Teamwork makes the dream work.

Our Team

Departments

Meet our new team, consisting of 48 motivated students from various engineering backgrounds. Together we will keep exploring the limits of our electric and driverless cars!

Team Members

Management

The management team consists of our Team Manager, Chief Electronics, Chief Mechanics and Head of Driverless respectively. These four gentlemen make sure the team sticks to its busy schedule and keep an oversight of all activities in their departments.

Management

When I was younger, I always wanted to know how every machine worked. Most of the time you could find me outside, trying to take all kinds of things apart and studying the mechanisms inside. This interest about mechanical machines grew to a fascination about cars, especially the ones from F1. It has always been a dream to once work on a car like this, and thanks to the team I can finally make this dream come true. Formula Electric Belgium is the perfect opportunity to use my theoretical skills I gained from my studies Mechanical Engineering at the KU Leuven.

This year, I will focus more on the management of our organization. Providing the team with all the necessary tools, planning and guidance. We are more than ever eager to win the competition. Together with 45 other students we made the goal clear: finishing top 5 in the overall EV competition.

Once a little kid, I was running around in between the cars in the garage of my uncle.Growing up, I started to help more and more while my passion for cars and racing grew exponentially.There was not a single race sunday when there wasn’t an f1 race blasting out of the speakers of the tv so when the choice for a study came, I knew I wanted to become a racing engineer.

In the first year of my studies I came in contact with Formula Electric Belgium and felt like it was something I had to be part of as soon as possible. 3 Years on and I can proudly say that I’m now the chief mechanical engineer for Formula Electric Belgium.

As Chief mechanical I make sure the mechanical department stays on track and every part is designed, checked and produced on time. Making the assembly and making the car come alive is a large part of my responsibilities. Next to that, I make sure every department can work together in harmony and is always up to date with the latest decisions and developments.

I like the different challenges that the Formula Electric Belgium team is facing. On the first hand, people need to develop their technical skills in order to help the whole team to achieve its goals. Being in the driverless division, we need to manage data comping from the sensors and to process it through state-of-the-art algorithms in order to extract valuable information. On the other hand, there is the non-technical part. The team is made of students that take care of all the management aspects of the projects. This requires to develop soft skills to work efficiently as a team.

After a master degree in Applied Mathematics at UCLouvain, Formula Electric Belgium offers me the possibility to work on problems from nowadays that needs applicable solutions, which I appreciate very much.

After 4 years of studying at groepT I’ve seen the Formula Electric Belgium’s former teams show off their skills in engineering and asking myself the question; How? How can they achieve such a feat with such little experience in the field? This year I will try answering this question myself by leading my electronics team to a successful end, with a safe and reliable car, as the new Chief Engineer: Electronics.

In my free time I will sleep because combining my postgraduate and thesis will take up all my time.

Electronics

Electronics, the black magic department. This contains all the parts that you can’t see, but are crucial for a great car. All sensors, motors, and safety systems will be designed and maintained by this team. The focus of this year is a new ECU and a new battery pack.

Electronics

Since a young age, I’ve been interested in almost all STEM-domains. However, in the last few years, as an engineering technology student, my interests have been shifting towards electric vehicles, more specifically the electronics and the ICT in these cars. After finishing my studies, I was looking for a new big challenge and that was exactly what Formula Electric Belgium had to offer!

In the Formula Electric Belgium team, I will put my theoretical knowledge into practice as a Low Voltage Engineer. That means that I will be redesigning sensor nodes and the dashboard. The cable loom will also be one of my responsibilities. For my non-technical role in the team, I will be expanding our educational STEM packages. By doing so, we can make young students enthusiastic about engineering.

As an electrical engineering student who is very interested in electrical driven vehicles, joining Formula Electric Belgium was in my interest since I started at college. In the past I have made an electric longboard and fixed batteries of electric bikes, but nothing compares to the challenge of making an electric race car.

I am joining the team as an electrical engineer who is responsible for the battery and the high voltage part of the car. Why battery? Well I am very interested in battery technologies of current electric bikes/cars, and I’m also very impressed by the amount of energy modern batteries can store and output.

I look forward to learning a lot and applying my knowledge and skills I got from my studies to solve crucial and non-crucial problems in the car.

In my free time I will sleep because combining my postgraduate and thesis will take up all my time.

Driverless

On the driverless side, we will focus on validation of our algorithms, and do further research on data segmentation of Lidar data and dynamic controls using Artificial intelligence.

Driverless

As long as I can remember, I have always been a fan of motorsport racing, especially Formula One. For few years, working in a Formula One team has become a dream. This would be an incredible way to combine one of my passions and my future career of engineer. However, since I graduated in electrical engineering at UCLouvain with tracks in signal processing, the design and building of race car are not in my field of expertise. The driverless project that Formula Electric Belgium have started few years ago was a big opportunity to get close to my dream and acquire skills in a future field of motorsport, autonomous car racing.

Vehicle Dynamics

The vehicle dynamics department consists of four motivated electro-mechanical engineers. We do everything that has something to do with the movement of the vehicle on track. This includes the design and implementation of the hardware such as steering, suspension, pedal box,… As well as the software and simulations regarding the optimization of the suspension setup, torque vectoring, traction control, semi active suspension,… This year we focus on optimizing the suspension setup of our latest car as well as some further research into the latest additions to our suspension such as the inerter, a new torque vectoring algorithm and the active dampers

Vehicle Dynamics

Sinds a young age, I already knew that I would end up in the automotive industry. For me it was not an if but rather a when question. I started reading books about the mechanical parts of a car and why they are so important. Because of the complexity, there was no way to really practice this knowledge. Therefore I practiced working on my bike or even doing maintenance on our car together with my dad. By joining Formula Electric Belgium I got surrounded with people that share this same passion.

I’m situated in the vehicle dynamics department. Finding the perfect balance between a good car and a perfect car makes me wanna wake up in the morning. This in combination with the close connection we have with the driver makes vehicle dynamics an awesome department to be in! We can make a difference between an undriveable and an incredible piece of machinery.

I have always been very interested in everything automotive, ever since childhood. After finishing my engineering degree, I felt that I still wanted to learn about this topic, and Formula Electric Belgium allows me to do this in a way no other classes or courses could. While the project focus is of course designing the car, along the way you pick up a lot more than only technical knowledge. Formula Electric Belgium makes you a more complete engineer, while also making one of the most innovative electric vehicles every year.

I am the head of vehicle dynamics of this year, which means that I get to study everything about how the car moves, what makes it move in this way, and how we can make sure that we get the best setup possible. This is of course the most essential aspect of the car, as well as, for me at least, one of the most interesting.

Unlike most, I didn’t know much about motorsports until before the project. However, I was always intrigued by the mechanics that occur in all kinds of machines. And what better way to satisfy this passion than by joining the Formula Electric Belgium team. The fact that I am immersed in the world of racing cars is something I gladly accept.

Who says mechanics in the world of Formula, says vehicle dynamics. This is the rock that Jesus would build his Formula Student car on. Without a suspension and a decent steering mechanism, the car would simply be uncontrollable. For the latter, namely the steering mechanism, I stand responsible. This year I will make sure that the driver will feel 100% comfortable behind the wheel and that he will have the feeling that he is in control of the car instead of the other way around.

Composites

From the monocoque to the smallest winglet on the car. Everything made out of carbon fibre passes through the composite department. A team of six young engineers will focus on improving and extending the aerodynamics of the car whilst keeping an eye on the R&D of next year’s car. The goal of an aero package is to create downforce so that a higher cornering speed could be achieved. However, effects such as drag need to be minimized. To come up with innovative solutions for these problems, specialized software is used to increase the performance and efficiency of this package.

Composites

I am really interested in 2 things, cars and boats, especially their composition. From a young age I started to look up how they are made, and why they are so light. Now when I see a sports car or boat, I am curious as to how they are built. This is also the reason why I studied Industrial Design. This education helped me to design and conceptualize something from scratch, learn how things are made and how to optimize designs. With Formula Electric I can combine my knowledge with my passion for cars and composites. It also gives me a chance to design a racecar, honestly, who wouldn’t like to design a racecar?

This year I will be the head of composites, this means that I will be watching over the monocoque design and the aerodynamic package. I am also responsible for the managing and production of everything that has anything to do with composites. This project of working in a highly dynamic environment challenges me to not only grow my technical skills but also my entrepreneurial capabilities and thus becoming a more complete engineer

After studying engineering sciences for years, I really had the urge to apply all this knowledge to something tangable. Together with my passion for motorsports, especially formula 1, I stumbled upon the perfect opportunity: joining the formula electric Belgium team.

Since I was young, I was really passionate about cars, planes and rockets. The car we make each year has wings and is rocket fast. Safe to say I had the perfect match with this team.

Currently studying aerospace engineering at KU Leuven, I now joined the composites department to design and make the new monocoque (body) of the car using innovative materials.

I come from Kortrijk. I play basketball but I love playing several other sports like tennis, padel, swimming, etc.

Ever since I started my engineering degree I have been interested in materials and materials engineering. Over the years, I became more involved with composites and composite design, as well as manufacturing of all sorts of materials. Additionally, I have a great interest in aero, space and other high-performance applications that require specialised designs, from both a materials and mechanical point of view.

Formula Electric Belgium gives me the ideal opportunity to combine both my professional and leisure interests in one. This year, I will be designing the monocoque. I am looking forward to seeing the car being built from scratch and participating in all the events. There is no better feeling than designing something as complex as an electrical racing car and seeing it in action at the end of the year.

Oh, I’m also a huge tabletop game enthusiast!

As a big racing fan and engineering student, I wanted to gain more practical skills in a racing environment. For this, Formula Electric Belgium is the perfect team. This year I will be responsible for the design of the pedalbox and for an improvement of the ergonomics of the car. If the driver doesn’t sit well or can’t use his pedals properly, the whole performance of the car is downgraded. Therefore I’m very thrilled to work on these aspects of the car. The challenge to achieve remarkable results at the competitions makes this extra exciting.

Powertrain

The drivetrain consists of all the mechanical components that make the vehicle move. This includes gearboxes, electric motors, wheels and cooling systems. This department has been constantly seeking innovative solutions to transfer the power of the four electric motors to the ground through the planetary gearboxes and wheels. These innovations have resulted in the fantastic results of 2019 such as our fifth place in acceleration on FSG. This year they want to achieve even better results with a new wheel design, new battery pack and new integrated cooling system. Using simulations and test data they will keep striving for lighter and more efficient designs.

Powertrain

Formula Electric Belgium is a team where you can test your own abilities in an innovative way.

Even though you can push yourself to the limit, so you can deliver something extraordinary, it’s a place where you can test and develop not only your technical skills.

The drivetrain is the heart of the car. Optimizing the gear ratio, designing of the gears, designing of the uprights and making them all fit in each other and work together in harmony.

It’s all about efficiency, performance and reliability.

This sounds like music to my ears. A perfectly assembled inwheel gives me the chills on my skin. Fascinated by the piece of art performing in front of you, I hope to make myself proud of what I will try to deliver this year.

If you haven’t guessed it already, I’m responsible for the drivetrain this year. Being responsible for the drivetrain really gets my motor running. From day one, my desk was a mess. It was full of sungears, uprights, brake callipers, ring gears, …

Everything had to be studied and analyzed by me. I always want to know how things work, how the machine parts are working together, with every single piece having its own purpose.

With a team like this surrounding me. It makes me promise myself I won’t let them down. It pushes me to deliver something really good and reliable and yet innovative and efficient.

This year, I am working as the powertrain engineer. I mainly focus on powertrain components, such as the motor, transmission, battery and drivers. As well as the supporting software and electronics that you find in futuristic vehicles. The car’s powertrain is an essential group of components that work together to provide the car with power and movement. In the coming year, I am going to optimise the parts of the motors and drives in order to achieve the highest possible efficiency.

As an energy and electrotechnology engineering student, I have always been passionate and fascinated about the mechanisms and coherence of fully electric vehicles. This amount of curiosity and eagerness made my choice for Formula Electric Belgium very obvious. I’m really looking forward to facing the challenges this project will bring along and I’m excited to see the car being built from scratch.

Vehicles like motors, cars and trucks have always interested me, as a child I often played with race cars, excavators and trucks. This interest has developed more and more over the past 10 years. I am very fascinated by all the technologies used in vehicles. Especially the mechanically ingenious mechanisms found in cars fascinate me. This is one of the reasons why I am studying industrial engineering. In my opinion, this training does not sufficiently focus on the practical aspect, i.e. translating the theory into practice. Formula Electric Belgium is the best solution for this. As Head of Powertrain, I am responsible for the drivetrain of the next race car. I will more specifically redesign the battery and supervise the motors, drives and gearbox developments.

Research & Development

14 thesis students help us with research in each department. Thanks to them we can evaluate which parts, algorithms, materials,… we will use in our future cars. Research and development is a very important aspect of motorsport, especially in formula student competitions.

Volunteers

This year we introduce 11 new volunteers in our team. These volunteers will help us to design, build and race with the newest car.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Our Team

Departments

Team Members

Management

Management

Remko Schippers

Viktor Cockx

Maxime Paquet

Guillaume Degroote

Electronics

Electronics

Wouter Van Rompaey

Wout Vanderwegen

Guillaume Degroote

Driverless

Driverless

Daan Wildiers

Julien Pirard

Maxime Paquet

Vehicle Dynamics

Vehicle Dynamics

Simon Devos

Felix Van Parys

Daan Lens

Composites

Composites

Karel Van Wambeke

Ward Himpe

Melchior Mertens

Bram D’Hondt

Laurens Sys

Powertrain

Powertrain

Rob Vandecruys

Brecht Janssen

Lukas Puffet

Research & Development

Volunteers

Marketing