Building your way to success from scratch: the POLIMI Motorcycle Factory

The Politecnico di Milano, also known as PoliMi, is the best engineering university in Italy, and it belongs to the world’s Top 100, according to the 2025 QS World University Rankings. You would think it’s enough to go to class and get your degree, spending five years to receive your B.A. and Master’s, after all exams and the thesis’ final discussion. Maybe.

Unless you want to go the extra mile and join their Motorcycle Factory, yes, you heard right. One hundred students work every year in a PoliMi moto-garage, to produce two competition motorcycles, a standard combustion one and an electric vehicle. There is a race at the end of each yearly cycle, where their creations hit the road against professionals and other universities. Why bother with this experience? Why should a student spend five years ‘working’ and, especially, building from scratch a competition bike?

This is why we talk to Roberto Trani, who is in his last year at PoliMi and at its factory. This is our exchange.

Who are you? Tell us a bit about you. 

I am 24, from Piedmont, and this is my 5th and last year at PoliMi, to get my master’s degree. I have been working at the factory since the beginning, as I was looking for something more than just classes. I am an expert in aerodynamics, and today I am the Technical Director for Aerodynamics. We have three Technical Directors and a Team Leader, guiding the whole group during the year, with the goal of putting together two motorcycles every year.

It all started ten years ago. At the time there were 15 students. The Mechanics Departments at some point decided to support the initiative. The Uni funds are not enough, so we created a network of external sponsors. Today, we have 80 sponsors working with us to meet the yearly targets. We have our own garage. We are organized like a company, with our own org chart, departments, twenty team leads. It’s like having a taste of a work environment, while having fun and nurturing our passion.

You build everything from scratch, right? It’s like a start-up every year, right?

Yes, exactly. We start from a blank sheet. From a drawing, or rather, an idea. Two racing bikes need to be fully functioning for the final race, an electric and a non-electric one. The standard motorcycle competes in a league called CIV, where there are twenty something professionals competing at national level. The EV has its own league, with 70 Uni-s participating.

How did it go? 

It was our first year at CIV. We arrived in last position, after four races. But that was our objective. The other Teams are real pro-s. We demonstrated that a team of students can build something that lasts until the end and can cross the finish line. We showed the world that we belong, that we are capable of putting together the same quality of a motorcycles’ factory. The EV arrived third overall, and we also won the prize as the best electric project. Our budgets are sizeable. The EV can cost about EUR 0.3 Mill, while the standard is around EUR 0.12 Mill. We have to monitor expenses, track and report back, obviously, to the Uni and all sponsors.

What do you learn out of this experience?

On top of passion, this is a great platform to grow, at a professional and human level. You learn precious skills for the Uni’s after-life, like team management, stress management, conflict resolutions. This is useful for corporate and for a potential start-up experience, when we leave the PoliMi.

Our sponsors can become our future employers, like Yamaha, Ducati, MV Agusta, Aprilia.  

Every day, there is a problem or an issue, with a component or a supplier, with time or external requirements. You learn to solve problems. In one of the races, we had an issue with some of the EV’s specs and spent the night before the race to fix it. It all went well, but that gives you a precious precedent and simulation of how life could be at work. You learn that mistakes are a part of life and that they are needed, if you want to improve and move forward. I want to continue working in the EV field after school. This is a great way to discover your way, while attending Uni.

The Factory at PoliMi is a great example of a win-win, where students get their hands dirty with real life problems and have a taste of corporate, and sponsors and future employers test new, young talent or new solutions (on EV-s, for ex.) in a controlled environment. Especially in the era of AI, there is nothing like the real thing, to learn and become better humans.

Have you read?
Highest-Paying Jobs in America.
World’s Best Cities For Shopping.
Safest Cities in the World.
World’s most economically influential cities.