Team Spark, the University of Iceland‘s design and racing team, unveiled a new electric race car the team has worked on for the past two years in the challenging circumstances of the pandemic. The race car is called TS 21 Katla and is the prototype of the race car the team hopes to take with them to an international race for students next year.
The car was unveiled at the University Centre today in the presence of team members, backers, and various University representatives. A resilient group of 60 students has worked on the car and most of the team members are from the University's various engineering programmes, but also from the fields of physical sciences and business administration.
A design and racing team was formed at the University of Iceland ten years ago. The team has participated in international design and racing competitions for University students all over Europe under the auspices of Formula Student. They have raced on Formula 1 tracks and been recognised for excellent wing design. However, no such competitions have held for the last two years due to the corona pandemic.
The pandemic has also put its mark on Team Spark’s development and design and the creation of the car has thus taken two years instead of one as usual. The team members are nothing if not ambitious, and according to Magnea Haraldsdóttir, the team's former managing director, their main challenge, apart from the pandemic, has been a new manufacturing process for the primary vehicle structure. "We are among the first teams in the Formula Student environment to make a car using this method. It is much faster and more dependable than previous methods, and there has thus been great progress in the group working on the primary vehicle structure during the past two years," she says. The vehicle structure is made of aluminium and the production takes only two weeks instead of 2 – 3 months.
The team has emphasised the development of an electric car from the beginning, but this design is considerably more complicated as the demands for electric cars are higher than cars run on petrol in Formula Student competitions. The team has a large group of outstanding backers in industry, providing facilities, equipment and capital in the development of the car.
"The team has done an incredible job in producing an entire car in these unprecedented times and managing a 40 member racing team via teleconferencing has been extremely challenging, but at the same time incredibly rewarding. The team is thus very excited to finally be able to unveil their latest design which we are all so very proud of," says Magnea.
Further development of the car is planned for the winter, alongside testing its driving capacity in varying conditions. This work will be continued by a large group of new recruits that will be enlisted this autumn to carry on work on the car to perfect it for racing next summer.
The University of Iceland congratulates Team Spark sincerely on their new race car.