Gyeongil University's Fastfield club completes debut run at Formula Student Korea 2026

Gyeongil University announced Tuesday that its student car-building club Fastfield made its debut at Formula Student Korea 2026, passing the vehicle safety inspection and completing the endurance race at the country's premier collegiate formula car competition.

Twenty-six students who took part in designing and building the formula car competed in the event.

Co-hosted by the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers and the Korea Automobile Testing and Research Institute, the competition ran from Thursday to Sunday at the institute's Vehicle and Driver Safety Research Center in Yeonggwang-gun, South Jeolla Province.

More than 2,500 students from 58 teams at 43 universities across the country competed, putting the engineering and driving performance of their self-designed, self-built single-seat formula cars to the test.

Formula Student Korea is not simply a speed race — it is a comprehensive engineering competition in which university students carry out every stage of vehicle development themselves, from planning and design through analysis, fabrication, assembly, testing and refinement.

Despite it being their first entry, the Fastfield team cleared the rigorous vehicle safety inspection and went on to finish the endurance race, demonstrating the design quality and driving reliability of their car. Completing the endurance event — which demands sustained stability over long distances and the ability to respond to on-site problems — was a particular highlight.

Fastfield previously competed in the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia alongside teams from Seoul National University and Sookmyung Women's University, finishing that race as well.

The students participated in every stage of the formula car project — planning, design, parts selection, fabrication, assembly, testing and refinement — through an industry-linked project-based learning program run by the MOBIX project group.

The program is designed to develop engineers with end-to-end practical skills in design, manufacturing and operations for the future mobility industry, and operates in partnership with anchor company Neotech Co. to strengthen students' ability to solve real-world problems.

The project drew students not only from the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering but also from the Department of Sports Convergence and the School of Photography and Visual Media, with each group applying their own disciplinary expertise — covering race operations, on-site documentation and publicity — alongside the vehicle design and build work.

"Based on this experience, I want to grow into an engineer with strong design and research and development capabilities in the mobility field," said Kim Dong-hyun, the student team leader.

"The fact that the students passed the vehicle safety inspection and completed the endurance race in their very first entry is a hard-won achievement born of their perseverance, spirit of challenge and teamwork," said Kang Woo-jong, head of the MOBIX project group.