ASHWAUBENON (NBC 26) — The Wisconsin Formula Student USA Project gives high school students who are interested in engineering a chance to gain hands-on experience and try their hand on the race track.
At Ashwaubenon High School, the students participating in Formula Student get to build a car from scratch and race it at Road America in Elkhart Lake on May 15 and 16.
Engineering and Technology Instructor Jeremie Meyer says that from the blueprints to the final product, the students build absolutely everything themselves.
“They get a set of blueprints and they have to design from there and build everything just like out in the world," said Meyer. "If you’re building a building you have to have a set of blueprints, so they build everything from scratch."
The cars are designed to resemble an SCCA Formula First race vehicle, and students build everything in teams, even creating their own parts in-house.
“Doing this in high school is a really great opportunity, it gives you job openings for apprenticeships, it also just looks really good on resumes being certified to operate this stuff," said freshman Kartsen Pischke.
At Road America, the students get to compete against each other with their teams in a time-trial race. Not only does Formula Student give them real-life skills and a foot in the door for jobs after high school, but it also teaches them how to collaborate in a team environment.
"It has helped us a lot with team building, building these cars, figuring out who's doing what," said junior Nathan Metoxen.
"It's really fun for everyone being able to just get out there and actually drive the car that you've been working on for how many months with your team, through all the ups and downs of working on the car," said senior Carmen Van Den Elzen.
For more information on Formula Student, you can check out their website to see a list of all the Formula Student schools.
