Prom Racing ranked 27th worldwide with the P22


Prom Racing is the Formula Student team that represents the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). Prom Racing is a team that designs, manufactures, and races a race car in the style of a Formula. With the goal of changing the status quo in education, Prom Racing members (currently 80), are provided the opportunity of exploring the uncharted fields of automotive engineering, forming the engineers of a promising tomorrow.

Formula SAE and Formula Student are collegiate engineering competitions with over 500 participating schools that challenge teams of students to design and build a Formula-style car. The car is evaluated for automotive design and performance through a series of static and dynamic events that focus on safety, manufacturability, and of course, speed. Members of each team must develop and practice engineering, leadership, communication, and marketing skills to be successful in competition.

Since its founding in 2008 by five Mechanical Engineering students, Prom Racing has actively been a contestant in the international Formula Student competitions, earning many distinctions in both the CV (internal combustion) and EV (electric) categories, with 1st place in FS Czech Republic in 2021 and 1st place in Business Plan Presentation in Hungary 2022 just to name a few. Ranked 27th worldwide out of 279 Formula Student Teams from top universities such as TU Delft, ETH Zurich, and 1st out of all the Greek teams, Prom Racing is widely respected and recognized in the FS community. 6 Formulas have been built in total, 4 of which are CV and 2 of which are electric.

Prom Racing consists of the following departments: Aerodynamics, Vehicle Dynamics, Mechanical Design & Manufacturing, Driverless, Logistics, and Marketing & Business Plan. In 2020, Prom Racing decided to evolve with the promising rise of electromobility and set the goal of designing and manufacturing an electric race car. That goal was achieved with the P20, the first electric Formula Prom car ever built, placing Prom as one of the top fifteen FS teams worldwide. In 2022, the P22 was built, following the path of electromobility.

Team composition and students

Prom Racing is largely staffed by students from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE-NTUA) as well as the School of Mechanical Engineering. Students design 95% of the car's components and then manufacture 92% of them. Prom Racing offers its members the transition of their academic knowledge into practical implementation and as a result, the above combination equips the engineers of the future.

Challenge of construction of P23

Prom Racing’s primary goal is to set higher standards every year, to evolve and improve. For this year’s Formula, the P23, the team decided to explore the field of autonomous driving, by making the car driverless. To achieve autonomous functionality, new members had to be recruited, with a great understanding of topics such as computer vision, deep learning, and control theory. Therefore, it was crucial for the driverless team to be composed of students with an electrical engineering background. With the necessity of multiple sensors, cameras, and radars that will be used by the car, an extremely demanding engineering challenge has been met. New fields of knowledge are being explored by the team through the use and implementation of cutting-edge technologies. Prom Racing strives to innovate and improve the concepts of previous cars. This is done by making effective use of the technical knowledge and passion that its members possess about motorsport and automotive engineering.

Progress report of 2022

Prom Racing is a team with a very successful history. The multitude of awards ranks it as the top Formula Student team in Greece as well as the 27th worldwide, based on the global ranking. The 2021-2022 racing year was a learning station for Prom Racing. More specifically, during this competition year, the team designed and manufactured its second electrical racing car and was prepared to continue the hunt for awards. During the Hungarian competition, having already passed the necessary electrical and mechanical inspections, a fire occurred in the team's battery box which was outside the car, in compliance with all safety rules and guidelines, and no work was being carried out on it. The team had all the necessary safety equipment and acted professionally, managing in the very first seconds to contain and isolate the battery box to a safe place. However, the members of Prom Racing remained focused on the hunt for distinctions and despite the adversities, our team managed for the first time in its history to win 1st Place in the Business Plan Presentation event and to take 4th place in the Cost and Manufacturing Event.

Contribution of ICCS and ECE-NTUA

The two aforementioned Schools of the NTUA and the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of ECE-NTUA support the team to reach its goals. Special thanks to ICCS and the Dean of ECE-NTUA, Prof. Nectarios Koziris, as the institution covers the team's administrative and bureaucratic needs.