Aussies 2nd and 3rd at F1 in Schools World Championships
in Malaysia

Team Goshawk, a group of year eight F1 designers-engineers sponsored by the Australian Defence Force Academy and Royal Australian Navy, has finished second outright at the World Championships of the F1 in Schools Challenge at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!

Standing alongside them on the winners dais was Impulse F1, the team from Barker College in Sydney. It was a stranger-than-fiction moment for the year eight students - Alistair Smith, Dan Boucher, Ed Larkin and Luke Abberton and their teacher Graeme Hutton from Trinity Christian College in Canberra - because they only became involved in the F1 in Schools program in late 2007! Not only did they come within mere points of becoming World Champions (that honour went to an English team), they were awarded Best Engineered Car. This is a major coup because it means that since Australian teams began competing in the World Championships four years ago we have won Best Engineered Car every time! Says something about our ingenuity and reinforces that having access to 'best in the world' design tools, like CATIA, provides for greater innovation capabilities.

Impulse F1 are "veterans" of the F1 in Schools competition having finished very close to becoming Australian National Champions for several years, until finally achieving that goal in November 2007. And, to prove their expertise, they managed to outscore 23 other nations! REA founder Michael Myers was there to see our teams in action and says the other nations made it known the Australians were the ones to beat. Michael is currently taking the students on a technology tour of Malaysia which will include the Proton Cars factory.

25 nations flew to KL to compete in the annual international showdown which was staged in association with the Malaysian Grand Prix. They raced miniature 100 km/h F1 cars that they had designed, tested, made and raced themselves!

Despite only having joined the F1 in Schools competition (run in Australia by Re-Engineering Australia Forum) in late 2007 the Goshawks were very quick to embrace the space-age 3D design and engineering analysis software (CATIA) they were provided with. They designed a clever, aerodynamic car capable of 100 km/h... machined it from a block of balsa... assessed it with Virtual Wind Tunnel software and physical wind and smoke tunnels, and completed the other tasks such as collaborating with industry, obtaining sponsors, preparing a detailed engineering portfolio of their ideas and reasoning, and marketing. ADFA, Navy and Neal Bates Motorsport (responsible for building the Australian Rally Championship winning Toyotas) got behind their project and also began their association with REA Forum at both the ACT finals and National Finals in Noosa. Proud onlookers were two teams which were crowned 2006 Australian National Champions (senior and junior): DASHA The Eagle from Melbourne and the Race A Roos from Perth.

Team Pitomia from France won the Best Newcomer Award, another win for Australia. REA has been working with the Université de Versailles in Paris, assisting with implementation of the REA model to several disadvantaged Parisian schools.