FSG & FSE Workshop at Bosch Engineering GmbH, Abstatt

Martin Lenz addressing the students

On Saturday October 31st the annual FSG workshop and the first FSE workshop took place at Bosch Engineering GmbH in Abstatt.  With nearly 300 students from 52 FS teams participating the workshop was  a great success.

At the early hour of 8 ‘o clock in the morning, the workshop’s participants gathered at the Robert Bosch Development Center in Abstatt. Coming from Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, of course Germany, and even England it was, as usual for Formula Student, a very international crowd.
During the day topics like successful event participation, structural design, and rule changes for 2010 were discussed. The FSE workshop focused on rules and regulations, safety concerning electro mobility, and maybe most importantly on the experiences of the team of the University of Hertfordshire which has already built a fully electric Formula Student car.
On behalf of the day’s host, Bosch Engineering GmbH, Martin Lenz gave a presentation on the conversion of an ordinary Audi A5 into a fully electric vehicle, which they proudly demonstrated by offering “taxi rides” to the more than eager audience.
Furthermore, team captains and the FSG board exchanged their experiences from last year’s event in a round table meeting, and certainly there was ample possibility for teams to exchange contacts and discuss the latest developments

Workshops form a very important part of the idea behind Formula Student, which is to educate and prepare coming generations of engineers for their future careers. For new comer teams they are a great way to learn from the best practices of others, and for more experienced teams they are a great way to keep up with the latest developments and to give feedback to the organisation, which is continuously striving to improve the quality of the competition.