Over the last week the Stanmore Campus has been a buzz of activity as students have diligently prepared for the F1 in Schools showcase at Newington College. Combining cars, racing, engineering and even a little bit of business acumen, the program has enjoyed considerable success here at our College.

Indeed, building the creativity and innovation capacity in High School students sits as a tenet of the F1 in Schools Challenge. It also sits very comfortably with Newington’s belief that if boys enjoy learning anything is possible.

At the official launch of the 2012 Newington F1 in Schools Program the evidence was in. The boys were loving the demands of the competition, the advanced technology needed to participate and mostly, their chance to share their skills and enthusiasm with people who believe in them. And that is not just their parents and teachers. Sponsors for this year’s program were invited to the launch to hear about the business planning, marketing and collaboration that goes into this structured engineering design project, based on the development of a miniature model Formula One™ racing car.

The following day the five Newington teams, who have been designing, testing and making their  F1 cars (capable of 80km/h), fronted at the track for the first round of competition against other schools from across Sydney. By all accounts, the day was a resounding success and a testament to the hard work and dedication of all the students involved. Our boys relished the opportunity to finally compete at an inter-school level, racing their crafty little cars built so perfectly (see below for a full gallery of both the launch night and the racing event).

While all eyes might have been on the racetrack and the wisps of smoke rising from the start line, the competition is about much more than simply the quickest car to the end of the line. Style, research, business planning and presentation skills are all crucial factors of a competition that judges competitors virtually from Day 1 of the design process. Their ability to solve problems and work as a team to canvas support are critical to the final product, and in this capacity our Newington competitors performed spectacularly.

Special thanks must be given to Bastian Meagher (8/PR), Dion Riotto (8/KL), Zubin Nanavati (11/KL) and Jaicob Dick (11/PR) for their behind the scenes help—the day could not have gone so well without them. The results for the Newington teams competing yesterday were as follows: