June 7, 2013
A $3000 donation by the Kingaroy-Taabinga Rotary Club has provided students from three South Burnett schools with a hands-on opportunity to design, build and test their own mini Formula 1 racing cars.
The balsa wood racers, powered by a carbon dioxide sparklet, are cut out by computerised CNC routers driven by CAD/CAM software.
Students from Murgon and Nanango State High Schools gathered at the Trade Training Centre at St Mary’s Catholic College in Kingaroy this week to work under the guidance of Brent McCorkell, from the Re-Engineering Australia Foundation.
The schools shared their resources to make the project possible.
The students designed their vehicles on a computer, before placing a balsa wood block into a CNC router to be shaped into a 3D model.
The resulting F1 racer was then tested in a wind tunnel to assess its aerodynamics (drag coefficient).
About 30 students from the three schools took part in the two-day program, part of the F1 In Schools challenge.
