By Pramod Prabhakaran
Ooredoo Oryx and Immense from Qatar may not be as popular as Red Bull, Ferrari or Williams formula one (F1) teams, but they are going to get their share of fame on the F1 world stage when they compete against 38 other teams from all over the world in the in the F1 in Schools World Finals in Austin, Texas.
Ooredoo Oryx and Immense from Doha British School (DBS) are the winners and runners-up, respectively, in the national F1 in Schools championship held a few months ago in Doha, and will represent Qatar in the world finals.
Accompanied by two school officials, nine youngsters will fly to Austin by the end of this week. The four-day competition is being held alongside the 2013 United States Grand Prix, which takes place in Austin from November 15 to 17.
The teams are busy giving finishing touches to their miniature cars made out of bolster wood and raising last-minute funds for their project. The cars are made from scratch by the students and have to follow strict guidelines issued by the competition organisers. These are miniature versions of real F1 cars you see racing on the tracks, minus the mechanical parts. They need to perform well on mini tracks made especially for the race and also look good as there are many prizes to be won.
“This competition is not just about racing cars, there are a lot of other criteria in picking the winners. We need to do a presentation to the judges on how we went about building the team -- we need to explain the role of each team member, how we raised the funds etc,” said Immense team manager Anastasiya Unnikrashnan.
In the F1 in Schools challenge, groups of three to six students form a team, assume different roles like team manager, car engineer, graphics designer, and accountant, prepare a business plan, get sponsorships and, most importantly, design a formula one car using 3D CAD.
In many Western countries they have local, regional and national level competitions; but in Qatar it’s only in its second year and there is only a national level competition.
“DBS is the hub of F1 in Schools in Qatar. The school has invested a lot in setting up the infrastructure for the competition; hope our teams will do well in the world finals. Even if they don’t win prizes it will be a great exposure for these students and they will get to learn a lot -- from automobile designing to finance. We are the sole school in Doha with this facility and hopefully more schools will participate in the nationals in the coming years,” said John Smith, Head of Secondary School.
Clare Foynes, Careers, Education and Guidance Counsellor, and Kevin Bloomer, Subject Leader -- Art and Design Technology, who was mentoring both teams with designing and other technical aspects, will be travelling along with the teams.
“The kids have put in a lot of effort for the competition. Both the teams had to separately find sponsors and raise funds for their project. As part of the requirement to qualify for the finals they had to raise a certain amount of money. They did all the legwork themselves -- setting up meetings with senior managers of different corporates to present their project for their backing. We only gave guidance where necessary,” Foynes said.
The F1 in Schools Challenge is the world’s largest secondary school technology programme. It involves over nine million students from 17,000 schools in 31 nations. The patron is F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, along with the F1 teams, which are co-patrons. Each year the world championship team is presented with the solid crystal Bernie Ecclestone F1 in Schools World Champions trophy and university scholarships to City University London.
“The car we used in the nationals was rudimentary compared to the one we are going to use in the finals. We did a lot of research about aerodynamics and did a lot of testing, including the wind tunnel test on the computer, before coming up with the final design. The whole process was very challenging and at the same time very interesting,” said Zak Harris, Ooredoo Oryx team Car Engineer/Manufacturer.
After all their hard work the teams will be treated to a visit to the Circuit of The Americas and a pit lane walk on the Thursday of the Grand Prix week and can then stay on to watch the 2013 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix as guests of the Circuit of The Americas.
