The current pandemic situation has not brought down the enthusiasm of FMAE students to make achievements, one of which was proven by the ITB Rakata Team. FMAE students are an irreplaceable part of the team, with significant contributions to the main design concept.  The ITB’s Rakata Team successfully was named as runner-up in the 2021 Shell Eco-Marathon for the Asia Pacific and the Middle East Region for the data and telemetry category. Unlike previous years, this year’s Shell Eco-Marathon competition for energy-efficient cars was not conducted on track. Instead, the competition was held virtually (off-track), in which this format has been carried out since 2020 to adapt to the current pandemic situation. Because it was an online event, the competition itself was more focused on design concepts.

The design report was collected in early March of 2021, which means that ITB’s Rakata team only had three weeks to prepare everything. Furthermore, this year also marked the first participation of the ITB’s Rakata team for the vehicle telemetry systems category. Although it was the first time that they participated in this category, the ITB’s Rakata team managed to prove its success, even with a very short preparation time.

The data and telemetry category emerged based on the idea of ​​improving the performance of the team and the vehicle (that is, energy savings while driving) through capturing data while driving and making real-time decisions. The ITB’s Rakata team is trying to implement the use of GPS, accelerometer, and flowmeter so that they would be able to know the position, lean-angle, speed, and fuel that has been used in real-time. Such a system allows the team to provide real-time feedback to the driver. Moreover, this real-time data can also be read by the driver, so that the driver can provide direct feedback on their performance when competing.

The competition also marks a new beginning for the driving system when the race is performed on track later, with more complete and detailed data. This will also reduce the dependence on the level measurement of energy savings, which currently depend a lot on the intuition of the driver to determine the time for throttling and braking. It is hoped that the addition of a new system and the change in method will lead to further reduction of accidental and unwanted energy losses.

Congratulations once again to the ITB’s Rakata team!