Students from Strathcona Tweedsmuir School (STS) recently in Charlotte, North Carolina, to compete in a national miniature F1 car racing tournament.
STS had three teams competing in the Stem Racing National Championship: Sol de Miami Racing, Cyclone, and Peak Performance.
The tournament is designed to introduce young students to STEM subjects and encourage them to apply that knowledge in an engaging, hands-on way.
Teams were tasked not only with designing and building a CO₂ cannister-powered car, but also with managing branding and sponsorship campaigns and presenting engineering and management portfolios.
For Manya Arora, team manager for Sol de Miami Racing, it was an invaluable resource of feedback from industry professionals.
"The people who were marking those were also project managers of engineering companies. We also had a marketing and enterprise side, and the people who were marking us were also the heads of enterprises of various companies. So, getting that feedback from them was really applicable, and it was something that if you want to go into these careers professionally, it's really efficient to have that feedback to actually apply it to your work."
Sebastian Anderson with Cyclone explained how their sponsorship campaign gained traction through community support.
"A big part of how it starts is getting on social media. What we did was we got on Instagram and we started to follow so many people just to get our name out there. Once our name was out there, we reached out to a bunch of people. Specifically, we landed on three. They're all local, they're really good. Without sponsors, you don't get enough pushing to do what you're doing. You don't get enough support."
Noah Unterschultz of Peak Performance was proud of his performance during the verbal presentation.
"If you're enthusiastic in your work, you could probably easily make a 10-minute presentation as I did. I had around 700 words on my script, but I impromptued most of it since I was quite enthusiastic when I made my car. The judges praised me quite highly for the enthusiastic nature of my verbal presentation.
The cars themselves had to adhere to a set of design rules surrounding materials and technique.
Of course, teams also had to demonstrate how their cars performed in a race.
"You want to try and achieve as much speed and aerodynamics and less friction as possible to ensure the car achieves the fastest speeds it can," explains Florin Sturza, also with Peak Performance. "The way it begins is the cars are set up with a CO₂ cartridge in the back, then there are these red lights that will go. When they turn off, both teams have to press a button as quickly as they can to launch their car. Then it combines the time of the car and your reaction time to give you a total time."
The students didn't have much time for sightseeing amid the hectic event schedule, but they did find some time to visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Cadillac's F1 manufacturing facility.
There was no shortage of highlights for the young competitors, but Anderson's revolved around his team's dynamic.
"I was really proud of our team. All the members did such a good job, especially when we got to nationals. It never felt like we had to go and work on it. It was always fun, it was never a chore to work with them. Honestly, that helped us so much to get to nationals."
All three teams ranked within the top 10 teams in North America, and Sol de Miami Racing placed within the top three Canadian teams, qualifying them for the world finals to be held in Singapore this October.