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It's a competition for teams of 3-6 school children to design and manufacture miniature CO2-powered racing cars and then race them at regional, national and international level. Sounds simple? Not when you consider that these 11-18 year old kids use state-of-the-art software programmes that enable them to play around with CAD (computer aided design) and CFD (computational fluid dynamics), just like real F1 designers.
Or that they have to manage the whole project from scratch, from drawing up a business plan and raising the sponsorship to finance it through the design and manufacturing stages to a presentation in front of a panel of eminent judges.

Faster than F1!

The object of the exercise is to make these miniature projectiles travel a 20-metre distance in the shortest time possible.
The record is right on 1.1 seconds, an average speed of 18.18 m/s. To put that in perspective, that’s faster than Fernando Alonso’s Renault could manage over the same distance, notwithstanding its 900bhp cargo in the back!

Mission

The F1 in Schools initiative was set up in 2000 as a way of raising the profile of engineering as a career option and assisting the teaching of the subject in schools and colleges. Since that time some two million children have taken part, and it has expanded into an international competition. Twenty countries have signed up to this year’s contest, and the winners of each national competition will face each other in the world final.

Who's backing it?

F1 in Schools’ indefatigable founder and chairman Andrew Denford recently landed a major coup by securing the official endorsement of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. Apart from the kudos that automatically flows from Bernie’s name being linked to the project, it means Denford is able to use official F1 branding for promotional and advertising purposes.