How AI-Powered On-Demand Manufacturing Helps a STEM Racing Team Achieve Faster Iteration and Championship Performance

At Singapore International School Hong Kong, a group of high school students is doing something unusual. They aren't learning how to drive race cars — they're learning how to build them.

Team Arion is a completely student-run STEM racing team. From CAD design to part selection, from assembly and tuning to on-track testing, all work is completed independently by team members. They have a clear goal: to win the STEM Racing competition and to be the best. They call this standard "The Purple Standard."

Team Arion group photo

However, before the 2025 season began, the team encountered a problem that nearly every engineer faces: How does a good design become a real part?

This is the story of how they found the answer.

Facing the Challenge: Urgent Needs and the Difficulty of Manufacturing Complex Parts

The Team Arion design team completed the entire race car design in CAD software. The Confluence/25P was a racing car meticulously optimized in both aerodynamics and lightweighting. But when the team began looking for manufacturing partners, problems arose:

First, most parts had a demand quantity of only one to five pieces. Traditional manufacturers often set high minimum order quantities, making small-batch orders either extremely expensive or directly rejected.

Second, part geometries were complex, featuring free-form surfaces and internal lightweighting structures. Local factories had limited processing capabilities, making many designs unmanufacturable.

Third, the competition schedule was tight. With only a few weeks between design freeze and the first race, the team needed a manufacturing partner that could respond quickly.

Fourth, as a student team with a limited budget, they needed clear cost visibility and could not accept suppliers with opaque quoting processes.

Beyond the race car parts themselves, the team also needed to complete a series of parallel tasks before race day: car painting, team uniforms, design and printing of pit display content, and more. Each task had strict deadlines.

With only weeks left before the key competition, Team Arion needed a reliable manufacturing partner.

The Solution: Xometry's One-Stop Manufacturing Service

Team Arion chose Xometry as their manufacturing partner.

Unlike traditional manufacturing models, Xometry does not require customers to communicate with multiple factories or request repeated quotes. Users simply upload a 3D model, and Xometry's Instant Quoting Engine analyzes it within seconds, automatically identifying geometric features, tolerance requirements, and manufacturability constraints, then generating multi-process quotes and lead times.

For Team Arion, this meant three things:

First, real-time manufacturability feedback. The team could upload models during the design phase, and the system would flag potential manufacturing issues, preventing situations where designs were completed only to find they couldn't be made.

Second, multi-process comparison. For the same part, the team could see quotes and lead times for different processes such as CNC machining, 3D printing, and sheet metal fabrication side by side, enabling informed technical decisions.

Third, access to a rich material library. Xometry offers technical specifications for hundreds of engineering materials, including aluminum alloys, steel alloys, engineering plastics, and high-performance polymers, allowing the team to select optimal materials based on part function.

In actual production, Team Arion used the following process and material combinations:

• CNC machining was used for load-bearing parts such as wheel hubs, steering knuckles, transmission shaft mounts, and chassis connectors. The material was PEEK, ensuring a balance of strength and lightweighting.
• 3D printing was used for aerodynamic wing prototypes, sensor mounts, and lightweight structural parts. Processes included MJF, and materials included nylon PA12, meeting the need for rapid iteration.

Racing car render

Results: Faster Development and a Championship Victory

Xometry's on-demand manufacturing model significantly accelerated Team Arion's development pace.

In terms of manufacturing lead times, complex CNC parts were delivered in five to ten business days, compared to three to five weeks through traditional channels. 3D printed prototypes were delivered in three to five business days, compared to one to two weeks. The order acceptance rate for small-batch parts increased from approximately 30% to 100%. The number of design iteration cycles per season increased from one to two rounds under traditional models to three to four rounds.

These changes directly translated into on-track performance. In the 2025 STEM Racing competition, Team Arion's Confluence/25P won the championship, also receiving the Best Engineering Design Award, and set the fastest lap time at the Hong Kong & Macau Finals.

As the 2025–2026 season began, the collaboration continued. Race car parts continued to be manufactured through Xometry.

Team Arion officially announced their partnership with Xometry on social media:

"We are incredibly excited to announce our partnership with Xometry for the new season. A heartfelt thank you to Xometry for supporting our manufacturing needs this season.

As an AI-powered on-demand manufacturing service, Xometry is transforming how custom parts are sourced and produced, making them the ideal partner to help us 'turn complex engineering designs into competition-ready hardware.'

By using Xometry's Instant Quoting Engine — which analyzes millions of data points in real time — our team can instantly access global manufacturing capacity with accurate pricing and lead times. This provides us with the critical resources to 'iterate faster and manufacture precisely.'

Your partnership helps us live up to 'The Purple Standard.'"

— Team Arion, Singapore International School Hong Kong (SISHK)

For engineering manufacturing needs characterized by small batches, high complexity, and short lead times, AI-powered on-demand manufacturing offers an effective solution. Through real-time quoting engines, multi-process comparison, and a wide range of material choices, design teams can focus on innovation itself without being constrained by manufacturing limitations.

Official collaboration poster

About Xometry

Xometry is a global AI-powered on-demand manufacturing service provider, committed to making the production and sourcing of custom parts more efficient and convenient. Powered by its core AI-driven Instant Quoting Engine, Xometry delivers accurate pricing and lead times within minutes based on customer-uploaded drawings, intelligently matches orders to a global manufacturing network, and provides a one-stop manufacturing solution.

Upload your 3D drawing today and experience one-stop on-demand manufacturing!