IN FOCUS F1 FOR SCHOOLS CHALLENGE THE FORMULA: EMMET RIORDANhears how four students are building a car to compete with the best in the world.

One season roars into view this weekend when the giants of the motor racing world assemble in Melbourne for the opening Grand Prix of the season. Four students from St David’s Secondary School in Greystones will be glued to their televisions, trying to pick up some tips as they prepare for their own World Championship in September when the represent Ireland at the F1 in Schools competition in London.

Together Eoin O’Connell, Seán Clery, Adam Gammell and Conor Daly make up the Koni Kats team that won last year’s National Finals of an event where schools get to race scaled down versions of F1 cars that they produce from scratch as well as putting together a full backroom operation that mirrors the elite teams in the sport.

Run by the Irish Computer Society (ICS), the competition has attracted huge interest from students since its inception in 2006, with the emphasis on technology also appealing to teachers, who are keen to provide a fun learning environment.

“Why we’re are involved is really for a promotion of technology. It’s something that grips the students, it’s interactive. It’s our way of getting students interested in technology and science.” says ICS project manager Gillian Harty.

The event gets underway in September with schools putting together a five-page plan as part of a qualifying process that also involves submitting a proposed design of their car using 3-D Computer Aided Design (CAD) software.

If successful, the schools are teamed up with Third Level institutions where the students can bring their designs to life, the cars being milled out of a block on lightweight Balsa wood, with the designs also tested using wind tunnel software to increase the aerodynamics.

Come competition time, teams race their cars down a 20-metre track in just over one second, a speed that would see the cars reach 250km per hour if they were to be scaled up to the size of a Formula One car.

Building and racing the cars is only one part of the project as Harty explains. “Almost a third of the marks go on the speed of the car, but they also get marks for their reaction times when the light goes green. It adds to the excitement for the students, they have to be quick on the trigger.

“There is also a verbal presentation and a design portfolio. The manufacturing and even the painting of the car are all taken into account. The whole business aspect is looked at as well,” adds Harty.

St David’s excelled in all aspects at last year’s finals and will head to the world finals later this year looking to build on that success.

Tom Reynolds teaches at the Wicklow school and first floated the idea to a group of students heading into Transition Year.

“The big thing about the competition is it does two things, it offers them the opportunity to be national champions at something, but the big thing is the opportunity to be a world champion. That’s something that’s really difficult if not impossible to find anywhere else,” says Reynolds.

Reynolds has offered his assistance along the way to the team, but is quick to point out that the competition requires the students to use their own initiative across many strands from technology and computer skills as well working to a strict business framework.

“This is the great thing about this competition, and very clever from the point of view of the people who run the competition. The team basically have to do everything a real Formula One team does. And a real Formula One team has to raise enough sponsorship to cover all its expenses.

“So the school team has to raise enough to cover travelling to the world championships, staying in the hotel, meals etc. That’s a big challenge for them, but it’s a good idea because nothing is being handed to them on a plate. They respect the money that they have because they have had to go the distance to raise it,” adds Reynolds.

And the Koni Kats team have certainly invested their money raised through winning last year’s national finals, along with sponsorship and fundraising efforts.

A brand new computer-controlled milling machine was sourced from a school in Britain for a knock-down price, while they also bought their own starting mechanism (the cars are powered by C02) and built their own testing track at the school.

The results of their investment have paid off, according to team manager and manufacturing engineer Eoin O’Connell and confidence is high amongst the ahead of September’s World Championships.

“We decided last October what our ambitions were as a team and what we wanted to do. We actually have two whiteboards in our office at school. So we wrote up that we wanted to win the world title and it still hasn’t come down. That’s still our ambition and we’re fairly confident we can do it,” admits O’Connell .

They have also kept a close eye on what they will come up against at the World Championships, attending the English finals for the past two years as well as searching out some of the top names in the business in a bid to fine-tune their car.

“We went over to Brackley to the Honda testing centre and were looking at the F1 cars there. We were also over at Koni in the Netherlands, our main sponsors, who supply the shock absorbers for McLaren. So we’ve looked into different aspects of the business,” adds O’Connell.

Along with his team-mates, O’Connell is putting in plenty of hours after school, testing different car designs as well as tyres and wheel bearings in a bid to achieve their dream machine.

“It’s pretty hectic, we finish school at half-three and we usually don’t get out of there until six working on the project. Our idea is to have this pretty much wrapped up in April and then come back to it in the summer after our exams,” points out O’Connell, who is happy with recent results.

“We have broken the world record in testing but we are still waiting on that one second barrier, but I think we can get down under it for the finals,” adds O’Connell, who plans to study engineering at third level.

He admits that the dream job for him and his team-mates would be to eventually work in Formula One, or maybe even see the Koni Kats name on the starting grid in years to come.

“Maybe Eddie Jordan will come back, or we could start our own one, sure. The possibilities are endless.”

This year’s F1 in Schools National Finals take place at Griffith College in Dublin on April 28th. For more information check out www.f1inschools.ie You can also check on the progress of Koni Kats at www.konikats.com.