and when he arrived, we got surrounded by other teams. Good or bad, we suddenly had a lot of attention on us - perhaps because we were an all-girls team or perhaps because everyone wanted to hear Claude’s comments on our vehicle, or both. He most definitely had a lot to ask of us and also say to us, and most of his comments on our vehicle were critical. It made us question our design decisions. This also got us nervous for the design event and even more anxious if we were to get Claude as our design judge. Yet, when we went to our design bay the next day, Claude was there.

At the design event, some of our seniors who were supposed to be present, were committed elsewhere. As such, I had to represent the suspension and wheel assembly department. That was a really nerve-wracking moment for me. I remember Claude asking me, “Where are your seniors? You look like the ‘baby’ of the team. Why are you here alone?” He was genuinely confused as to why I was there representing the team, especially the entire suspension department. Once we got through the formalities, Claude began asking his questions on vehicle dynamics and even though I thought I knew the answers, I was petrified to respond. I felt intimidated. I was in tears right after, even after I thought that my performance at the design event was decent.

Looking back, the experience was a learning opportunity. I just knew that because of this incident, it was important for every member on the team to have a holistic knowledge of everything going on within the team and the vehicle. You cannot depend on a few members to represent the entire team. This approach helped us prepare for the next year’s event and we had a much better design score.

(1/2) What happens is, since we are passionate abo

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