How an F1 Experience Put a PVAMU Undergrad on a Fast Track to Innovation

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (April 24, 2023) — “As soon as I saw the email pop up, I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Nadia Higgins, a Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) Honors Program student studying mechanical engineering. What she didn’t know, was that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would become a catalyst for innovation.

Last fall, an invitation to the Oct. 20-23, 2022, Black Students in STEM Motorsport Experience arrived in Nadia’s inbox. Hosted by 1Community, the four-day, invite-only, all-expenses-paid trip to Austin, Texas, was open to high school and college students in the Austin area. It was created as an opportunity to expand minority students’ exposure to STEM and the exciting world of Formula 1 (F1) and allow them to meet and collaborate with students from local high schools and Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) who share similar career interests.

With an itinerary that included a meet-and-greet with Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion F1 superstar and the sport’s first Black driver; discussions with leading STEM experts; and a hands-on hackathon at Huston-Tillotson University, Nadia registered for the event “as fast as I could.”

The whole trip “was an amazing experience,” she said, “but the most inspiring for me was the competition at Huston-Tillotson.” At the university-hosted hackathon (a timed event that challenges participants to work in teams to generate innovative solutions to a problem), Nadia and her fellow competitors were tasked with presenting solutions that would help eliminate the barriers minorities face in entering motorsports.

“The main barrier is cost,” explained Nadia. “Just one trip to the local go-kart facility is going to cost over $30 to sign up and do one race. If you want to start competing in races, it will cost you thousands of dollars.” Understanding that many families may lack the resources to support a motorsports passion, Nadia’s team “came up with the idea to use VR technology to give a virtual simulation of being in an F1 garage, where you could interact with different workers to learn their roles and also learn how the F1 car works,” she said.

Nadia’s team didn’t take home a hackathon win, but she did walk away with new ideas she was determined to bring to life. “I may not be able to send kids to Austin,” Nadia recalled thinking, “but I can develop alternative solutions.”

 

Getting V.R.O.O.O.M. (Virtual Reality Outreach Opportunities Obtained through Motorsports) Into Gear

It began with cardboard VR glasses from Amazon; racing flags, a helmet and a tire lent to Nadia by her local K1 Speed, an indoor kart racing facility; and an airplane racing app on Nadia’s phone. On PVAMU’s 2022 Elementary School Day, she set up a booth decorated with pictures from the F1 trip and invited the young students to wear the VR glasses while using the app to “feel immersed” in the game.

“Students loved it,” Nadia said. She was even able to secure $5 vouchers from K1 Speed to give to about 50 students.

“I then came up with the idea of outfitting a go-kart with VR technology that we could bring into elementary, middle, and high schools to introduce them to the world of motorsports,” she explained. “I wanted to enhance the experience for kids but safely and cost-effectively.”

Nadia approached Seaborn Carter – a PVAMU adjunct instructor and student services coordinator who supervised the F1 trip – about starting a youth motorsports outreach program at the University.

As soon as Nadia shared her idea for the go-kart and program, “Professor Carter gave me the details for an event in Clear Lake [Houston] that he believed would be great to attend,” she said. He encouraged Nadia to pursue her ideas and present them to Pamela Obiomon, Ph.D., Dean of PVAMU’s Roy G. Perry College of Engineering. Dean Obiomon approved, and Virtual Reality Outreach Opportunities Obtained through Motorsports (V.R.O.O.O.M.) was born.

“I am always impressed by the passion and dedication of our students for making a real difference in the world today,” said Dean Obiomon. “They have taken on the challenge of inspiring the next generation of engineers and filling the pipeline of a more sustainable future.”

To begin developing her stationary go-kart, Nadia needed to assemble her own pit crew, which became the PVAMU Youth Motorsports Outreach Team. Members include engineering students Naliyah Skipper (second in command and who Nadia said is “great with programming and someone I can bounce ideas off of”); Daniel Bujato (“understands the materials the best” and “can think through what works and what won’t work”); Jacob Range (passionate about design and technology and who Nadia can ask to create “a drawing or depiction of something I am thinking and he will be able to follow through”); and Donald Okonkwo (a designer “great at bringing sketches of ideas to a full-scale model”).

The Youth Motorsports Outreach Team also receives support from Chris Galvez, a PVAMU technical faculty advisor, who’s “always there with new ideas,” said Nadia. “Without Chris, none of this may have happened. Chris knows how to use any tool, and whenever I need some type of material, he knows where to find it,” she added.

 

Unplanned Pit Stops

Building the go-kart hasn’t come without its challenges. “Designing something new will cause your design to change over and over,” Nadia explained. “I have about 100 designs for a vehicle that hasn’t been built yet.” And one of the biggest obstacles? The materials. Not just learning about them and how they function, but simply obtaining them. “What we didn’t realize was how long it would take for materials to come in,” she said.

The team also had plans to debut their innovation at the “Engineers in Real Life” event at Clear Lake High School – an annual convening of engineers and K-12 students in the Houston/Galveston area. During the event, engineers share insights into their diverse professions and highlight the many career paths offered through engineering.

“We had a month to put the car together,” explained Nadia. But a day before the Clear Lake event, the main technological components still hadn’t arrived. And then, when the team was putting the finishing touches on the design, the material began to warp. “It looked exceptionally terrible,” Nadia admitted.

Remembering her grandfather’s words – “In engineering, nobody knows what it was supposed to look like” – Nadia said she decided to scrap the body and instead focus on making the setup “look as cool as possible.”

“I spent the entire afternoon driving around Houston buying the PlayStation technology and finding features that would enhance the setup,” she said. Nadia bought used tires and even volunteered her own TV for the event. All she wanted was the event to be successful, and so she “was willing to do whatever it would take to achieve this goal.”

Nadia’s goal was achieved – and then some. Kids at the event called the team’s setup “so cool,” and both the young students and their parents were intrigued to learn how V.R.O.O.O.M. came to be. “I loved answering questions from parents and kids about my journey and how we put this together,” Nadia shared. “The most rewarding part was seeing the kids have fun and be inspired.”

Since word of Nadia’s innovation has spread, it has generated even more of an impact. Like the kids at Clear Lake, Dean Obiomon said she and the College of Engineering are also “inspired by Nadia and her team’s work on this project.” It’s “a testament of the outstanding students in our engineering programs and the outstanding faculty and staff that support them, like Professor Carter and Mr. Galvez,” she said.

Nadia and her team’s multidisciplinary approach, creative spirit, and commitment to enhancing the lives of those in their communities and beyond are reflective of PVAMU’s values and renowned reputation in the research and innovation space. In fact, around the same time that Nadia and her team were utilizing their research expertise to develop a safer, more cost-effective way to experience a race car, PVAMU was chosen to lead a national research center focused on enhancing safety and efficiency across all modes of transportation.

It was recently announced that PVAMU has been selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation to lead a historic national-tier University Transportation Center, making it the first HBCU to do so. With support from Texas A&M University, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, PVAMU will spearhead the National Center for Infrastructure Transformation, dedicated to reinforcing and advancing our nation’s infrastructure for years to come.

 

Charting One’s Own Course

Nadia’s ultimate goal for V.R.O.O.O.M. is to motivate students “to pursue different paths than typically shown.” She said that, as a child, she loved go-karting and had an interest in mechanical engineering but discounted the idea of ever becoming an F1 or NASCAR driver because she thought, “that’s not what engineers did.” She hopes that V.R.O.O.O.M. will demonstrate that in the world of motorsports and engineering, “there’s so many different options to get into as a career.”

After Nadia graduates in 2025, she hopes to continue to conduct research within a technological field that’s “growing and part of innovation,” she explained. Her decision regarding how she’ll conduct this work – whether through a job or a graduate degree – is still up in the air, but as Nadia knows, there’s always more than just one path to take. “I’m really excited to see what I can do in the future,” she said.

 

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By Leigh Badrigian