“After all, a race car doesn’t just build itself one day a week” - a working week at StarkStrom - TUXEDO Computers

Maybe the thought came up already, how actually a typical week of a Formula Student team looks like. We asked the StarkStrom team and got a very detailed description. Many thanks to Tim Guttzeit for the insights!

Staggered and something for everyone

The week is structured differently for each team member and is always based on the times of the respective lectures and seminars. Basically, however, there are three fixed dates in the week, where the majority of the team is also present.

Mondays: Technical meeting

6 pm Parallel technical meetings of the areas Software and Electric (“SW-TT” and “ET-TT”): There we discuss the current status of the individual projects, possible problems, new ideas or general news concerning the area and try to find solutions together.

7.15 pm Team Meeting (“TT”): There is first the general part, so informationens that the whole team needs, such as certain dates or the like. After that, there is a kind of status update from each area, where the respective area managers briefly present the current status and the plan for the next week. This way, even the computer scientist knows at least to some extent what the idea behind the aerodynamics package is.

8.15 pm Parallel Operations meeting and the Mechanic technical meeting (“MB-TT”): These are identical to the 6pm meeting - discuss booths, find solutions to problems.

Thursdays - Cleaning and Team Leadership Meeting:

Workshop duty: On a 3-week cycle, MB, ET, and OP+SW take turns cleaning up the workshop, cleaning the kitchen, restocking supplies, etc. The clean up works out pretty well. Sometimes the areas forget that it’s their turn (cliché fulfilled) - then it becomes a very spontaneous action. But when it is done, it is always done quite thoroughly. There is a checklist that makes it easier to think of everything.

(bi-weekly) Team Leadership Meeting (“TFT”): The TFT sounds at first as if only team leadership members are allowed to attend, but it is open to all interested parties. There, more general, organizational topics are discussed. Also, for example, any requests that do not necessarily have to be discussed in front of the whole team.

Sundays: Workday - new since April

Sundays were introduced because a large part of the team always has time here and because interested parties and aspirants can also easily drop by here to take a closer look at the work on site.

• 9 am: Breakfast together in the workshop
• 9.45 am: Daily planning - to-dos are collected over the week that need more people or more time. These are then distributed by the technical managers after breakfast.
• 10 am: Start of work: everyone works on their task with concentration and focus
• 2 pm Lunch break: 3-4 people take care of the cooking, then we eat together.
• 3 pm: Work continues
• 6 pm: Dinner - Dinner usually depends on whether we can find a responsible person who wants to take care of shopping and cooking. So we’ve already cooked dinner together, but we’ve also just ordered something - sometimes this way and sometimes that.
• 7 pm: “Closing time”: The team members who still have work to do continue working on their projects, the rest slowly let the day fade away.

Apart from these appointments, there is always something going on in the workshop, of course. A race car is not only built one day a week. Depending on when the lectures and other activities are, you (especially as an active member) are actually always in the workshop and work on your tasks.

Thank you very much for these insights into your work and organization!