Pupils hope to be first past the chequered flag

TWO groups of Formula 1 enthusiasts at St Flannan’s Secondary School are hoping cross the finish line at the regional finals of the F1 in School’s Technology Challenge as they continue to drive their projects forward.

The teams have reached the regional finals by designing a Formula 1 sports car and a model of it will now be built in co-ordination with the University of Limerick’s engineering and aeronautical departments.
Team FireDragons are delighted to see their hard work has paid off as they have successfully reached the qualifying stage of the challenge.
This is the fifth year that the competition has been running in Ireland under the guidance of the Irish Computer Society (ICS) in partnership with Discover Science and Engineering. The competition attracts more than 90,000 pupils across the world in a frenzied dash to design, build and ultimately race model Formula 1 cars that are powered by using compressed air canisters.
Each of the model cars must measure approximately 25cm long and student teams compete against each other in a national championship to determine the best-engineered and fastest car in Ireland.
Team manager Norbert Rosik describes the work the team has put in so far to get to this stage in the competition.
“The team has been very consistent and very committed to the project even with the increasing amount of school work as three of the team members prepare for the Junior Certificate,” he said.
For the qualifying stage, the team had to submit a five-page plan on how the FireDragons intended to create their 25cm balsa wood Formula 1 car by showing their research, proposed budgets and designs.
“In this competition, our team will be using compressed air canisters to power their 25cm long model car to achieve scale speeds in excess of 350kph,” Norbert added.
Artistic manager of FireDragons Christopher Ogbonna gives an outline of the team’s logo and explains why it sets their team apart from competitors.
“The FireDragons came up with this logo because it defines us from other teams as we have a fiery passion for what we do. Apart from this, our logo is very unique as it is extremely intricate,” he said.
The FireDragons is made up of Norbert Rosik, Christopher Ogdonna, Brendan Golden who are all Junior Certificate pupils, and they are joined by Eric Mullally, Jack O’Dea and Tim Jansen.
The FireDragons will be competing against their school mates team Speed2 which includes pupils Mataka Flynn, Lorcan O’Donoghue, Cian O’Shea and Mubarak Busari.
Team manager Mataka Flynn explains that “as a team, Speed2 have been working hard everyday putting in maximum effort to ensure our place in the finals. We have been editing and perfecting the design of our car and team logos as well as other aspects of the project to our best capability”.
The team’s marketing and communications manager Cian O’Shea claims their team has “a specially designed car, which stands out from the rest. As well as that, our group not only is diverse and unique but we think we are the best people for the job. Our approach to this project has been to work hard and also have fun. Our car design is specially designed to be extremely streamlined and capable of reaching high speeds. We hope that the different aspects of our car will lead us to victory.”
The regional finals will be held in Cork on March 2 next with the national finals taking place in April. For more information about the project, visit www.f1inschools.ie.