A Dream is Dreamt
A shared love for cars and fascination towards machinery is what brought a bunch of mechanical engineering students together, who went on to make history for the country. It was just another day when about a couple of them were talking about the Formula Student competetion. With the hope of participating one day, a bunch of 1st year university students started conducting a study about what they were planning to do. During a time when teams weren’t even formed, just a handful of them didn’t falter from doing their research. With a target of participating in 2018, they started getting into the rules and regulations of the competition, preparing to tackle what was about to come. The reason for aiming to participate in 2018 was inspired by the fact that it was the 20th edition of the competition. However, some engine related issues halted the plan temporarily, pushing them to pursue it in 2019.
The Journey Starts from Home
With a limitation of availability of only 165cc motor engines in the country, where the team required one that ran on 600-700cc, the hurdles kept coming in. With a view to not letting a lack of availability get in the way, they worked to get the permit of bringing such an engine from the ministry, which was quite a mammoth task. So much as that at one point this team of 31 people had completely given up only to later be granted permission to bring and use a superbike engine of this magnitude. Various materials and equipment for the fabrication of the plan was gathered from India and some were made completely from scratch. A properly formed team then gathered together to submit a business logic for the competition. Within a 100 words, the team was able to design their logic that detailed the ways in which the car would be created, sold nationally and then sold internationally two years later, as per the case. Once they arrived at India to make purchases, the struggles kept on coming. Held up by the BGB, it took them countless hours and a showcase of all of their documents to convince the men in uniform that they were there for completely legal purposes. Once enough resource allocation was done, they were all set!
The Never Ending Struggles.
With just two months left, the team was finally able to bring the engine into the country where mind you, getting the engine through to the country alone took three days. So much complication surrounded the usage of this engine that they weren’t even able to make the purchase tax free, paying a huge sum as a result.
Praise Earned on International Soil
Going to Silverstone circuit is beyond a dream for anyone who’s familiar with the F1 which is the home of the British Grand Prix, a dream that Team Primus lived through this experience. As new and 1st designers, they earned a massive amount of praise from the judges. However, it seemed like the complications were just beginning. The cylinder nut had broken into the combustive chamber, which was just one of the many things going wrong. Once modified and taken for a test drive, it was determined that something was still wrong. Turned out that instead of 7 clutch pads there were only 4 which had burned out. Along with which came the struggle of finding out that 2 cylinders weren’t firing simultaneously. They even had to fix their ‘ECU’, which is known to be the ‘brain of an F1 car’. ECUs are not something that is easily fixable, but on account of the unavailability of them during such a crucial period in the competition, they did what had to be done. They realized the magnitude of their dreams and seized the moment.
After overcoming such monumental hurdles, Team Primus went on to achieve the “Best New Comer Award” and the “Spirit Award” as the first Bangladeshi team to have completed the preliminary steps to become eligible for the Formula Student Competition.
Team Primus is: Dr. Md Kharshiduzzaman Rassel,(Supervisor) Badhan Saha,(Asst. Supervisor) Antony Biswas and Ismail Hossain Rafi,(Team Leaders) Md. Nafizul Alam, Md. Afnan Monir, Mack Jerald Rozario and Mumshad Nahiyan,(Group Leaders) Mohammad Shafiul Faraz, Sakib Hossain Khan, Saied Ahmed Tarif, Munjarin Abony, Sabiha Anjum, Sayma Hasan, Shifat Ara, Lamia Saiyara, Maham Ahmed, Bhaskar Roy, MD. Imtiaz Khan, Jubair Naim, Khondoker Nimul Islam, Manabendra Chowdhury, Md Badruzzaman Shahed, MdMahediHasan, Mohammad Manzurul Alam Chowdhury, Nabil Mohammad Chowdhury, Nabil Chowdhury, Rafsan Ahmed, Rajanya Sarker, Shakh Md Shakib Hasan, Tanmoy Karmakar
