A team of students from Dubai picked up a coveted award in the finals of the world’s most prestigious international design competition: F1 in Schools – The Formula One STEM Challenge.
The ‘Knighthawks’ team from Indian High School Dubai won the ‘Best Engineered Car Award’ sponsored by Williams Racing.
A total of 23 awards were presented at the glittering Awards Celebration Gala Dinner in Texas attended by a star-studded audience of Formula 1 team representatives, drivers and paddock personalities.
The Best Engineered Car Award covers all aspects of engineering design, manufacture, quality and specification compliance of the car and is usually won by the World Championship-winning team. The Knighthawk’s entry was superior in every way to its rivals, meaning the team walked off with the prestigious trophy.
The team also won the Research and Development award sponsored by McLaren Honda for outstanding research that translated into design improvement and technical development of the car.
Narrowly missing on a podium place by only 20 points, the historic win also meant the Knighthawks finished sixth overall out of 39 teams from 23 countries – an unprecedented result for a UAE school.
Also flying the flag for the UAE were Repton School’s ‘Team Impulse’ – the youngest ever team to appear at the World Finals. The team managed to score equal first place on points in car scrutineering, being one of only two teams to achieve a specification score. However, they lost out to ‘Fast Tech Crew’ from Germany in the tie-breaker.
Team Impulse placed 24th out of 39 overall – a superb result considering their ages, managing to beat many older and more experienced students.
Paul Bray, F1 in Schools Manager at Yas Marina Circuit, said: “This is a fantastic win for the Knighthawks and a great performance from Team Impulse. To walk off with the most technically demanding award at this global event means that the UAE’s schools are becoming a force to be reckoned with in this competition. I look forward to an even more impressive showing in 2017!”
F1 in Schools challenges students to create their own Formula One team which is commissioned to design, construct and race the fastest miniature Formula One Car of the Future; a 21cm long scale model built from the F1 in Schools model block and powered by a compressed air cylinder.
Each team of between three and six students creates a ‘pit’ display and showcases their work in developing their race car.
At the World Finals each team brings along a pit display, their cars and portfolio, as well as having prepared a verbal presentation for the judges. The cars race on a 20 metre track, with the cars covering the distance in around one second.
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