Team to race at competition

A group of Newton Moore Senior High School students will venture to Melbourne next month to represent WA in the F1 in Schools STEM Competition.

Team ‘La Vitesse’ will be joined in Melbourne by four students from Eaton Community College as they race their CO2 dragsters against teams from around the country to vie for the national champions gong.

The cars have been designed and built entirely by the students out of balsa wood and will race down a 20m track in heats of two, with the team record sitting at 1.2 seconds.

“Our car was the second fastest at States, but other teams had better reaction times than us,” team manufacturing engineer Byran Billett said.

“We need to work on our judgment and reaction times.”

Head of science Lorraine Ellis said the school had a good track record, having qualified for the State championships four years in a row.

“The team is responsible for all aspects of designing, building, finishing, the colours, team name and logistics,” she said.

“There is a team manager, graphic designer, manufacturing engineer and design engineer, modelling a small company.”

The project has been designed as part of the school’s engineering specialist program and addresses every element of STEM.

While in Melbourne, the team is set to attend the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, something team manager Seth Bursill said would be “euphoric”.