Girls best designers in challenge

Shaun Patterson and Dallas Dagan from North Rockhampton High School are ready to race their mini-F1 cars in today’s state challenge.

Allan Reinikka

AT 15 budding engineer Casey Berends can’t drive a car yet.

But the North Rockhampton High School student loves the thrill of racing at breakneck speed and over the next two days she’ll be bidding to be one of Queensland’s mini-Formula 1 champions.

Casey is the only girl member and assistant manager of the school’s Hornets team which is one of 17 competing in the state championship for a place in the 2011 F1 in Schools Technology Challenge National Finals.

Pupils aged 13 to 17 have gathered at North Rocky High to propel their balsawood models on a 20 metre track at up to 100km/h.

Mike Myers, one of the challenge organisers, says the competition was started in 2004 as a way to involve more youngsters in maths, science and engineering.

This year 35,000 Australian teenagers will be involved and worldwide the total will top nine million.

“We give the children a set of guidelines and access to some of the finest technology, then it’s up to them. They have to design the cars, which are powered by compressed air, and using software developed for the likes of Boeing and Toyota they do the rest.”

The good news for Casey is that Mike believes all the best teams have at least one girl.

“Girls like designing cars, and they are very good at it,” he said.

Key elements to get right are aerodynamics, weight and wheel design.

It’s a deadly serious competition with a lot riding on the result. Three teams from Queensland will go to the national finals in Sydney next March and from there three teams will be chosen for the international final in London.

The ultimate prize is a Cambridge University scholarship, although previous competitors have been snapped up by Grand Prix racing teams and other leading engineering groups.

Former Rockhampton Regional Council mayoral candidate Tim Griffin has been involved in the competition since its inception and helped raise $75,000 for North Rockhampton High School to be a regional hub for entrants.

“It’s a very exciting competition and brilliant to see how much the youngsters learn while they have fun.”

This week’s competition major sponsor is CQUniversity.