NU Teams Experience
I am proud to have been a founding member of NU Teams, the University of Newcastle's undergraduate student engineering competition teams. Over my time in the teams, I took on the role of Team Leader, CEO, and CTO, I was tasked with managing the various aspects of these teams and ensuring their success. Throughout this journey, I learned so much about leadership, teamwork, and project management.
This began in my first year of studying for the Aerospace Systems Engineering degree by joining NU Racing as a part of the aerodynamics team and attending my first-ever competition: the 2019 FSAE-A. In my second year, I had the opportunity to demonstrate my leadership skills and passion for aerospace engineering by founding the NU Rocketry team as the Team Leader, aiming to replicate my competition experiences in SAE to the aerospace cohort. I was responsible for recruiting a team of talented students, setting team goals, and coordinating the development and testing of our rocket prototypes.
In my third year, I continued my leadership journey by becoming the NU Racing Team Leader in conjunction with the NU Rocketry Team Leader role. I was responsible for leading the teams towards a successful competition season and promoting collaboration between all members. As the Team Leader of NU Racing, I was responsible for managing the team's budget, organising meetings, and leading the team to a successful year despite the COVID cancellation of competition. This involved setting goals for the team, managing personnel, and engaging with sponsors to secure funding and resources. I quickly realised that leadership is not just about giving orders, but also about being a role model and inspiring others to achieve their full potential even in adverse circumstances.
NU Teams was founded in 2021, and as the CEO my focus shifted towards the development of systems and processes to sustain the team from a personnel and financial management perspective. This involved developing policies and procedures, setting goals and creating a business plan, and managing the team's online systems and communication tools. In this role, I had the opportunity to bring together all the university's student engineering competition teams, including NU Racing and NU Rocketry as well as NU Marine and NU UAV, under one umbrella now known as “NU Teams”. This level of involvement was possible through the enrollment of the new “Directed Reading” courses at a 3rd and 4th-year level, trialled by the NU Teams academic advisor to enable larger projects such as this that lead into a Final Year Project.
2022NU Teams leadership at a NU Racing track day
Finally, in my fourth year, I completed my Final Year Project (FYP) Thesis as the NU Teams Chief Technical Officer (CTO) titled “Systems Engineering in Undergraduate Student Competition Teams: Developing Tools and Processes for Solving Complex Problems”. This was a challenging but rewarding experience, as I was able to apply my technical knowledge and leadership skills to develop innovative solutions for the teams. As the CTO of NU Teams, I was responsible for developing the systems and processes to excel in technical project development and management. This included overseeing the scoping, organisation, and training of new FYP students to successfully guide the team towards their goals with the help of our leadership and academics. I also oversaw budgets and resources at an enterprise level and provided guidance and support to team members as they worked on their projects. The highlight of my role was presenting the NU Racing team at the FSAE-A Design Event Presentation, where we achieved our highest-ever score.
My experiences as a junior engineer, manufacturer, automotive aerodynamicist, “rocket scientist”, and leader within NU Teams have been invaluable. I have learned so much about leadership, teamwork, project management, and engineering, and I am grateful for the opportunities and experiences that have shaped me into the person I am today. I am confident that these skills will serve me well in my future endeavours and I look forward to the next chapter of my journey.
The NU Racing team celebrates the completion of Endurance in the 2022 FSAE-A competition.
