St Finian's zoom to F1 with Velocity Racing

Velocity Racing is a team of four fifth year students from St Finian’s who are taking part the F1 in Schools Ireland, a STEM competition that challenges students to design, build and race model ‘Formula One cars’ powered by compressed gas cylinders.

Teams have to raise sponsorship to fund their projects, manage their brands and partnerships, learn how to build and test prototype cars, analyse their performance and ultimately race their own cars.

Velocity Racing’s team manager, Amber Mulvany, told the Westmeath Examiner about the progress her team have made. "We’re just after finishing our five-page plan, where we talk about the research for our car, the aerodynamics and how it affects the car, and we have to talk about our enterprise.

"We’ve pitched to sponsors, we approached Shay Murtagh – we had to give him a presentation on what our goal was and what was in store. And they have very graciously come on board as our main sponsors," says Amber, adding that the team are partnering with TUS in Athlone to develop the prototype for the car.

The team hosted a bake sale in school to raise funds, and Sugar Plum Sweetery donated a hamper for a raffle.

"We have to make a presentation to all the teams in the country, and there are awards for different categories including verbal presentation, social media, females in management, and there’s an award for design as well," said Amber.

She said there are three stages to the competition: a regional final, where qualifying teams participate in-person in February and March; a national final where the top five teams from the regionals progress; and the world final. The first, second and third place teams at the Irish national finals are given the opportunity to represent Ireland at the World Finals; the fourth placed team get the opportunity to form a collaboration team with another national finals winner from another competing country.

The Velocity Racing manufacturing manager Gary O’Donoghue is responsible for liaising with TUS: "I’m in touch with them about the manufacturing side, and looking over Caomhán’s (Mac Gabhann) designs, trying to get a better understanding of how the car is going to come out," he said.

Caomhán, design manager, displays the different prototypes that led them to the current model: "I’m responsible for the design and trying to improve on each one. You can see the difference from the first one to the current one, which is more aerodynamic. It takes a lot of time but I enjoy it."

Ruairi Lagan is media manager: "I look after everything to do with social media – we have three accounts, one on Facebook, on Instagram and one on TikTok. The TikTok posts are going to be fun, trying to grab attention and explain everything about F1 in Schools and what we do here at Velocity Racing. We’re trying to build momentum, getting the support and following up across all three social media accounts."

Each of the four are "huge" Formula 1 fans, and all are in agreement that Max Verstappen is the best driver.

Technology and graphics teacher at St Finian’s, Kevin Coleman, is overseeing the project, but says the work is all the students’ own. He coordinates the groups, but has no hand in the projects.

"I oversee the project, and help them out as much as possible by providing access to the technology rooms, but they are really driving this project themselves. The F1 Schools programme is really interesting, they’ve already had a Formula 1 driver liking one of their posts. A lot of work went on in the background in the lead-up to this launch, so that they could hit the ground running. We’re expecting a lot of interest on social media," said Mr Coleman.

"Everything they are doing as part of the projects applies to what they’re learning in the classroom, and how it can be applied to the outside world. STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, maths) – it all applies to the design, any design issues that may arise, prototyping, and then eventually we’ll manufacture ‘the’ car.

"They’re working on things like aerodynamics, and we can carry out virtual wind tunnel tests with our solid works and software. They can use that information then to go back to the design and see if they can make any more improvements. So it really is more closely linked to a third level course after school, in fact, or even in the working environment.

"The F1 Schools series is very advanced, especially for fifth year students, but it really grabs their attention. And the publicity could lead to world-wide publicity because it is linked to Formula 1."

Amber, Gary, Caomhán, and Ruairi will be judged across multiple categories, including: Racing and time trials, Scrutineering (does the car meet the regulations), Engineering Portfolio; Enterprise Portfolio, Verbal Presentation, Pit Display, Social Media and Marketing Plan.

Fundamentally they will be learning all about engineering, entrepreneurship, business and team management skills, and previous participants are now working in cutting edge engineering roles, and some have even made it all the way to working in F1.