The Formula Student UCC COVID-19 Diaries

As part of a series of blogs, various Formula Student UCC members will keep us up to date with how they’re getting on amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and what they’re working on in order to ensure that our Formula Student Car will be ready to race at Silverstone in 2021.

Team Lead, Gráinne Donegan, has written the first blog in our series, where she highlights what the team is currently doing, what life is like in rural Ireland during COVID-19 and how she is feeding her coffee addiction!

Hi! My name is Gráinne and I am the Team Lead for Formula Student UCC. My primary role within the team is to manage the overall project and ensure we hit our milestones on time, which has been made quite difficult in our current situation. Within the team I do an assortment of tasks; everything from running FEA, CFD and vehicle dynamics simulations to creating media content!

My Week in Numbers:

23 cups of coffee

39 hours of work

8 episodes of Brooklyn 99

1.5 Skillshare courses

As we reach week 9 of colleges and universities being closed, days have merged into weeks; weeks into months, but every week, as repetitive as it is, still brings its new little challenges! Like every week, the focus for my spare time is on Formula Student. Since this will be our first year, we are working hard to

ensure we meet all criteria and have a competitive car that is safe and reliable. The subteam leads and I have our weekly meetings every Monday and every day, we have a different subteam meeting. We are fortunate to have videocall platforms, so we can actively talk to each other to ensure that any change in design is communicated across to all relevant team members. It is also really important to support each other during this pandemic, as we’re still lamenting our early completion of the academic year, so it’s always great to see friendly faces, even if we’re several hours away from college!

I'm really lucky to be working this Summer, as my internship wasn’t cancelled, but it is quite strange compared to last Summer, as unlike having to get up at 6:30am for work, I can literally roll out of my bed into the kitchen and set up my laptop,ready for the day of work ahead. Even the cat prefers staying at home and has even decided to take over my bag, but at least I’ve an excuse to go online shopping to get a new bag!

Due to the lack of rigid structure I’ve become used to with the timetabling of college life, working from home has forced me to become even more self-motivated, as unlike a world where I would be sitting in an office, having colleagues to ask questions to or to keep me on track, I have to independently work, which I enjoy!

So, I normally do get excited about the possibility of receiving a package any day of the year, but due to the little variation throughout the weeks, there clearly was a sense of heightened anticipation waiting for my parcel and it came! It is still quite strange to think that this is one of my highlights of the week; eagerly awaiting the knock on the door from the courier, as the parcel is left on the front step and I exclaim my thanks, by shouting “Thanks, John” down the lane.

But this isn’t any normal package! I impulsively bought 10 varieties of coffee and a French press as it looks like I’m home for the long haul, which is actually quite strange, since I’m rarely home due to work and uni being too far away. I actually love coffee! Like I could have an intravenous drip of coffee attached to my arm and I would still not be satisfied. The whole ironic thing about my love for coffee is that I can barely taste, so those 10 variations will probably taste all the same to me!

Due to no commute or having to get up earlier to make work or college on time, I luckily have some spare time and generally at the moment, I’m doing a variety of courses from SimScale as they’re one of our Formula Student sponsors and recently, I signed up to Skillshare and am trying to unlock my creativity; trying to beat the stereotype that civil engineers are as creative as a concrete block. I even did a course on “Becoming an Instagram Influencer”, which was of no use as I don’t have an Instagram account, but you never know, I might need to use the course information one day!

Just to wrap things up: What am I looking forward to? Well (apart from a McDonald's), I’m not anticipating going on holiday anytime soon (even though my daily Ryanair emails are tempting me), as I’ll be working and then I’m going into my final year, but the thought of seeing our car drive around Silverstone in July 2021 is a massive motivator and I can’t wait to make it happen!

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