F1 in Schools starts the school year at full throttle

Last week four teams of Year 10-12 students participated in the F1 In Schools ACT State Finals.

They competed virtually through Microsoft Teams across four aspects of the competition: trade display interviews, CAD/CAM interviews and a verbal presentation. Teams were interviewed by industry professionals from multiple disciplines, including the head of the Hunter-class Frigate program for the Australian Navy. It was a very full-on day for the students, non-stop from 8:30am until 1pm, and included building their trade displays in 10 minutes—something they are normally allowed 2 hours to do—but for this comp, all the teams had to share the one booth we have at school! On top of all this, students also had to send their race cars up to Sydney for racing this week.

The dedication these students put into the program is commendable, including 3 weeks over Christmas holidays, recess, lunch and after school most days. The students were incredibly proud of their efforts, and more importantly have learned a lot of vital real-world skills.

Thank you to:

• Graham Stock of course for all the work (and unimaginable hours) he puts into running this great program for our students
• Gerard Elias, for his incredible support and personal time he puts in to help the teams
• Steve Abigail for all his help and guidance for our teams in ordering and manufacturing their trade displays
• All our teachers for supporting these students being out of class for events such as these.

We now wait until 23 February to find out if any of our teams have qualified for the 2022

Australian National Finals. Stay tuned…

If you ever want to know more about F1 or the other amazing STEM opportunities we provide our students, come have a chat with Mr Graham Stock, Design and Technologies Studies Coordinator.