Student-led learning
Our student led learning gives you the opportunity to gain valuable experience with considerable personal responsibility. Take a look at some of the opportunities available to you here.
Railway Challenge at Sheffield
Railway Challenge at Sheffield (RCAS) is an extracurricular student-led activity that designs and manufactures a miniature locomotive to compete in the IMechE’s Railway Challenge. The locomotive is assessed in various areas such as traction, ride comfort, and a business case.
The team consists of around twenty members and any Engineering students can get involved.
As soon as you come to the University and join the team, you'll get stuck into the design of components within the suspension or braking systems for example, before proceeding to manufacture and test.
This means students can experience all the stages of an Engineering product as well as developing skills gained by working in the team such as effective communication, time and financial planning.
We are grateful to a number of organisations who are sponsoring our team this year, to help them design and engineer their locomotive.
- 2024 / 2025 Sponsors
Sheffield Formula Racing
Sheffield Formula Racing is comprised of engineering students from every year of study.
At the start of each academic year, over 100 applicants from the first year of study apply to join the team. The application process is rigorous and challenging, and only the most dedicated and passionate applicants get to enter the team.
We are grateful to a number of organisations who are sponsoring our team this year, to help them design and engineer their car.
- 2024/2025 Sponsors
Karma Composites Penta Pattern Agemaspark Metlase NAMRC Dewesoft Alfatronix Chell Instruments Bosch Motorsport TengTools RS Stratasys Accu Royce Centre 3D Connexion IForge Airtech norelem FYous Ru-bix Realis Siemens Easy composites AMRC Altair G&M Radiators Parkwood Karting Wombwell Karting Ansys Hexagon Emkay Syensqo Loctite
More about Sheffield Formula Racing
Sheffield Eco Motorsports
Shell Eco-Marathon is an international competition that inspires students to work collaboratively and put theories of energy-efficiency to the test, using cutting-edge technology, critical thinking and innovative ideas to build and then test energy-efficient vehicle designs.
The Sheffield Eco Motorsports team is open to all undergraduate engineering students, from first to final year.
If you are interested in joining the team for 2025, recruitment starts at the beginning of the academic year so please follow the team’s social media for more on the application process and look out for information emails too.
Project SunbYte
The Sheffield University Nova Balloon Lifted Solar Telescope (SunbYte) is a high-altitude balloon experiment devised and run by students at the University of Sheffield. It is the first student-led rocket design team to represent the University of Sheffield and the UK in the world's largest intercollegiate rocket competition Spaceport America Cup (SAC).
Project Sunride
Project Sunride (Sheffield University Nova Rocket Innovative Design Engineering) is part of the Sheffield Space Initiative (SSI), a highly cross-disciplinary space technology project involving students from across our Faculty of Engineering.
Visit us
Discover what sets Sheffield apart at our undergraduate open days on Saturday 21 June and Saturday 5 July 2025.