FSA: “It’s been an amazing experience to be part of UCT’s Formula Student Africa Racing Team”

Exclusive interview with Mati Taimu, a third-year mechatronics student at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a member of the Formula Student Africa UCT Racing Team.

Interview Summary:

Mati Taimu, a third‑year mechatronics student at UCT, describes her journey with Formula Student Africa as inspiring and challenging. She joined in her first year after seeing recruitment posters and has watched the team grow while contributing to building their first internal combustion vehicle and researching electric alternatives. She highlights the importance of balancing academic demands with teamwork, communication and time management. The programme provides transferable skills such as project management, technical expertise and confidence in learning. Partnerships with sponsors are vital for guidance and funding, while STEM subjects and representation encourage young women to pursue engineering careers.

Thanks for joining us, please introduce yourself and how you got involved in Formula Student Africa.

Hello, my name is Mati Taimu. I am an engineering student at UCT and I am part of our Formula Student Africa team. I first got involved in Formula Student Africa in my first year of engineering and university. There were posters in our engineering building, and the Formula Student Africa UCT team was recruiting new members. A lot of us first years were very excited about it. So we went to the event to find out what it was about. And ever since then, I have been a part of the team. I’ve seen it grow. And it’s been an amazing experience so far, and I’m excited to see what comes in the future.

Caption: Team meetings of the FSA UCT Racing Team

Although the official competition has not started yet, you have started building a vehicle. Tell us what are you working on?

We started building a car this year. I have been in the team since 2024, and during the past few years we have been doing a lot of research, a lot of finding sponsors to help us. And currently we have a workshop from UCT. So we are now able to start building our actual vehicle. It’s an internal combustion engine, so it’s not electric, but we also are continuing to do research for our electric vehicle whilst we work on building this physical internal combustion engine vehicle.

How do you balance the demands of academic study with the intensive design, build, and testing phases required for competition?

It is not easy to balance the requirements of Formula Student Africa and our academic expectations, pressure and workload. It is definitely something that you continue to learn how to do as you go on. It doesn’t just instantly come to you and you don’t instantly know how to give equal time to both.

But what we value a lot in our team is open communication. Since we’re all in different levels of study, we have some first year students and second year students, third year post grads. So everybody’s time and periods of time that they can give to the team look a bit different. So we really are open with what we are able to give to ourselves and we can give to the team and we plan around that. So. if somebody is unable to do a task, there’s always somebody who is able to do a task. And we always do what we can when we can. But yes, it is definitely not easy to manage, but it’s a skill that you learn—time management—and it’s very helpful and very useful.

You mentioned communication. Could you describe the skills and experiences students gain through the programme that are most transferable to industry careers?

There are a lot of skills that you gain from Formula Student Africa that are transferable to industry. For starters, communication, as I said, also project management, looking at taking something from an idea and designing it, testing it and looking at the end product. So, committing and fully going through the full process of creating something, which you don’t really get from your courses that you do in class. Also, I’m going to touch a bit more on the communication, talking to different types of people, working in a team with people who maybe you don’t know as well, and just being able to express yourself.

And also technical skills. We learn a lot as we are working and researching, we learn a lot as we’re building and testing. When I first joined Formula Student Africa UCT, there was a lot that I did not know about cars. At the time I was not somebody who was a car nerd or liked watching Formula 1, but I have learned so much that I did not know anything about before.

So, it teaches you to also have confidence to believe that you can learn something and you don’t have to know everything going into something because you can learn. That is also something that’s very important that you can transfer to industry that you learn from, from the same math.

Caption: The workshop provided by the University of Cape Town for the Formula Student Africa UCT Racing Team to start building their car.

How important are partnerships with sponsors and industry stakeholders in ensuring the success and growth of Formula Student Africa?

Partnerships and sponsorships are very important, especially because we are students. We can look to our partners and sponsors for advice and guidance because obviously they’ve been in the industry for a lot longer than we have. So it’s always helpful to have that type of support because we’re all new to this. This is UTC’s first time doing something like this. So it’s very helpful to have that support from senior members in the industry who do know what you’re doing.

Also, of course, for financing and sponsoring the build of the car. We’re very grateful to the people who have who do believe in us so far and the people who will continue to believe and support in us. It’s very important in keeping our motivation up, just knowing that there are people who believe in what we’re doing and believe that we can do this.

How important are STEM subjects for the future green economy, and how can young girls be encouraged to become more interested?

STEM subjects are very important for the future green economy because we are seeing a trend now where we’re moving away from fuel cars and ICE combustion engines to electric vehicles. They are increasingly becoming more and more popular and doing STEM subjects keeps you engaged and part of the loop and you’re able to participate in that change.

Young girls are increasingly becoming more interested in doing STEM subjects. For me, I became interested in doing it because of visibility. It’s very important to see other people that look like you in spaces that are maybe male dominated. So, it’s very important to have representation, as it makes you feel more comfortable. It makes you feel that you can do it when you see more people like you that are doing that specific thing. So I know for me that was very influential in swaying me to take this career path is seeing girls and women in spaces like this.

Any final thoughts from your side, particularly as it is World Youth Skills Day in July?

My final thoughts, especially for World Youth Skills Day, is that I’m very impressed by the initiative that the youth is taking to be involved in the innovation that is happening and upgrading their skills constantly. Because I know traditionally maybe people would only learn a lot of the skills that they do from school, but now with the internet, we have access to literally anything we can learn online. So it’s very impressive to see with my friends as well with my younger siblings. A lot of youth are taking the initiative just by themselves and not waiting for somebody to come and teach it to them, which I think is very important and very amazing to see. Thank you so much.

Caption: STEM outreach at Great Westerford High School.