Yesterday, the entrance to Valletta took on a different appearance, with the Parliament-side steps turning into a showcase of formula-style cars, wholly built by university students. As an interdisciplinary team of students, the University of Malta Racing (UoMR) team designs, builds and races formula-style racing cars in Formula Student events overseas.
With the Formula SAE Italy competition coming up this month, the team took the opportunity to unveil its latest car, whilst showing off with its previous iterations to a number of partners and collaborators from university, industry, the public sector and various media. Present at the event were Prof. Alfred J. Vella, university rector, and Hon. Evarist Bartolo, who praised the students efforts as a model for educational endeavours.
The car itself recorded a number of firsts for the UoMR team, being the team’s first iteration to feature a turbocharged engine, a data acquisition system which was developed in house for the first time and the lightest chassis iteration so far to name a few. Once again, the car donned the colours of the Maltese flag based on a carbon fibre background. This will be the fourth University of Malta entry into a Formula Student event, following successful attempts in 2007, 2014 and 2015.
UoMR thanks all sponsors and collaborators who help the organisation achieve its goals: the University of Malta and its Research Trust (RIDT), the team’s University Advisor, Dr Ing. Maurizio Fenech, as well as the several staff members who offer their academic knowledge, resources, expert advice and other help, without which this ongoing project would not be possible.
The team’s main sponsors include The Ministry for Education and Employment, Trelleborg Sealing Solutions, Tek-Moulds Precision Engineering, Enemed, SKF, Silvercraft Products Ltd., Dfab.Studio, PwC Malta, Playmobil Mould Shop Malta, Adpro-Instruments Ltd., Continental Cars Ltd., RS Components, Würth Malta, QFree Traffiko, Attrans International Transport, Ricston Ltd. and Talocan Ltd.
For more information, the UoMR team may be contacted via email on info@uomracing.com. One can also keep up with the latest updates on the team’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/uomracing).
Photo Credits: iCreateMotionStudio.com