'F1 in schools' cars take to the track

Jersey's secondary school pupils have been designing and building their own small-scale F1 cars.

Digital Jersey and Skills Jersey brought the initiative, where they designed and engineered the vehicles, pitched to sponsors and created branding.

Teams were given access to specialist kit, including computer-aided design software, to virtually test their designs and then turn them into 3D models for racing.

The cars were put to the test on a specially constructed track yesterday at Highlands College.

Eve, Team Principle of 'Phoenix Performance' told Channel 103 about the process:

"It's been about two terms of work. 

"We've had to design the car from scratch, doing initial sketches and testing it using computational fluid dynamics (before cutting the cars) to simulate a wind tunnel."

Eve says once the cars were cut they could measure them and put them in the real wind tunnel and test our reaction time. 

"We also had to get sponsorship for the team kit and to be able to race.

"We had to do a pitch, and we are really excited to have got Romerils. We also worked with the Weekly Spaceman, which is a news website, and they have posted advertising for us to their audience - which is very technology and engineering based. 

"We had to do our pit display for today, which is a snapshot view of everything we've done so far - our design and testing and who we are as a brand. We get marked on that.

"We also get marked on our portfolio, which looks at the development of the design and why we chose our logo and colours. We get marked on this as well as the race.

"It's been so cool, it's an absolutely amazing experience. I love F1 and watching the races, so it's great to have insight into how it works."

Team Phoenix with their pit display

John, with Saturn VI Racing says the first thing they did was pick our name and logo

"We want our car to go as fast as the Saturn Five (Saturn V) space rocket - that was our idea. 

"Designing the car we created loads of 3D printed prototypes and used CAD (Computer Aided Design) Software. 

"The process was really fun and we're really proud of our car.

"Everyone is already interested in this field of engineering, and are fans of F1, this is great for us to do and learn and for us to have on our CV."

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Charlie Miles is a Project Manager at Digital Jersey's Innovation Team, 

"We bought this program here to help improve STEM education and have partnered with Skills Jersey.

"The kids have come in the DJ, Hub, built their card, we've gone into schools and done design sessions.

"They have loved it, and a lot of them have learnt a lot of skills for the first time that will take them far. It's exciting to see them race them - there's a big buzz. 

"All who have entered want to go into engineering, and it's encouraged them to see the path through and take the steps forward."