Callum Bentley:  10 September 2012

The team shirts were on, the cars were primed and the tension was high.

With an almighty hiss, the two cars fired off down the track and crossed the finish line in a little over one second.

In the blink of an eye, the hard work and dedication of Ryan Neumann and Jamie Cox had paid off and who crossed the finish line first seemed to not even matter.

The boys took part in the F1 in Schools regional titles held at Concordia Lutheran College Redlands Campus yesterday.

The competition is a fun and interactive team based activity which encourages to get involved in engineering, marketing and business based around their carbon dioxide powered model cars.

Since April, students from Concordia Lutheran College, Toowoomba Christian Schools and Warwick State High School have been designing everything from their team shirts, to their team logos right down to the aerodynamic design of their cars.

Concordia technology teacher Mark Carlile said advances in technologies available to schools were opening for students interested in engineering.

“Our goal was to get kids jobs and we have already had one of our past students picked up by RME Engineers in Toowoomba straight out of school purely based on the skills he learnt in this program” he said.

“We have the gear available for the kids to design all components of their cars and them to fabricate them here as well.”

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Dominic Geiger:  1 September 2012

IT MIGHT not be Monaco, but Mackay students yesterday came a bit closer to realising their Formula One dreams.

Schools from throughout the region raced state-of-the-art model cars at St Patrick’s College for the Re-Engineering Australia Formula One F1 in Schools Technology Competition.

The national competition encourages students with an interest in engineering to duke it out against their peers on a 20-metre long model race track.

St Patrick’s student Alex Wilson is the team manager for the Mad Thrashers.

He said he was surprised how much he had learnt in the lead-up to the competition.

“It’s come as quite a shock to us,” Alex said.

“The best thing is how we’ve progressed because this is our first year and we just didn’t expect to get the times we did. I want to give a shout out to my team and how they’ve helped … I couldn’t do it without them.”

Local engineering and mining companies as well as educational institutions were also on site yesterday to offer advice for students considering a career in engineering.

St Patrick’s industrial arts teacher Simon Korneliussen said the competition helped students get a feel for what a career in engineering meant.

“There’s a shortage of engineers across Australia and the idea is to get school students involved,” Mr Korneliussen said. Despite close results, Mirani High School outperformed the rest, with wins in all three divisions. High Calibre won the professional senior division, Apastron won professional junior division and Nitro Performance won development division.

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Finn’s father is an electrical engineer and because of this Finn says he has always had an interest in engineering and computers. He first saw the F1 in Schools program in year 8 and said it wasn’t long before he had learned to use CATIA CAD/CAM/CAE software – one of the most sophisticated tools in the world of advanced engineering design and analysis.

“I used to help my teacher with software and computer issues in the classroom”.

Finn formed an F1 team with his class mates and he was the design engineer. That year they headed off to the national finals at Canberra – “We were awestruck. We really learned a lot.” The following year the team rebadged itself as Cold Fusion and again found itself at the national finals – this time with a car featuring an “Australia-first” piece of technology: a radical reverse boomerang nose wing.

“You get a lot of satisfaction from giving it your best, pushing yourself to the limit.”

“The F1 competition is so much more than engineering. It involves so many different disciplines. Because of the program I met a lot of people in industry, from places like Mitsubishi and Bosch. I went to the Defence and Industry Conference as part of the REA Foundation display and met the Premier and people from defence companies.”

In 2011 Finn became part of a new team called Azoto Racing and for the fourth year in a row he competed at the national finals, this time in Sydney. By now he had decided on his future direction, “I have always been motivated by helping others. I mentored other students at lunch and recess periods while I was busy working on our car and folio. I like to coach people on how to do it. I want to change peoples’ lives.”

It was no surprise when Finn signed up at UniSA to do a four year design and technology teaching degree, “My degree is specialising in CAD. Once when the teacher was away I took the class. I would like to go back to Brighton Secondary School one day.”

One of Finn’s peers, Danny Clarkson from Azoto Racing, has also had his career choice influenced by the F1 in Schools program. He is pursuing a marine engineering career at the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania.

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Matt started off in an aerodynamic development team using wind tunnels and since then has moved on to the CFD department, using computational fluid dynamics to analyse the aerodynamics of the race cars (one of which is driven by Australian Mark Webber) in a virtual environment. A typical day for Matt is spent simulating airflow over the race car using super computers, analysing the results and working with the aerodynamicists, “Fundamentally this is the same as the work the students do in F1 in Schools, but on a much bigger scale!”, he explains, “No day is ever the same. I work with a wide variety of people, mainly with aerodynamicists who design and scheme the part, and also the surfacing team and model designers who work with CAD to manufacture the parts. The work can be challenging but is also very rewarding. I have learned an amazing amount so far and continue to learn more each day. I wouldn’t have got this far without F1 in Schools.”

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Top scored in best engineered design and fastest car at the 2011 world finals. The car was made up of 17 different components. It was a very advanced design. With the wheels they came up with a design that required plastic injection moulding. This is an expensive process so they put a business plan together and approached the Economic Development Department for sponsorship. The government was very impressed and provided the funds to make the mold die. The wheels proved to be so popular that they sold three dozen sets at the World Finals.

The students did more research and found there was a coating half as slippery as Teflon and they looked to see if it was possible to coat their wheels. Their search led them to a company in the US. It decided to help them out and the team had to sign a non disclosure agreement because the company had never coated plastic before and it got their research and development people involved to find a solution. They found a way but it was going to cost $1000 to coat 50 wheels, so the team drew up another business plan and went out and got a sponsor. The wheels saved them 1/1000 second and they had the quickest car there.

After the World Finals when the team met Formula One engineers at the Singapore Grand Prix the engineers were amazed at this innovation and said they will try to use that material in their real F1 cars!

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“This year we have started something that has never been done before at our school. We have launched a Year 9 engineering class. This is purely as a result of the interest that has been generated by the F1 program and we have 22 students in our first intake. Half of them are girls. They are using the CATIA design software and our science teacher is teaching them about aerodynamics and engineering formulas. The students are very excited and are coming to class during their lunch and recess. We’re already looking ahead to launching Year 11 and Year 12 engineering classes in 2011.”

Ashcroft High School is new to the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge but success came quickly. Its Year 9 team made it through to the National Finals and the five team members have become “heroes” to their peers and triggered an amazing change in attitudes across the school.

“Talking to the teachers we are seeing a definite change in our students. Not only towards science and maths but also in all of their study habits. They have become more keen in other subjects than before. Their results are improving as is their behaviour in the classroom. The students see something practical, they see how they can interact and solve a problem. They’re not strong at reading from books but they are keen to get in front of a computer and have a go.”

“We have kids lining up at the classroom door at lunch time wanting to see what is going on. They offer to help out. They are your average well-rounded students but they have decided to ‘have a go’ and it has earned them a lot of respect. TRS has taken the lead and are teaching other students how to use CATIA, and they in turn will go on to teach the next group that come in. The students are fast learners when they work with their peers. They really take notice and listen. As a teaching style it is better than me standing at the front of the room talking about it or doing a demo. The kids are very much hands-on and they love being in teams. If someone is struggling the others get in and help them out. Even some with learning difficulties are really having a go and becoming pro-active… they’re stepping out and making decisions.”

“We had a group of parents of primary school kids come to the school to check it out and the F1 team gave a speech on what they have learnt and their journey to the finals. The parents were astounded and came up to us afterwards and said they will be enrolling their children at our school because of seeing the TRS presentation. They were that impressed!”

TRS visited a local engineering company to learn about what they do and some of the students sat down in front of their computers to try out an unfamiliar type of CAD software. Within minutes they were carrying out complex tasks. The engineers were stunned! They told TRS that they were doing work not taught until the second year at university. The Managing Director was very impressed and said if TRS continue their schooling through to Year 12 and focus on engineering he will employ all of them and give them scholarships to university!

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Alistair Smith with Sam Michael, Sporting Director, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

Alistair Smith is the most successful F1 in Schools car designer and race engineer in Australia. He is probably the most successful designer-engineer in this competition anywhere in the world. At the age of 15 he was a two times national champion and twice travelled overseas representing Australia. Both of those times his team was voted the second best in the world.

Alistair worked nights mastering the hi-end CAD/CAM software package and developing their first car. He created a new type of car with split bodies. It was radically different from anything else that had been seen at an F1 in Schools event.

“I didn’t have any prior knowledge of Formula 1 racing or aerodynamics. I hadn’t followed any kind of motor racing before. I spoke to lecturers and Dr John Young from the Australian Defence Force Academy who mentored me.”

It is history now that Goshawk Racing went to Malaysia and was voted the second best team in the world. A new team Redline Racing was formed the following year and again Alistair focused on car design and engineering. He continued to evolve the shape,

“My goal was a minimal front cross section area. I pushed the design to its limits. I really wanted to raise the benchmark. That was how we came to incorporate wheel balancers and the accelerometer. In our tests we discovered a slight vibration and it was traced to the wheels. We met a clock maker who said it could be due to the balance of the wheels. He came up with the idea of using magnetics to cure the vibration, and it worked.”

“In our search for more data we met some engineers who designed a small accelerometer which fitted in front of the CO2 bulb inside the car. It was capable of recording up to two seconds of speed and lateral movement data. We downloaded the data through prongs which connected to a laptop. This gave me a better idea of how to improve the car.”

“We were always willing to share our discoveries. We sold the accelerometer to other teams because we wanted to see what other students would take from our design. When we were at the World Championships a judge, who was from the Brawn Formula 1 team, was very interested in our accelerometer. He wanted to use one to test the front wing of their car!”

Alistair also investigated alternate materials and this led him to designing a complex nose section which was rapid prototyped from lightweight nylon material. The combination of design, testing and innovation was enough for Redline Racing to win the ’08 national finals. Alistair felt flattered when he saw another team turn up to the National Finals with his design. Their split body car recorded a track time of 0.985 seconds which was the fastest by any team in the 20 nations which compete in the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge. And, it is a record which has not been broken since.

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‘Team Ignite’, a team of students from Dame Alice Owen’s School, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, jumped onto the top step of the podium at today’s F1 in Schools™ UK National Finals, taking the National Champions crown and with it a place at the F1 in Schools World Finals 2012.

The team were the well-deserved winners in the UK Formula One-linked educational initiative which takes place in over 40 countries across the world, with judges praising the high standards of work and the excellence of the engineering employed to create the team’s scale-model Formula 1 car. The team won the Innovative Thinking Award and took first place in the Formula 1 Class of the competition, before capping their achievements with the ultimate prize, overall victory. The team were presented with an impressive glass trophy presented by Gareth James from the Institute of Engineering and Technology and tickets to the Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix courtesy of Silverstone Circuit. Each team member also received a TW STEEL watch.

Click here to read the full article…

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In 2004 Charmila Sathianandan was a student at a Cheltanham Girls High School who was studying technical drawing. One day her teacher Paul Wilson announced that the school was entering a new competition called the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge and she was immediately interested,

“I liked the idea of a competition and I had always had a leaning towards a career in engineering or architecture. I didn’t think it was something only for boys.”

“What I liked most about the F1 program was working with CATIA CAD/CAM/CAE software, public speaking and the presentations to people in industry. Since then I have really enjoyed being interviewed for jobs. Inevitably F1 ended up becoming a big topic of conversation in my interviews and from that point of view it has really given me a competitive edge.”

Charmila joined her classmates in a team called Brisk In Pink. They were instantly recognisable with their bright pink team uniforms and pink race car. The team was led by Rochelle Calf who had entered the competition the year before and been selected to represent Australia with a student from Queensland at the first UK F1 in Schools final in London.

“It was so exciting for us. Everything was so new back then”, adds Charmila, “We were the only all-girl team in F1 in Schools. We went to Melbourne for the first national finals and what a shock it was when we won and became the national champions!”

Brisk In Pink boarded a Jumbo 747 with a junior Melbourne team called The Stingers and flew to London for the first world final of the F1 in Schools program. Again, Brisk In Pink was the only all-girl team as they raced against schools from all four corners of the globe. Everyone wanted to meet these friendly girls from Down Under. This was the year Team Australia began its dominance of the F1 program. The Stingers were named world champions and won the Best Engineered Design Award…Charmila and her classmates came 5th outright and received the award for Most Innovative Design.

“My family called me from Sydney, they were yelling at me, my sister was getting calls from her friends saying your sister is on TV! I was blown away by how huge it all was. We were interviewed by the media. It was amazing. Dad was jealous because I got to go to Europe before him.”

On their return home Brisk In Pink were interviewed by the SBS educational program “School Torque” and Charmila says that episode still runs to this day.

“F1 in Schools definitely helped me decide my career path. It made me more employable. F1 in Schools is an engineering related program but it is not normal. It is not what other students do. It is very holistic. It taught me so much outside engineering as well. It made everything interesting and topical.”

Charmila went to the University of Sydney and studied engineering and commerce,

“We used SolidWorks at university and because of my experience with CATIA it was really easy. During my degree I did work with the rail division of John Holland. I loved it but I wanted more of a design role.”

Charmila says the one place that she wanted to work at was Arup, the global consulting design and engineering company. She got an interview with them and…

“They were very impressed with my work in the F1 program. They gave me a job and I’m so excited. I will be an engineer with the infrastructure division of Arup working on big projects like buildings, roads and storm water. There is so much diversity.”

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