Monoflo, a top manufacturer of injection-molded reusable transport packaging, has made a significant donation to a student automotive engineering team. This gift will give the team access to critical resources to become more competitive.

Virginia Tech Motorsports (VTM) is a student engineering design team focused on designing, fabricating, testing, and competing both full-electric and full-combustion race cars as part of an international collegiate design series hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Every year, the team develops formula-style vehicles from the ground up in partial fulfillment of senior capstone requirements. The team received over $98,000 in industry funding in the 2020-21 academic year to finance the project, operating on a total budget that exceeds $120,000 in a typical season.

A past team member remembered the critical need for industry sponsors from his time on the team. Tillman Schmid, a 2019 graduate of the packaging systems program, was a VTM member from 2015-2019 and remembers the time fondly. Now a design engineering at Monoflo, he wanted to give back.

“I absolutely cherished my time as a VTM team member,” said Schmid. “I credit that time to a lot of my personal and professional development. Having the opportunity to connect Monoflo to VTM will allow for VTM to compete at the highest levels of the Formula SAE competition, a dream come true as a former member.”

Monoflo President Henning Rader joined Schmid in a visit with the VTM team, making the decision commit to a $35,000 contribution for the 2021-22 year. The largest single donation in the group's history, the agreement also includes a commitment by the company to assist in the team's testing for both electric and internal combustion powertrains. 

The gift will also aid the team in one of their greater goals: to fabricate the next combustion vehicle before 2022 in order to perform testing and to train student drivers. Monoflo challenged the team to achieve a top-10 finish at the electric and internal combustion vehicle events to be held in Las Vegas, NV and Brooklyn, MI, respectively, in spring 2022. 

“It was a pleasure to visit with the VTM team at their Blacksburg campus workshop and learn first-hand about the program, their past successes, and their future goals,” said Rader. “Monoflo is proud to be a program sponsor and support this talented group of students as they apply the knowledge gained in the classroom to building championship winning Formula SAE race cars.” 

Monoflo International is a multinational firm specializing in the manufacture of injection-molded reusable transport packaging with corporate customers in the distribution, e commerce, , food, bakery, and automotive sectors. Their engineering design group also works closely with the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design to test products under a variety of simulated load cases and common use scenarios. The company also recently founded a motorsports team, MI Racing, with intentions of competing in the American Endurance Racing series.