Ecaterina Andrușceac is studying Automotive Engineering at UTM and helping build a race car.
Ecaterina Andrușceac is graduating this year from the Automotive Transport Engineering programme at the Technical University of Moldova. Alongside her studies, she is part of the team building UTM’s first competition race car, assembled piece by piece in a faculty workshop.
When she applied to university, Ecaterina had several options, including management. She chose engineering.
She says she has been interested in cars since childhood, although she never imagined that interest would lead her here.
Ecaterina joined Formula Student Team UTM in 2022, when the project was still in its early stages. The team was founded by Stanislav Caracicovschi, then a UTM student, after he saw a similar initiative at a university in Saint Petersburg.
For the first three years, progress was slow and the team did not yet have a completed vehicle. After the founder graduated and stepped back from the project, Ecaterina and her colleague Nicolae Tuluș took over coordination. Since then, they have been responsible for both the technical decisions and the organisational side of the project.
“I’m interested in building, in being part of the technical process, not just managing things from a distance.”
Her work on the race car also became the subject of her bachelor’s thesis: designing the vehicle’s structural frame. All calculations were carried out according to Formula Student regulations and received official approval from the competition organisers.
But the project has involved much more than calculations. Ecaterina says the team tried to make one working engine out of two. The frame was welded by team members in the university workshop.
“We needed very specific parts that no production company wanted to take on. Eventually, we found people in small workshops who were willing to accept the challenge.” For Ecaterina, the experience has shown that solutions often come from unexpected places.
Formula Student is an international automotive engineering competition founded in 1981. Each year, more than 800 university teams from around the world take part. Teams are evaluated across eight events, including dynamic tests for speed, handling and endurance, as well as static events focused on engineering design, cost analysis and a business-plan presentation. The endurance event covers 22 kilometres under race conditions.
Formula Student Team UTM aims to compete internationally: “We want to take part in competitions not only in Romania but further afield as well. We have already been invited to Croatia for several years,” says Ecaterina.
The team’s immediate goal is to make the car fully functional and ready to run. Following the competition model, the students plan to build a new race car every year. In the medium term, they are also considering a transition to electric propulsion.
For Ecaterina, UTM has offered the chance to be part of a hands-on engineering project, not just attend classes.
“In class, you learn theory. Here, you deal with real problems: you look for suppliers and partners, negotiate, justify every purchase from an accounting perspective and make technical decisions,” she explains.
After completing her bachelor’s degree, Ecaterina plans to continue her studies in a master’s programme at UTM. In the long term, she sees her future in the automotive industry, including with international companies in the field.
Formula Student Team UTM operates within the Faculty of Mechanical, Industrial and Transport Engineering. The team is led by students, with support from the specialised department and the university’s leadership.
