Patrons限定｜徵求標題黨｜英文寫作｜Feature writing｜F1 in Schools｜ (Patreon)

【徵求標題】1500 字訪問專題終於搞掂！由之前嘅篇唔到800字，再變而家咁，聽日 BST1100 前交。由於功課唔駛標題，所以呢度徵求10個或以下嘅英文字標題黨🙏。你交得俾我，就同意如果被選中、就會用嚟公開刊登㗎喇😄一齊玩吓啦🏎️。

功課全文👇

The F1 2023 season may only begin in Bahrain on March 3-5, but the next Wolffs, Neweys and Landos have already had a head start with F1 in Schools in Birmingham.

In January, UK primary school students aged 9-11 competed in F1 in Schools, an educational motorsport competition at the National Exhibition Centre in the West Midlands, where they learned life skills while having fun.

Children in the competition are required to first read the rules and regulations, form a team of three to six and decide on their own roles. Then, the team will design, make, assemble, test and race a miniature car.

However, the biggest challenge may not lie in any of the said aspects.

Katherine, 10, of Lindley, Huddersfield said: “I think the biggest challenge probably was the presentation of the portfolio, so like learning the script, and showing it in front of the judges, that was a really big challenge for all of us.”

In competing with other fellow students, Katherine, who designs the car, not only develops technical but also interpersonal skills, as well as putting her teamwork abilities to test.

Matthew Bottom, 29, her teacher at Lindley Junior School said: “They [the team] have really grown in their confidence, in their ability and their critical thinking… those higher order of thinking skills to get to where they need to be.”

Still, any team would require a miniature car to compete.

The 10-year-old racecar designer told us about its final design: “It has an aerodynamic head, in the shape of a snake’s head. And it has got a rattlesnake tail, which makes it more aerodynamic. We’ve cut off the sidepods so it would be more slim [slimmer].

“And then we decided to stick our logos on it, so people know it’s ours, then we added snake eyes and fangs.”

There had been a problem though with the first design as Katherine told us: “When it went down the track, it was fast but we saw it put drag on the car.

“So when we showed our teacher, he said that we needed to take off the sidepods because the air was going through the sidepods, and it wasn’t making it very aerodynamic.”

Lessons learnt.

“Lessons” is plural because what Katherine has learnt was not just a lesson on design, but also a lecture about life.

“And that you should always persevere, and just never give up, because even when things get tough, you can still get through it in the end by perseverance and teamwork,” the Lindley primary school student designer added.

Such skills can’t hurt, especially if ones’ aspirations are to try to progress to F1.

Did the race further inspire Katherine’s interest in F1? Katherine beamed: “Yes! I would like to become a mechanical engineer when I’m older so I can work on cars and F1.”

Dr Hema Viswambharan, Katherine’s mother and a research fellow at the University of Leeds, noted that F1 in Schools has taught her daughter to explore her interests and career opportunities.

Whereas previously her daughter was keen on various subjects such as animals, nature and art, she now does have some focus. Viswambharan said: “I am very, very relieved because there are way too many options [for students] now”.

In the end, Katherine’s team Speed Snakes placed fifth out of 26 Primary Class teams in the UK National Finals. Next year, they may aim to win the Primary Class, or progress to F1 in Schools’ other senior classes that can lead to world finals.

What if in the future things go up and down? The daughter from the well-educated family said: “I think I will have to focus on just trying my best to get through these problems in a calm, and quiet, and still state without stressing out.

“If we don’t get into the world finals [in the end] and I still want to work on my dream, and [if] I manage to get it, I can tell these people how this race made me want to achieve my dream even more.”

F1 in Schools primary class teams don’t progress to the world finals, as only top teams in development and professional class do. The 2023 world finals will be held in September 8-14, alongside the Singapore Grand Prix, and will include 70 teams, all of whom will qualify through their national finals.

Although Katherine may not proceed to the worlds this year, her future teams can still succeed if they remain passionate and persistent.

Samuel Chapman, 22, of Newcastle, kept trying for five consecutive years. He said: “I picked it [F1 in Schools] up in 2014, so I was 14 when I started.

“And I did it until 2018, made it to the two world finals off the back of that. I was pretty much the only one that was interested in engineering when we started, on the team, so I picked up the design engineering role.”

The young man, from Emmanuel College in Gateshead, competed in the junior F1 in Schools competitions called Bloodhound. His team placed second in 2015, fifth in 2016, then qualified for the world finals in Malaysia in 2017 after placing third in the UK.

Six years later, when asked about what it meant to eventually reach the world finals after so many years, Chapman grinned: “I guess we didn't have many examples to follow from, so it was kind of surreal on that sense, and it’s a lot of crying from the group.

“It was at Silverstone, the nationals. We were announced, and we were sort of didn't believe that we were [getting to the world finals]. We were happy with what we’d done, and that we were only the second team ever from the North East to make it to the world finals!

“My parents watched the whole thing, live-streamed, as it was happening. I was alright, then I called my parents. Once they picked up the phone, they were already crying, so that made me cry.”

The Emmanuel College student and his group placed 13th in the 2017 worlds. The following year, they became the first team from the North East to win the UK championship and qualified for the world finals again. In Singapore, they achieved seventh place overall and were world champions in one category.

The category is one of the 19 awards that encourage students to develop life skills, in addition to the top three awards. F1 in Schools participants can customise their involvement in categories based on their interests.

Chapman said: “Apart from engineering, I suppose I have never been a good talker, or a public speaker or anything, but then at the final of 2018 we won the Verbal Presentation Award.

“So we had another member on our team who’s interested in architecture, another in sports science, or another in coding actually, so he built the whole website. He was practising what he wanted to do, managed to tailor it and get marks.

“I suppose if you are really passionate about something that you have to do it at school, the doing-it is what proves to an employer that you are passionate enough to deserve a job.”

The Newcastle man, who is a mechanical engineering student at the University of Nottingham, took a year-long hiatus to work as a vehicle integration engineer at Williams Advanced Engineering, and worked on road car battery and electrification projects.

“I suppose [what] it’s still helping me now, [is] the concept of like a project, so like a start point, and this is what you’re doing, and then research, and then go through the step-by-step phase until the final production.

“Currently, at university we’re doing a group project, and it’s the exact same sort of things where everyone else I’m working with have [has] never done a project before, but with F1 in Schools you know I’ve been doing that,” Chapman added.

The Nottingham undergraduate said the STEM initiative also adds to your confidence: “At secondary school there were may be four or five of us who actually cared. However when you go to university, everyone does, but you know that you are good enough to be amongst them if you competed in F1 in Schools let’s say.”

“Whereas a lot of people would enjoy watching it [F1] on TV, not many people can say that I enjoyed watching on TV, so I built this miniature car, and then I built this full-sized car [referring to another engineering competition called Formula Student], and I raced them and here is the evidence. I know what I am doing.”

Chapman lacked examples to follow, while Katherine can find inspiration in Chapman and Hannah Schmitz. Schmitz, the principal strategy engineer at Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Advanced Technologies, earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Cambridge.

Word count: 1470