F1 in Schools Regional Finals 2013: a resounding success!

All in all, the F1 in Schools Regional Finals in Griffith College on the 8th March were a great success!
The day started off with assembly of our stand and any final preparations to the car like sanding down excess pieces, applying the stickers etc. We reached the venue by bus, and were there early to set up our stand, stick up our posters and set up our PCs and blog display. Also, we received the provisional timetable for the day: when we would be racing, who we would race, and when our verbal presentation would take place were details included.
We were really impressed by all of the other teams, in both the F1 (Senior) and D-Type (Junior) categories. Teams from all corners of the Leinster region were assembled in Griffith College ready to race! The cars varied in size, colour and weight, but all looked in with a chance of progressing to the next round: the national finals.
At the start of the event, all the teachers and students assembled in front of the stage to listen to the address given by one of the chief judges, who introduced us to the judging panel, spoke to us about the timetable of the day and regulations. After wishing us all luck, we hurried back to our stands, to wait for the first race to begin.
Cars were raced two by two, down a long thin track at speeds of up to 110 km/h and more! Each team nominated a member to press the button to launch the car, and their reaction times were tested. The organizers gave each team a few practice runs to allow for nerves! When each member was ready, the race began.
We were visited by the judges, who were all very friendly, several times throughout the day. We were pleased with how we presented our work and spoke about our design. Just before lunch, we were called for our verbal presentation and PowerPoint presentation, which we believed went brilliantly!
We were one of the last teams to race our car, and thankfully all went well: we had no breakages along the way and raced an excellent time!
After a short break in the goings-on, the results were announced! We were bursting with anticipation to find out who had raced the fastest, had the best design, but ultimately who would progress onto the National Finals!
We were thrilled with our result of the team with the best CAD, and the facts we had qualified after all our hard work!

Here's hoping the National Finals in Griffith College will be just as good!

Verbal presentation

As part of the f1 in schools competition, each team must make a five minute presentation in the regional final and a ten minute presentation in the national final. For the regional final, getting the presentation ready wasn't too hard. Each member had a different topic to talk about, however it was difficult getting everything said in the five minute slot that we were allocated. A lot of preparation went into getting the presentation ready but it all went really well at the regional finals.
Here is our presentation from the regional finals:

Rapido y furioso from Eilise123

Our competition portfolio!

As part of the f1 competition, each team is required to submit a portfolio. Since we found out that we had gotten through to the regional finals, we have been working on our portfolio for the competition. The portfolio contains all of the research, designs and marketing strategies that we have done.
It took a while to get all of the pieces for the portfolio together. each member of the team was assigned a section to work on. Getting the work done wasn't the problem, it was putting all of the work into the portfolio that took the most time. Making sure every detail was correct and all of the topics were included to a while but it was eventually completed. It was then sent off to be printed and binded and came out looking really professional.

Finals are just around the corner!

As the finals in Griffith College grow ever closer, the race is on to have everything from our actual car design right down to our portfolio and display stand ready to go. 
We are finishing making any changes to our computer-aided designs of the car and putting it through the virtual air tunnels for the final time. We have tweaked any parts of the design that need adjustment and have finalized any measurements.  We changed our wheel design for the national finals- the bearings recently arrived and we are now looking to assemble our new wheels.
Also we are having the car remade by the Institute of Technology, Cork, and are due to have it painted and sanded by Colour Care crash repair any day now!
Although there is a lot to be done before the national finals in Griffith College next week, we are looking forward to the event and can't wait to get an opportunity to race our newly adjusted car!

Our Display Stand!

On the day of the competition, we believe our display stand looked really great. We had refined our colour scheme to red, orange and navy, and that looked very sharp! Our portfolio had been completed and was printed on large white pages detailing all of the information about our car, team identity, computer-aided designs of the car and all the measurements. We had large posters with all of this information around the three walls of our stand also. We displayed some of our designs on a laptop and displayed this blog on another. (Also we had our customised 'Rapido y Furioso' mug at the stand!) It certainly looked the part and was very professional! Our uniforms that were red and navy were in keeping with the colour scheme of the stand- we looked like a real pit-stop crew!
Here are a few pictures, take a look.

Uniforms are ready to go!

For the past few weeks, We have been under a lot of pressure to get the uniforms that we would be wearing for the competition. At first we were going to get polo shirts and get our logo embroidered onto them. however we then decided on getting jumpsuits instead. We thought that they would look more professional and would fit better into the F1 concept, as actual formula one drivers wear these suits. We eventually found a website that had what we were looking for. We decided on getting two red jumpsuits and three navy jumpsuits as they fit into our colour scheme and thought that it would be better then having all one colour. 

Once the uniforms arrived, we contacted a printing and embroidery company to have our names, and sponsors put onto them. The staff in the shop worked very hard to get what we needed done as they agreed to do them under short notice.

We were really happy with how they turned out in the end. Our names and team name were embroidered onto the front on one side, with our principal sponsor, Itb, on the other side. Printed onto the back, it our team position( job) and also our website, for promotion.