This is somewhat tangential from the report but I thought it was important to document it for younger members and future generations. What is often unspoken about on the team is what is important. Very often we get wrapped up in racing the car and competition and such. When you've worked long enough on the team or in engineering in general is the problem you are facing in engineering is not the real problem “man” is facing. In the end whether the Formula Electric car even shows up at competition or not provides no material benefit to any other person in the world. What it does is it exposes the members to the realities of task execution.

The problems faced on the Formula Electric team are the exact same ones faced in the real world: Project Management, Labor Relations, Systems Design, Recruitment and Retention, Team Management. The technical issues we fix on the Formula Electric team are identical to ones I've done on co-ops in the workforce working at large tech companies. What we have is an incredible opportunity to have a huge impact on a small project, to be exposed to full systems level design. Whereas all your other peers go into the workforce and are given small tasks, on the Formula Electric team you are exposed to high level decision making and real engineering design, so when you face it in the workplace you are ready. There really is no better preparatory mechanism for engineering in the real world. Personal projects lack team dynamics, large budgets and system integration. There is almost no where else you can work on High Voltage Systems, Battery Assembly, distributed board design, suspension design, etc. I think Formula Electric is the ideal experience for engineers looking for systems design and we're really blessed to have this opportunity.

Even though, I just stated all that, in essence the engineering skills gained are really not even the point of the team. The stated goal of the team is to develop a fully electric Formula style race car, an experienced member will understand that as I stated the true latent purpose of the team is to develop engineering and team working skills. But even this is not a full understanding of the true latent purpose of the team.

The real purpose of the team is to develop character. On this team over the past 5 years I've worked on it, and the past 2/3 years I've been Technical Lead I've seen many members grow their engineering skills which is beautiful, but what is real awe-inspiring is seeing members develop their character. Formula Electric in it's true essence is a test of character, it's a test of resilience and struggle. You get out what you put into the team, if you strive to go far you can push your limits further than you possibly expected. I've seen quite a few members go further then they ever thought they could, and it's really an amazing thing to see.

In the past I've used the analogy of the Nickel Cadmium battery's memory effect. If you partially discharge a Ni-Cd battery and then try to recharge it, the battery suffers from the memory effect where it will no be able to perform a full discharge it will remember a smaller capacity as it was not taken down to it's limit. The same principle applies to people, if you don't push your limits you gradually soften over time and lack resilience.

Over the years I've seen many people crack under the pressure, they go “this is too difficult” and quit the team or coast or “grief” the team somehow. But with a few people I've seen them come out of the experience as better people overall and significantly better engineers. The engineering topics we learn are fairly temporary and constrained but the life lessons and the character we develop is permanent and broad. In university you are defining the person you are to be in the real world, and for a select few on the Formula Electric team they are setting themselves up to be truly legendary figures, able to withstand tremendous pressure, make good decisions and act in a moral and honest way.

I'll leave this report with a passage from Theodore Roosevelt's speech “Citizenship in a Republic”, a passage I would often think about when under the immense pressure and something which I think is important to grasp and understand on the Formula Electric Team.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.