By Todd Ash-Duah
For Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students, Kerr Hall is familiar yet bewildering. The “campus heart” of TMU—which consists of four buildings: the North, South, East and West wings—is far from a one-trick pony. It is home to lecture halls, science labs, dance studios and more.
Unbeknownst to many, Kerr Hall is also home to one of the best-kept secrets on campus. Near the north wing of the building, there is an entrance that leads to the Kerr Hall basement. Once in the basement, a walk up some steps and a left turn leads to the Engineering Student Design Zone workshop. Beyond the white installation pipes hanging from the ceiling, it becomes visible: a slick, F1-style race car.
The car belongs to the Toronto Metropolitan Formula Racing team (TMFR), a club that’s been around for 30 years and is looking to make a mark as the 2024-25 season begins.
“We design, manufacture, validate and test our vehicle and compete with it,” said Rhythm Patel, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student and the TMFR’s team captain for 2024-25. “Our goal is to design our race car, one better than the year before.”
Members of the TMFR team have spent countless hours putting together the TM-24, the team’s third-generation electric vehicle and their first electric vehicle that features an aerodynamic package.
“You get to build things you never thought you could build”
The hallway leading down to the workshop is littered with storage boxes, folding chairs and piles of wood. While it is cluttered, it also paints a picture of hard work, determination and drive.
Each year, the TMFR team works as a unit to build an F1-style, open-wheeled race car to participate in the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) competition in Brooklyn, Michigan.
The opportunity to create a competitive race car isn’t something the club members or executives take for granted.
“I like working with my hands,” said Rochelle Mendonca, a fourth-year mechatronics engineering student. She is the team’s project manager and its first female driver.
“We have our design phase, research phase, manufacturing phase and testing phase,” said Mendonca. “For me personally, manufacturing is the most fun because you get to actually see how all the parts integrate together. You get to build things you never thought you could build.”
This year, the team has roughly 70 members, along with more than 300 students and alumni in the team’s Slack channel. While a fair share of them are engineering students, there are also other members from business and arts-based programs.
“We are primarily an engineering design team but whenever I say that to people, they think that only engineering [students] can join or will join,” said Patel. “But we are very diverse as a group.”
Patel highlights that being a member of the TMFR team can open doors for students and provide them unique career and job opportunities, no matter their program.
“We’ve had alumni work at Tesla, one of our sponsors. Our biggest sponsor right now is Litens and two people from our team already had a job secured [with them] because we had connections with them,” he said.
Mendonca said the benefits of joining the TMFR team don’t only extend to jobs.
“You get a lot of hands-on experience and make a lot of real-life connections,” she said. “You can make lifelong friends.”
However, the ultimate networking ground is in Michigan. In the heat and humidity of mid-June, the Michigan International Speedway packs with fans for the highly anticipated Formula SAE student competition.
Since 1981, 120 universities from across the globe have flocked to The Great Lake State to compete in racing events. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype race car based on competition rules. They also prepare business presentations that include 10-year projections for the team as a company.
In 2023, the TMFR team finished 26th overall in the racing portion of the competition but finished first in the business presentation for the second consecutive year. They also placed third during their cost report against 70 teams, which was the most memorable event for Mendonca.
“I presented to a group of judges, pitched our cost presentation and we placed third,” she said. “We got a trophy, so that was really exciting.”
In 2024, the team placed eighth in the cost report and passed two of three car tests but did not compete in all events or keep their business presentation streak alive. Mendonca knows there are areas for improvement for the team to achieve more success in the future.
“This is our third generation electric car and the first two didn’t run,” she said. “Every year, we’ve been doing better and better. So we’re trying to get this one to run.”
For Patel, this year’s competition presented itself as a prime learning and growth opportunity moving forward.
“We learned a lot. We saw a lot of teams and what they were doing and we always learn from other teams,” he said.
Although the Formula SAE is the main competition they participate in, the team is also looking forward to taking part in the annual University of Toronto Shootout, an event where teams from all across North America compete and show off their race cars. This year, the event will take place on Sept. 28 at Brechin Motorsports Park.
After that, the team will go about building the TM-25 car. Another year of work in the depths of Kerr Hall will lead up to the car being unveiled over the summer. Patel said the TM24 unveiling at the Red Bull Canada in May—which brought out members, alumni, sponsors, professors and reporters—is his favourite memory so far.
“Seeing [everyone] gathered together to see what we’ve been able to do with their help, as well as all the hard work that went into making this car over the last year, I think it was a really proud moment for all of us.”
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