When you first hear of a society called Formula Student, you might picture a bunch of F1 fans watching a race at the Pear Tree and bickering about Hamilton vs. Verstappen. In reality, it looks a lot more like a mini Formula-1 team than a university society. Every year, the team designs, builds, and races a full formula-style car at F1’s UK track in Silverstone.
Unlike many STEM societies which focus on course content, talks and socials, FS is basically a functioning company orchestrated by students, with a business department, software teams, electrical aerodynamics and manufacturing engineers. We were able to meet Pavlos, the Technical Director, who coordinates between these teams and talks to the university to keep the whole project on track.
FS is dominated by STEM students – maths and engineering students in particular – as projects complement their coursework. In fact, the technical theory and skills explored in these projects are often taught in 3rd or 4th year curriculums. Pavlos highlights: Formula Student is “a good opportunity to get your hands dirty — it’s a good practical side to the theory you learn.” This also applies to certain humanities degrees: the Formula Student AI sector deals with creating a business plan for an autonomous vehicle system, and investigates the financial, social, ethical, and legal frameworks behind the concept. The diversity in departments reflects true market structure. And, in fact, anyone can apply — the ideal profile is characterised by motivation as the society’s full onboarding program means it doesn’t matter what degree you study.
Right now, the society has one big, technical mission: integrating software and hardware to develop a self-driving competition car. While some international teams have already done advanced autonomous Formula Student cars, UK teams usually rely on a premade car provided by the competition to upload their software onto for the AI category. The society aims to break that mould by becoming the first in the UK to build a fully autonomous Formula Society car on their own chassis.
This goal requires more than adding sensors and code to an existing platform. It involves restructuring mechanical systems — steering, braking, power delivery — so they can be safely controlled by software while still complying with competition rulebooks for both mechanical and AI entries. The challenge is as much about communication and coordination as it is about engineering — integrating AI in a car requires overlapping design cycles, safety checks, and shared systems between teams that historically worked more independently. Those systems also need to follow two rulebooks — one for driver cars and one for AI cars — which may mean some engineering compromises.
While safety is the main ethical focus, the wider framework is considered as well. Competitions enforce safety through very strict rulebooks, so even while chasing performance, the team must meet high standards for battery protection, structural integrity, and overall reliability. It’s a reminder that engineering isn’t just about building things, but taking responsibility for them as well.
When asked about the place of a heavily carbonated industry such as F1, Pavlos explained that the cars in FS are all electric, and that electrification is the industry’s global trend. The question should still be asked: should academics and researchers — which are publicly funded — participate in polluting industries, or should their sole efforts be focused on specific areas of science?
Science has often been separated from morals or ethics. But ethical questions are never far behind. Recently, we have had quite a few examples of this in pop culture and cinema: Frankenstein was just released in cinemas and Oppenheimer broke box office records in 2023. These movies highlight situations where the singular pursuit of a scientific goal has deep moral consequences on the society around us; Frankenstein is about a young scientist whose ambition to create life blinds him to life around him, and Oppenheimer deals with the personal repercussions of ignoring the practical application of one’s scientific work.
The extent to which science is central to politics can be argued. However, today’s world relies more and more on it. It is thus necessary that university STEM courses address ethical questions. This can be done more easily when science is applied through an interdisciplinary way, like it is done in societies such as Formula Student.
Overall, it is wonderful to see that the University of Edinburgh students have the opportunity to join projects like this, allowing our STEM students to shine. It is important that the university continues funding such programs.
Image provided by the University of Edinburgh’s Formula Student Society