Bardahl Racing from St David’s Secondary School, Greystones, Co Wickow were declared the overall winners of the 2013 F1 in Schools Technology Challenge, powered in Ireland by the Irish Computer Society at the National Finals held in Griffith College Dublin yesterday.
Team members Joseph Moran, Patrick Flaherty, Christopher Lynch and Conor Darcy were coordinated by teachers Triona Brosnan and Tom Reynolds. The team fought off competition from 25 other finalist teams from all over Ireland to claim the National Title and trophy, €2,000 in prize money, and the opportunity to represent Ireland in the 2013 World Championships in Austin, Texas this November.
Work for the 2013 Finals began last September with schools registering their interest in competing. Intense competition followed with 94 teams representing 63 second-level schools from across the country, battling their way through the various qualifying stages of the competition to reach the National Finals.
In addition to racing head-to-head, the competing teams were judged on the quality of engineering, portfolio, resource management, marketing, graphic design, sponsorship activities and on a verbal presentation of their work.
CEO of the Irish Computer Society Jim Friars congratulated all of the participants."The standard was incredibly high this year and it was amazing to see the excitement and enthusiasm from both students and teachers alike. An incredible level of commitment and teamwork was displayed and the lengths that the teams went to in modelling and planning the cars were unprecedented."
The F1 in Schools challenge, powered in Ireland by the Irish Computer Society, began as a response to a recognised skills shortage in computing and engineering, with technology courses having had experienced a significant decline in CAO applications over a number of years. However this trend has begun to change.
This is the ninth year running for the leading global education intiative, which now encorporates over 17,000 schools from 31 different Countries. It will be held in Austin Texas to coincide with the 2013 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
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