The international Formula Student competition is a kind of “Formula 1” for young racing car designers from all over the world. Every year, teams consisting of dozens of talented students set out to build their own autonomous electric formula that will be faster, more durable and more reliable than all the others. And the Prague team EFORCE from the Czech Technical University is undoubtedly one of our greatest hopes.
A hundred enthusiastic students build a single-seater in their free time and beat most of the world
“EFORCE Prague Formula is a student team that builds a racing formula every year. There are over a hundred of us working on it, we see each other here every night and it’s great,” described the current team captain Jan Antonín Domiter, pointing out that everyone’s work in the team is completely voluntary, so no one is paid for their contribution.
However, the effort is worth it, because success in the Formula Student competition carries with it considerable prestige in the field of single-seater car design. And the EFORCE team in particular has something to be proud of. "In the past two years, we have managed to succeed in the World Championship in Germany, where we have placed third twice in a row in a huge competition of eighty teams from all over the world," Domiter lists what he is currently most proud of within the team. The successful formula of the EFORCE team has also made it to the Expo exhibition in Osaka, Japan, where it is one of the representatives of those "golden Czech hands".
The formula must not only be fast, but also drive the tracks flawlessly without a live pilot
And what exactly is this racing car? “It’s probably easiest to say that it’s a kind of go-kart on steroids. However, it’s faster and more agile compared to it, because it often runs on circuits that are much more technical than traditional go-kart circuits,” describes Honza, adding that the car weighs about 175 kilograms, the rules limit its electric power to 80 kW, it accelerates from zero to one hundred in about three seconds and has such downforce that it would have no problem driving on the ceiling at full power.
However, a very interesting aspect of this racing formula is the fact that it is not driven by a live pilot, but must be a so-called autonomous car. During the races, students place it on the track, turn it on, and the formula must then drive the previously unknown track in the fastest possible time. The creation and tuning of the “autopilot” has been ongoing in the EFORCE team since 2019, and unlike most of the competition, the students from CTU are not relying on modern LIDAR laser technology, but on a more traditional camera.
The EFORCE team's activities shed a great light not only on the students themselves, but also on the entire Czech Technical University. "It's a great project where students can learn what good engineering work looks like in practice. We also consider it a kind of new form of teaching, where students can directly apply the information they gain in lecture rooms and laboratories with professors," says Michal Pěchouček, rector of the Czech Technical University in Prague, in response to EFORCE, who adds with exaggeration that in the future students could also focus on other ambitious projects: "Next time we'll have a rocket, we'll build a dam here, or we'll show how a real bridge is built."