Solar challenge powers ambition

Eaton Community College Year 9 and 10 engineering students are gearing up for the F1 in School STEM competition in October.

Year 9 student Dylan McInnes said he was eager to get his car on the race track.

“For the competition we are building cars and racing them against other school teams to see who can meet certain categories and to see how fast they go,” Dylan said.

“I’m most excited about seeing our car going down the track.”

Not only has Dylan enjoyed working on the project, but he said it had also sparked an interest to persue engineering in the future.

“I thought it would be interesting and also a challenge and I like engineering and really want to try and become an engineer one day.”

Maths and engineering teacher Catherine Mason said the competition was a great learning concept.

“The reason we chose to enter this competition is because it is a really good extension STEM program,” Mrs Mason said.

“It really pushes the kids as this project represents a real life scenario, so they work in groups, they all have to take on a different role, they have to make up their team name, design a logo, design the car.

“When they go to the competition they have to do interviews on all the different criteria and present two portfolios to show what they have been working on.”