Need for speed drives skills for life

IMAGINE a car going from zero to eighty kilometres an hour, and traveling twenty metres, in just over a second.

That’s the speed of a miniature car engineered by Phoenix College students as part of the world’s biggest STEM competition, F1 in Schools, which sets young people the task of making the fastest mini F1 car and racing it.

The group who called themselves Team Nexus placed second in the F1 in Schools Victorian Final, and third in the national final, qualifying for F1 in Schools Global in Singapore.

Partnering with students from Alamanda College in Point Cook, they are now the global Team Hadron, engineering a car remotely via digital programs to run it together in Asia this September.

Team member, 16-year-old William, said he and his peers began their development work for the 2023 comp last year, and the process has included lots of trial and error.

“We use 3D designing software which allows us to model the car and predict what’s going to happen to it,” he said.

“We move to Ansys Discovery which is a virtual wind tunnel which allows us to test different areas and shapes of the car. We make a change, test it, and see if it’s an improvement.

“We work with quantitative and qualitative data from the virtual wind tunnel, and we do lots of track testing, especially for our wheels, with different bearing types and lubrications.

“How well we can manufacture it is important. If something is really aerodynamic but it’s a struggle for the CNC machine to cut, then it’s best if we do a simplified design of that so we can get it accurate, and still fast.

“For the world finals, there are some new components, like sustainability and project management that are being judged as well.”

However, engineering is not the only focus of the team, with members also tasked with research, fundraising and marketing.

“I’ve been raising the funds to allow our team to participate through contacting companies and getting sponsors, and promoting our team through use of social media,” said 16-year-old Aston.

“We have to raise about $77,000 to pay for hotels and flights.”

As part of their national final performance, Team Nexus were presented with an innovation award, and Aston said having the chance to replicate the operations of a real F1 team has given them all skills for adulthood.

“We have skills that we wouldn’t learn anywhere else,” he said. “We’ve learnt a lot of real life, business, and engineering skills that we can take into the real-world application setting.”

William was always interested in engineering, but the competition has solidified his career ambitions.

“One of our mentors is an aerodynamic engineer, so we’ve been able to learn some third-year uni concepts, which was very cool,” he said.

Phoenix College technology teacher Christof Muller said the team has been a united force.

“They’ve stuck together,” he said. “They come at lunch times, after school, meet up on weekends, holidays. They have to love it, otherwise they wouldn’t do it.

“There is a huge amount of effort they have put in. I love to support them as much as I can to get to that level, but they have to drive it and do all the work themselves, even the graphics.

“It’s high-end skills and knowledge that they learn. It’s not easy to raise money, set budgets, create timelines, and talk to businesses with manners; it takes people skills.

“It’s amazing to see how they have grown.”

Team Hadron is seeking local sponsors to cover the costs of getting to Singapore and running the team. Contact [email protected] to help.