PHOTO: DANIAL THEBO

PHOTO: DANIAL THEBO

NUST Formula Electric Racing team PHOTO: DANIAL THEBO

Just a few days ago, National University of Science and Technology (NUST) made news as it was named among 150 best young universities in the world. The varsity certainly deserves its place in the list with its students having built Pakistan’s first electric powered formula racing car.In a smashing ceremony at Pearl Continental hotel, Karachi on Thursday, a team of undergraduate engineering students from Pakistan Navy Engineering College, a constituent college of NUST, unveiled a formula electric racing car which is entirely designed and manufactured in-house.Not only that, they have been selected as the only team from Asia to take part in the FSAE Electric competition in the electrical category to be held in Lincoln, NE, USA this year from June 15 to June 18.“It's an amazing feeling and a great honour for all of us to be a part of the team and represent Pakistan at such a big stage,” Danial Thebo, who is part of the communications and management team, told The Express Tribune.He added that the car was made in consideration with the rigorous standards laid out by SAE International and is set to compete with universities from all over the world.The team is certainly geared up to put up a good show at the international event after spending 16 months planning, researching and manufacturing the car.“Bank Alfalah is on board with us now as part of their rising talent campaign and is sponsoring us to raise the green flag for the very first time in USA,” Thebo said.Another team from the same university called NUST Formula Student Team has also been selected for an international design competition in Germany.The competition named Formula Student Germany is part of Formula SAE series and will be held from 9-14 August 2016.“We are NUST FS Team, and we have been developing a combustion type race vehicle, every year for the past four years, and have been participating at FS UK earlier, and FS Germany later, as the only team from Pakistan,” Muhammad Umer, team manager, told The Express Tribune."Last year at Formula Student UK, we stood at 49th rank among 106 teams from 28 different countries of the world, surpassing two teams from India," he added.Formula Student is an engineering design competition organized by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). The competition aims to inspire and develop enterprising and innovative young engineers. It challenges universities across the globe to conceive, design, build and test a small scale formula style race vehicle every year. Each student team builds a prototype based on a series of rules, both ensuring on-track safety and promoting clever problem solving.The event takes place at a number of different locations around the globe every year, including, UK, Germany, Lincoln, Michigan, Australia and Japan. The competition is backed by many leading automotive and engineering firms around the world.