Autolaunch Racing from Presentation College Carlow are set to represent Ireland at the 10th F1 in Schools global final in Abu Dhabi from 17-20 November. Team members Lee Campbell (17), John Harding (17), Pauric Dempsey (17), and David Hatton (18) have been working with industry both in Ireland and abroad, securing manufacturing and research partnerships with many companies and organisationswill be competing for the Bernie Ecclestone trophy against 37 other teams from over 40 countries.
Formula One in Schools is a global, multi-disciplinary competition that challenges second level students to design, test, build and race miniature 1/20 scale Formula One cars.
The cars are powered by compressed CO2 cylinders and can reach top speeds of almost 100km/h. Teams must design their cars to a set of regulations using CAD software, and conduct aerodynamic testing and development using CFD programs. Cars are then manufactured from lightweight balsa wood blocks using CNC Milling technology. Teams are not only judged on their car speeds and standard of engineering and manufacture, but also on their level of marketing and branding, utilisation of ICT, collaboration with industry, overall team image and management.
Along with the racing element, teams will be assessed by a panel of judges on every aspect of their entry, from each cars’ aerodynamic development using CFD Virtual Wind Tunnel software to marketing, branding and sponsorship.
Between judging sessions, the all-important racing takes place, as teams battle it out to gain maximum points over the three days. On the last evening, a gala awards celebration hosted by Sky Sports F1’s David Croft is held, with top representatives from the Formula One paddocks in attendance to crown the new world champions.
John Harding, design and manufacturing engineer for the team, said: “Our car has been designed through an intense development process over the past number of months. We’ve been conducting Wind Tunnel testing on the cars in the University of Limerick and The Irish Centre for Composites Research, manufacturing parts with the 3D Printing Facilities in the DesignCore lab of IT Carlow, and working with our new analysis partners, iX Cameras, the official supplier of the Olympus i-Speed range of high-speed cameras. This equipment, which can record at up to 150,000 frames per second, allows us to analyse many different areas of the car as it travels down the track at over 100km/h.”
Team Manager Lee Campbell, speaking on the Last Word with Matt Cooper, explained: “This has been our dream since we set out on our very first F1 in Schools journey in 2011 – now we finally have the chance to bring the World Champions title home”
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