When the first spon­soring requests from “Formula Student” teams arrived about six years ago, ebm-papst was quick to support the students in devel­oping their racing cars. Formula Student is an inter­na­tional design compe­ti­tion in which over 600 univer­sity teams compete on the world’s race­courses. Since then, ebm-papst has supplied fans and motors. When needed, a devel­op­ment engi­neer gives the students advice. Natasa Kopp, who is respon­sible for univer­sity marketing in St. Georgen and takes care of the requests, says “It’s impor­tant to us to promote projects like Formula Student and support the next gener­a­tion of engi­neers. We see a lot of poten­tial for the devel­op­ment of elec­tric vehi­cles in partic­ular.” The program also acquaints students with the company; maybe one of them will decide on a career at ebm-papst after grad­u­ating.

Axial fans for the turbo-charger

Florian Brunner, Student at KIT

The members of the 80-strong KA-RaceIng team from the Karl­sruhe Insti­tute of Tech­nology (KIT) come from a wide variety of disci­plines such as mechan­ical engi­neering, indus­trial engi­neering, elec­trical engi­neering or infor­ma­tion tech­nology. It has been taking part in the contest for ten years and presented its two newly designed cars in April. Over 700 students, faculty and spon­sors streamed into the school’s largest lecture hall to see the presen­ta­tion. For months, the students put their time and inven­tive talent into the devel­op­ment of the cars. Now the KIT16e and the KIT16c are in the spot­light — along with all the company logos affixed to them. “It’s only thanks to our spon­sors that we can make Formula Student work,” says Florian Brunner, a 20-year-old indus­trial engi­neering student at KIT, who has been involved in the team’s marketing since last year.

It’s only thanks to our spon­sors that we can make Formula Student work.

Florian Brunner, indus­trial engi­neering student at KIT

“Right now we’re in second place in the world rank­ings with our elec­tric car.” Three axial fans from ebm-papst are installed in the KIT16e to cool its motors and power elec­tronics. They are also installed in its combus­tion coun­ter­part, the KIT16c. They suck in air through the inter­cooler and cool the turbo­charger. “The parts from ebm-papst have always kept their promise,” says Brunner. Again this year, we are keeping our fingers crossed that the KA-RaceIng cars convince the panelists and cross the finish line first at the race­courses in Great Britain, Austria, Germany and Spain.