F1 In Schools

STEM – F1 in Schools State Championships

On Tuesday, 17th October and Thursday, 19th October BMGS, had three teams participating in the F1 in Schools Championships, which were held at Sydney Motorsport Park down in Eastern Creek.

This state championship event had our Development teams Aquila (Jack Corkins, Meenatchi Selvarasa, Babette Morel-Lewis, Indigo Herron) and Xpeditious (Finley Snedden, Lachlan Burgess, Coco Carter, Ryan Ivery), as well as team Jett Speed (Daniel Ball, Jett Lawson) participating in the Cadet Senior Class category.

Our students competed against teams from schools all across NSW, with Xpeditious coming first place among development class teams, moving onto the F1 in Schools National Championships early next year.

Jett Speed also placed first among Senior Cadet Class teams. However, the journey for Jett Speed ends at the state level as there is no national competition for this class.

F1 in Schools is the world's largest STEM/Engineering competition where teams compete against each other to design and manufacture the most aerodynamic car and best trade display to show their best work over the past nine months. 

F1 in Schools has multiple levels of competition, including the Cadet, Development and Professional Class teams. 

The Journey

On Tuesday (17th) the Development Class teams arrived at the motorsport park to assemble the trade displays before the day of the actual competition. The teams had two hours to assemble the display before it was time to head home for the day and prepare to return on Thursday for the racing.

Thursday (19th), the day of the actual competition, was the busiest. To make it to the venue on time the bus had to leave school by 6:30am, with us arriving on site just before 8:00am. 

The day involved racing all the cars, judging the trade displays and the presentation of the awards. When it came to racing the cars we found that, unfortunately, none of our cars was  fastest out of the cars present, even though Xpeditious came close.

When it came time for judging the trade displays and portfolios we were impressed to learn that Nick Hayes, a BMGS Alumni (2021) and F1 in Schools World Finalist was judging the trade displays. 

After the competition, we learned from him that, even though they didn’t have the best trade display, Xpeditious was a close second. After the entire competition concluded, the Development Class teams packed down the trade displays and we headed into another suite for the awards, where we learned that Xpeditious had won First place for Development Class and Jett Speed won First place for Senior Cadet Class. 

Overall, the day was a fun and exciting event, where all our engineering and design skills were challenged, allowing us to stretch ourselves and use this amazing opportunity given to us. For interested students, everyone in STEM will always recommend giving F1 in Schools Cadet Class a try next year in the weekly STEM co-curricular.

We are looking forward to the national championships which will be held in March next year in Adelaide.

We would like to thank Mr Harrison, Mr O’Keeffe and Mr Olmos for supporting us throughout the various stages of the competitions.

Article written by:

STEM Captains – Daniel Ball, Michael Zhu

Xpeditious Graphic Designer – Lachlan Burgess