At the driverless vehicle summit held in Sydney there was a demonstration from Students from Monash University that might be a cute exercise for those who are interested in motor racing. It turns out, however, that it is a comprehensive exercise that prepares students for working in teams, with other disciplines and with business. And it has students making a commitment in their effort that many other faculties could only dream about.

The basic elements are

• Monash has a wide range of teams participating in major projects

• Teams can have 120 or more students involved from many different disciplines

• The Racing teams participate in a longstanding worldwide competition between universities.

• It is a full racing team that races on circuits around the world

• Up to 40 students may go overseas with the team to compete

• Initially it was petrol cars and then it became electric vehicles and now it is autonomous vehicles.

• Monash was ranked number one with their petrol car against many older and larger universities.

Marc Pizzi is the Industry portfolio manager at Monash University.