Brian Vera-Burgos knew that in order to make the most of his college experience, he’d need to get involved in activities and have meaningful interactions with his professors outside of the traditional classroom. Enter Formula Society of Automotive Engineer (FSAE) — an electric racing group on campus that allowed him to develop his skills as an electrical engineering major while broadening his experience in leadership and problem solving. Here, he shares more about his journey working with FSAE and what the future holds for him.
Brian, in his own words
On getting out of his comfort zone. “I got involved in FSAE, which is the Formula Society of Automotive Engineering — basically a college-level electric racing team where we race against other colleges. When I got to UM-Dearborn, the first thing I wanted to do was be involved in organizations and be involved with professors outside of classes and really try to learn as much as physically possible in as short amount of time as possible. At the end of the summer of 2017 — the end of my first year — I ended up becoming the assistant to the electrical lead, helping them organize meetings, and then about halfway through the 2017-2018 season, I ended up getting promoted to being in charge of all low voltage systems. At the time, it kind of freaked me out because I felt like I didn't know anything about electrical engineering — I didn't know what a transistor was. It it was really a great learning experience for me because it forced me to really push myself, go out of my comfort zone and learn a lot. By the end of the season, I ended up actually getting promoted again to the full electrical lead and being in charge of all electrical systems on the car. At the end of the 2018 season, I became the team captain. This meant that I was in charge of not just the electrical side of the vehicle, but also the mechanical side and also project management and finance. I found that the team really forced me to go outside of my comfort zone, actually go outside of my degree to mechanical engineering concepts and business and project management concepts. I really learned a lot through these leadership roles that I would not have touched on at all outside of the team.”
On becoming a problem solver. “At the end of my first year at this school and on the team, they finally got the car running and it drove about 100 yards and then broke down. It didn’t work anymore for the rest of that summer. We spent the entire time trying to troubleshoot it. During that time and during the next year, I learned an insane amount about electrical engineering, from all kinds of concepts, all corners. I learned how to work with a team and it really challenged me just trying to go back and understand, you know, what had happened with the wire harness that caused it to fail. But by the end of that second-year on the team, when I’d finally felt like I’d learned enough. We managed to get the car to drive another 100 yards...and then it broke down. And I learned a lesson — which is if you really want to be successful, you need to push through all the challenges and learn how to look at the good things and the bad things and treat them both the same. By the end of the third year on the team — when I was team captain for my first time — we managed to create a car that was consistent... with some caveats.”
On future goals. “What I'm really, really interested in is to either work in automotive electrification — you know, the roll out of electric vehicles replacing the combustion engine — or the hybrid vehicles coming in and taking over part of the market for that. The next generation of electric vehicles is extremely fascinating to me. The technology is just becoming better and better every single year. On the flip side, what also fascinates me is that the actual energy sector is getting completely overhauled as well. DTE in particular is interested in not just redoing all electrical generation and going with renewable and nonrenewable sources, but also completely overhauling the infrastructure behind everything. It's a really exciting time to go into industry — honestly either sector is my dream to go into. Specifically, I'd really like to get into electromagnetics and motor and generator design."