AT A GLANCE

• 3 awards won at Formula SAE Japan 2026
• 89 university teams competed at the same event in 2025  a scale that hasn't shrunk
• 6 generations of race car, from Mark 1 to Mark 6.0
• 5–7 August 2026, Aichi Sky Expo, Nagoya, Japan

A group of engineering students from Surabaya just walked off a Japanese race track with three trophies, and none of them are for going the fastest.

That's the story of Anargya ITS Formula SAE Japan 2026: a win built on precision drawing, modeling software, and the very unglamorous skill of explaining your work well. Anargya is the student-run electric vehicle research team from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) in Surabaya. At the 24th Formula SAE Japan competition,

held 2–7 August 2026 at Aichi Sky Expo in Nagoya, the team entered their newest car the Anargya Formula EV Mark 6.0  and came home with three awards: 1st Place in the Three-View Drawing Award (EV category), 2nd Place in the MathWorks Modeling Award (EV category), and 2nd Place in the PR Award.

Formula SAE Japan is not a casual student car show. It is one of the largest student engineering competitions in the world, and it does not just judge whether a car crosses the finish line first. Teams are scored on design accuracy, technical documentation, cost planning, business modeling, and how convincingly they can pitch their engineering choices to a panel of industry judges  closer to a thesis defense on wheels than a race.

You can hear that in how the metal itself gets built. Picture a workshop humming with the hiss of a welding torch and the smell of hot solder, hands wrapped in tubing and wiring under fluorescent light, the unglamorous grind behind a car that eventually rolls out onto a Japanese tarmac under the flags of Indonesia and ITS.

"This achievement shows real progress from the team  especially in engineering precision, the use of modeling, and the ability to communicate innovation clearly," said Ir. Alief Wikarta, S.T., M.Sc.Eng., Ph.D., the team's faculty advisor from the ITS Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Credit : Anargya ITS EV Team (ITS Communication)

What Awards Did Anargya ITS Win at Formula SAE Japan 2026?

Three, across two categories that reward precision over speed. The Three-View Drawing Award judges how accurately a team documents their car's design from front, side, and top views  a test of engineering discipline, not horsepower. The MathWorks Modeling Award scores the simulation and modeling work behind the car's systems. The PR Award, meanwhile, rewards how well a team tells its own story to the public  something Anargya has now placed in for two years running.

Why Does a Race Car Team Win an Award for Communication?
Here's the part that surprises people outside engineering circles: at Formula SAE, a car that never gets built well but gets explained brilliantly can outscore a technically stronger one that nobody understands. The PR Award exists because judges want engineers who can also sell an idea  a skill Indonesian universities are increasingly betting on.

What Is Anargya ITS's Track Record at Formula SAE Japan?
This is not a one-off. In 2025, the team took 2nd Place in the Presentation Event and 1st Place PR Award. Between 2023 and 2024, they placed 3rd in the Presentation Event. Three straight years on the podium, three different car generations  a streak that's harder to pull off than a single flashy win.