F1 in Schools is an international STEM competition that allows young people aged 9 to 19 to gain valuable skills by taking part in an exciting educational experience.
The challenge
Students involved in the project must design, manufacture, test and race a miniature compressed air powered car made from an F1 model block.
The competition allows the youngsters to gain experience in a wide variety of areas including physics, aerodynamics, teamwork, marketing, financial strategy, branding, graphics and more. The students get to apply what they’ve learnt in a creative and fun way by competing with others on the programme, first nationally, then globally.
The teams must be entirely self-funded in order to compete. This involves approaching businesses for sponsorship and investing the funds back into the challenge.
Arnold Clark’s support
When Velocity Racing approached Arnold Clark for sponsorship, we were blown away by their professionalism and drive. They had already been crowned Scottish champions at the UK finals and were well on their way to the final stage of the competition.
Arnold Clark’s financial support helped the team to get to the world finals in Singapore. In addition, the company also helped with some practical aspects of the challenge such as creating the graphics for their pit display.
When Velocity Racing visited our Digital Print Facility in Glasgow, some of our employees helped them to design and print the materials they needed.
Nicole Mulrainey, Velocity Racing Marketing and Resource Manager said:
‘We’d like to give special thanks to Arnold Clark for their support and to everyone at the Digital Print Facility in Glasgow for taking the time to help us with all of our graphic design endeavours. We are extremely grateful for this support – it helped us get to where we are.’
Velocity Racing’s success story
Although the team didn’t win any trophies in Singapore, they gained some fantastic accolades along the way, including:
- Best Engineered Car at regionals
- 2nd Place at regionals
- Best Pit Display at nationals
- Being crowned Scottish champions!
Meet the team
As an all-girls team, Velocity Racing was unique in the competition, which is still very male dominated. The team were nominated for the ‘Women in Engineering Award’ at the finals and they are committed to promoting the challenge to other females who are interested in pursuing a career in STEM. The team also attended one of our experience days with Dare to be Different to share their story.
The Velocity Racing team plans to compete again in the 2019/2020 season. We wish them the best of luck!