All the details, daily roll-ups, and news! Don’t miss anything from Austin, Texas!

F1 in Schools is active in 36 countries where 9 million students have been competing to win a place at the 9^thWorld Finals. We will be welcoming over 300 students from around the world into Austin on Friday 8^th November. After two and a half days of intense competition the event will conclude on Wednesday 13^th November with the evening gala awards ceremony dinner where high profile figures from Austin and Formula One will be in attendance. Teams will be nervously awaiting the decision as to who will be awarded the Bernie Ecclestone World Championship trophy and crowned 2013 World Champions.

The students will then have the very exciting opportunity to attend the Formula One United States Grand Prix and experience the real world of Formula One.

Source: F1 in Schools Homepage

Pre-World Finals Roll-Up

The team and a bunch of kindergarteners

After a 16 hour flight from Dubai, the Safire Blue Bullets team arrived in Houston, Texas on Tuesday, November 5, and we were greeted at the airport by Dave Howes. The following afternoon, we took the chance to present the project and the team at the Kindergarten in the Lakewood Montesori School in Houston. The kids were really excited about our project, and were great to present to. A big thanks to the Montesori School in Houston for having us.

At the Laurel Mountain Elementary School

The following day (Thursday), we drove to Austin in the morning with our rented car, and presented in front of 170 5th graders at the Laurel Mountain Elementary School in Austin. The kids were also really excited and well informed, which made it a pleasure to present in front of them. They had great questions, and even wanted our signatures – really cute!

The next morning we drove to the Hyatt Regency Hotel (the hotel where the competition will take place and all the teams will stay) to check in and register, and finalized last preparations.

All the World Finals 2013 teams

Saturday morning, the first World Finals 2013 event took place. All teams joined a sightseeing tour with classical school buses to the Texas State Capitol after which the teams has the chance to get to know each other at a Texan BBQ. It was great to meet everyone and exchange cards!

Later in the evening, a list was released of who had passed the critical regulations with their cars, and guess what? It was only 9 out of 38 teams! And guess what again? We did not pass … again. But the issue was not as major, so we only had to change one of our wheels on the first car. The wheel was too slim, which was apparently caused by a production failure and wasn’t obvious at first. All the remaining aspects of the car were accepted, so only a minimal amount of points were taken off. What a start into the World Finals …

World Finals Daily Roll-Up

Sunday, November 10, 2013 – Day 1

Safire Blue Bullets Pit Display

The day started with the pit display set up, which wasn’t a problem at all, and we’ve seen some great pit displays from the other teams! We must say that we are extremely proud of our pit display, bringing the best from the Arab and Greek culture together in 3×1 meters. This is a completely new pit display concept and we do think that we are once again redefining F1 in Schools with this.

After a great opening ceremony and a warm welcome to all teams, we started off with our engineering interview, which ran very well. Max and Jounes had a wonderful talk with the judges and they seemed impressed of our car and its engineering. Speaking of car, later on we had our Time Trail Race against Team Imperia from the USA, which was alright. We had a time of 1,148 seconds, which is faster than the SR03, but still not as fast as we would have wished. Additionally, wings from both cars fell off every second race, so we had to replace them during the first Car Service afterwards, and got points taken off. Nevertheless, we will try to get those points back at other parts of the competition! What a first day … Off to day two!

Short note to the live stream: we are aware that the live stream did not work at all during Day 1, and this is definitely not in our hands, as the stream is provided by F1 in Schools. We hope the stream will be working from Day 2 on, or at least latest for the Prize Giving Ceremony. Till then, stay updated on our Facebook page!

Monday, November 11, 2013 – Day 2

Reaction Racing

What a crazy day! In the morning we had our verbal presentation, which turned out very well. Even though we are very experienced with verbal presentations, it is always a new challenge, and we were definitely nervous. The judges seemed very impressed and said our presentation was “outstanding”. Wow!

Afterwards, the reaction races began and we were very happy to see that our car ran much faster than during the time trials yesterday. This is due to some minor enhancements to our suspension system between the races. As their is no “practice session”, we have to fine-tune the car during the actual races and try and find the perfect setting, which we eventually did. Additionally, the car did not have any major damage as it did yesterday – we hope it will stay like this tomorrow during the knock out race.

Tomorrow, the knock out races will begin with Safire Blue Bullets Racing starting from 14th place. Stay tunes with the live stream above and our Facebook page.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013 – Day 3

The SR04

Today was the third and last official competition day of the 2013 World Finals. The day started with the pressure challenge, which consisted of making a one minute long video in a 90 minute time frame, about how F1 in Schools changes lives. We finished just in time (2 seconds before penalty!) and are very happy with the result! We’ll share it with you in near future.

Later on, the knockout challenge began where we races against Epiphany and unfortunately got knocked-out in the first round already by just a few thousands of a second. So we got to watch the remaining knock-out competition from behind the barrier, which was still very fun and exciting.

Overall, it wasn’t a very packed day, as the previous ones. In the early evening we went karting with the other UAE Teams and had dinner till late at night.

The competitions are now completed! All that’s left to do is wait for the prize giving ceremony Wednesday evening (6 AM on Thursday morning in Dubai). Remember to check out the live stream above.

Final Roll-Up

Finished. The best time of the year has completed for Safire Racing for the second time now.

First off, we won the pressure challenge, which consisted of creating a 1 minute long video about how F1 in Schools changes lives in a 90 minute time frame. We are extremely proud about this, as it proves us being able to cope with pressure and still stand out with quality.

And then we won a prize that we have definitely been after since quite a while, and perfectly describes our team: the Innovative Thinking Award. This award confirms our goal at Safire Racing to continuously innovate at everything we do, and we are more than proud of this!

The F1 in Schools World Finals 2013 are now over, and we have have experienced indescribable days in Texas. We have made many new friends and it will be hard to head back to Dubai after the F1 Grand Prix in Texas.

We would like to thank everybody who supported us all over the world. Our fans mean a lot to us, as you guys motivate us to never stop the hard work. Additionally, we want to thank our sponsors and supporters. Without them, we wouldn’t even have been able to attend the World Finals.

We are planning on eventually releasing a quick “thank you” video in very near future, summarizing the World Finals from our view. We will likely also post the pressure challenge video on our Facebook page.

Team line-up

Jordan McKenzie – Team Manager

Maximilan Stucke – Technical Designer

Jounes Gross – Manufacturing Engineer

Julian Beyerlein – Resource Manager

Dalia Abdelrahman – Lead Designer

World Finals 2013 Trailer

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgfwCkQ3HSk

Winning Pressure Challenge Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O41VFNicQ7Y

About the Pressure Challenge

The pressure challenge will require each team to produce a 60 second video related to the F1 in Schools World Finals event. All teams will be required to complete the challenge simultaneously during a 90 minute time limit period. The Pressure Challenge will be scheduled for the morning of Tuesday 12th November. Only team members and F1 in Schools World Finals officials will be permitted to be in attendance during the scheduled 90 minute time limit.

All teams and team members will need to be present, each team equipped with their own video recording and editing technologies, at the scheduled Pressure Challenge time and venue. Basic recording and editing solutions are all that is necessary, E.g. Phone video camera and windows movie maker or iMovie.

Image Gallery

[Show as slideshow]

12►