Welcome to your Automotive and Motorsport Engineering course

Welcome to the Automotive and Motorsport Engineering at University of Staffordshire.

You are about to start your journey into one of the most exciting and dynamic engineering sectors. The industry is going through one of the most significant changes in its 150-plus-year history, and you could be at the heart of it. You will have the opportunity to get involved in lots of projects, including our award-winning Formula Student team, and go on industrial visits.

So, for now, enjoy the summer break, and we look forward to meeting you all in Welcome Week.

Course Delivery

Your course team has tutors and technical specialists with industrial experience, equipping you with the knowledge and skills required to build a career in your chosen field, making you an industry-ready engineer.

You will be taught through a mixture of lecturers, tutorials, and practical work. Most of the modules you will study will have three hours of contact per week, and class sizes will vary depending on the environment: bigger for lecturers and smaller for tutorials and practical work. All sessions are on campus and face-to-face. Throughout your time with us, you will experience a range of visiting guest speakers that enhance the curriculum you will study.

Semester one activities

During the first semester, you will start to build the foundation of an engineer by studying modules such as Engineering Mechanics, Applications of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Engineering Maths and Engineering Design. These modules will help to lay the foundations, building your skills and confidence for the future.

During Welcome Week, you will have introductory talks from two of the leading professional bodies, the IMechE and IET. You will learn about the benefits of becoming a student member and how working towards Chartered Engineer status can benefit your career.

Before you start

Before arriving, it would be useful to look at some online engineering resources related to Automotive and/or Motorsport. This would help you start to build your basic knowledge of vehicle systems and how they work and the wider industry in general.

Some useful websites are listed below:

Society of Automotive Engineers – You can join as a student member.

The Engineer – A good place to keep up to date with current trends and news articles from the sector.

The FIA – Not just for wheeled motorsport but road transport as well.

The IMechE - One of the major professional bodies that will be part of your Welcome Week activities. You can join as a student member, which is essential if you wish to be part of the Formula Student team.

The IET – The other professional body that will be a part of Welcome Week.

Equipment and software

Make sure to bring a notepad and pen for the first Welcome Week sessions. You'll always need these for your lectures and it's a good idea to have a scientific calculator as well. We have PCs on campus with the specific software we use, but if your laptop is powerful enough, you can download some of the software onto it. Most software does not work well on Apple Macs. After enrolling, you can download a variety of software for free from the University such as Microsoft Office 365.

For health and safety reasons, you will need a pair of steel-toe-capped boosts when in the automotive workshop practical sessions. The link below is to a suitable pair found on Amazon. You do not have to get these exact ones; just use them as an example.

Click here for an example of the type of Safety Boots required.

Download software

Student success

Since your portfolio review, we want to share with you our successes from this year’s graduating students and their successes in National Awards:

Highly Commended - Starpack Students Design Competition

Best Transport Design Project – Chartered Society of Designers
We encourage students to work hard and put themselves up against the very best; this year, as a result of hard work, one of our level 5 students has secured a work placement year with Mercedes F1, he will be working in the High Performance Powertrain department gaining valuable industrial skills, and it won't look too bad on his CV either!

Course Trips

We try and organise an industrial visit each year. However, this very much depends on the availability of the company and the timing.

Some of the industrial visit’s students have attended in the past are:

Prodrive

JLR

Bentley

UKBIC

BMW Oxford Mini plant

Autosports Show

Advanced Materials Expo

Battery Cells & System Expo

Formula Student Team

Keep in touch with our Formula Student team on their social media channels.

Staffordshire Uni Racing - https://twitter.com/staffsuniFS

https://www.instagram.com/staffsuniracing/

https://www.staffsuni.racing/

https://www.facebook.com/staffsuniFS/

Groups and Societies

There are several clubs and societies on offer from the Students Union.

Specific ones to Engineering are:

The Engineering Society

Staffordshire University Racing

Staffs Motor Club

The full list of clubs and societies can be found here.

Meet the team

Andrew Cash

Senior Lecturer

Andy's research interests include Automotive Propulsion and Vehicle Dynamics (mostly Engine related areas) branching out into Autonomous and Future Automotive.

Andrew's profile

Debi Roberts

Course Director

Debi has served as Course Leader, Course Director and former Interim Head of Department. She is an experienced academic and now looks after Distance Learning and Apprenticeships.

Debi's profile

Dr Abdul Waheed Awan

Senior Lecturer

Dr Awan is Senior Lecturer in Mechanical & Automotive Engineering and Award Leader for MSc Automotive Engineering and MSc Mechanical Engineering and Sustainable Energy Technologies within School of Digital, Technology, Innovation and Business.

Abdul Waheed's profile

Roger Chuter

Lecturer

What to expect on Welcome Week

We're so excited for you to join us on campus and to welcome you to where you matter. During your welcome week you'll be able to meet our friendly student services teams, connect with new friends, join societies, explore on-campus venues attend club nights and much more.

We look forward to welcoming you to the campus in September.

If you have any questions, please send them to Andy Cash, andrew.cash@staffs.ac.uk

Automotive and Motorsport Course Team