From June 11th to June 15th I and Arthur had the opportunity to participate in various activities at the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI). The objective of the Forum was to exchange knowledge about Formula Student and SAE competitions, team management and engineering techniques, while creating connections networking between our countries and universities.
During the first days we had lectures about artificial intelligence and how it could be applied to automotive engineering. We were very pleased with the way the subject was presented to us and how there was also the opportunity to practice the recently learned skill. In the afternoons during the week we were introduced to an app development platform in order to create an app to display data being acquired directly from the vehicle and allow for real time test data accompanying. It was very interesting to divide in groups with people from different teams and come up with unique ideas that we can now use at our own choice for the data displaying on our teams’ vehicles.
Another great experience was the lab tours that let us see the result of integration between an academic institution and the private sector. It showed us some great insights of possibilities that aren’t explored in our country. We wish we could have had more time to see the other labs Dr. Harald had intended for us to see but we understand one week is difficult to accommodate so many activities and to comply with all of the labs schedules. Even so, the tours were greatly satisfying and interesting; Carissma for battery testing, E-Falke, the flight simulator and Dr. Harald’s mechatronics and vehicle dynamics lab were the highlights of the tour for us.
On Thursday we also had a meeting to discuss team management practices used. This was another great highlight for our trip, since it was one of the main objectives of the Forum and we were able to discuss situations that are common in both Brazilian and German teams. The Schanzer Racing team was also very welcoming and we really bonded over these struggles that students go through when participating in a Formula project.
We’re very grateful for meeting the people who organized the Forum like Professor Harald, Anne-Sophie, Janaina, Professor Zimmer, Yuri, and the Schanzer Racing members, Felix, Nils, Elias and the other students from THI that we had the opportunity to get to know. The Forum was the best chance to get to know a little about German culture, academics and to create connections that we will definitely carry with us because of everything we learned during our time at THI.