F1 IN SCHOOLS

WHAT IS F1 IN SCHOOLS

F1 in Schools is one of the largest international STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) competitions in the world. Teams of 3-6 take on a range of challenges including the design and manufacture of a miniatire F1 car, detailed marketing portfolios and sponsorship pursuing.

There are three main stages to the competition: regionals, nationals and the world finals, where my team placed first, fourth and eigth respectively.

MY INVOLVEMENT

My role in the team was to design and manufacture the car. This involved extensive research into aerodyanmic principles, thourough CAD design and rigorous testing of the final product.

WORLD FINALS

World Finals Due to the effects of COVID-19, the world finals was unfortunately held virtually instead of in Melbourne. A major aspect of the competition that changed because of this was the pit display, a physical stand to present some of our work. This was changed to be developed vritually which I did in Blender and Maya.

My team and I placed 8th in the world overall.

CAR DESIGN

Designing the C02 propelled mini F1 car was a year long process involving hours of research, design, physical tests and analysis. The car must meet a strict set of technical regulations which pushed design innovation and dicipline.

I used a variety of tools and approaches to create the car. Nameley, Autodesk Fusion 360 for the CAD modelling and Flow Design to test both aerodynamic and structural capabilities. Our car acheived a 1.056 second time down the 20m track at the world finals.

A main innovation of our car at both national and world finals, was to use a technique called biomimicry - design inspired by aspects of nature - particularly influenced by the shape of a kingfishers beak. Furthermore at nationals, we used carbon fiber tubing for the smooth outisde rims of the wheels for weight and inelasticicy benifits.