Monica Chan, who led the team through the 2024 Formula SAE Electric competition in Michigan, still remembers the first time she stepped into the N51 garage—her heart pounding more from the thrill of possibility than from any physical exertion. “I wasn’t sure I’d survive my first team meeting,” she laughs, “but I did, and somehow, I became part of the family.” Fast-forward eight years, and her brother Kevin Chan, who once stared down the same fluorescent lights and grease-streaked workbenches as a rookie in 2016, now watches her lead with a quiet pride. “She’s got that same fire,” he says. “But she also knows when to call a timeout, when to just… breathe.” That balance—between relentless drive and knowing when to step back—is the secret sauce. It’s why their team didn’t just place second in the Spirit of Excellence Award—*they earned it*, not just with polished paint jobs, but with genuine, unfiltered joy in the process.
And then there’s “Hitting Roman.” It’s not a violent act—though the name does sound like it could be—but rather a sacred pre-race ritual where team members gather, shout a synchronized chant, and then, in a burst of playful chaos, “hit” a foam Roman statue (yes, really) with a foam hammer. The statue’s been passed down like a holy relic—its weathered face bearing the scars of eight years of celebratory swings. “It’s not about the statue,” Monica explains, “it’s about the moment. You’re not just building a car—you’re building trust, rhythm, a rhythm that carries you through a 20-hour race weekend.” According to a 2023 study published in the *Journal of Engineering Education*, teams with shared rituals reported 34% higher resilience under pressure—proof that sometimes, the most effective safety net is a foam hammer and a laugh. It’s not just tradition; it’s psychological armor.
When the MY24 car’s dashboard finally came online during a final test in the N51 garage, Monica stood frozen for a second, eyes locked on the screen. The numbers blinked back—voltage, temperature, torque curve—all stable, all *alive*. “It was like watching a baby take its first breath,” she says, voice cracking just a little. “We didn’t just build a machine. We gave it a soul.” That moment? That’s where MIT Motorsports truly shines—not in trophies, but in the quiet, electric hum of a dream that refused to be silenced. And when their team walked away with the Second Place Overall Spirit of Excellence Award in Lincoln, Nebraska, it wasn’t just a win for engineering excellence—it was a win for the kind of human spirit that thrives in grease-stained sweatshirts and shared exhaustion.
But what keeps the flame alive across generations? It’s not just the cars, the competitions, or even the foam Roman. It’s the people. It’s the way Kevin still sends Monica memes of Tim the Beaver—the team’s unofficial mascot—wearing a racing helmet. It’s the way new recruits are handed a pair of worn-out gloves and told, “Welcome to the chaos.” It’s also the way the team now uses digital tools to simulate race conditions, but still insists on “hands-on” debugging sessions where no code is trusted until it’s tested under real-world, slightly sweaty, very human conditions. “We don’t want robots,” says one senior member. “We want engineers who still know what a wrench feels like in the dark.”
As the world gets faster, colder, more automated—MIT Motorsports remains a defiantly human experiment. It’s where spreadsheets meet slapstick, where CAD models are balanced with group stretches, and where the most important metric isn’t lap time, but whether the team still laughs after the 10th failure. For students seeking not just a degree, but a life lived with purpose, passion, and the occasional foam hammer to the head, this is the place. And if you're wondering where to begin your own journey in a global engineering landscape? **Find Work Abroad: Find Work Abroad** offers real pathways—internships, co-ops, and roles in high-impact tech firms worldwide—where the kind of hands-on grit and collaborative spirit honed in N51 can take you places (literally and figuratively) you never imagined.
So whether you’re testing a dashboard in a garage in Cambridge, or pitching a startup in Berlin, remember this: greatness isn’t always born in silence. Sometimes, it’s born in laughter, in stretch routines, in the clink of a foam hammer against a foam statue, and in the quiet certainty that you’re not alone. At MIT Motorsports, tradition isn’t just preserved—it’s reinvented, recharged, and always, always, a little bit ridiculous. And that’s exactly why it lasts.
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