T.O. team aims to win title for F1 in Schools

I don't want to dwell on my high school career (seven years, never graduated) except to say I wasn't disruptive, just bored.

Pity there wasn't an extra-curricular activity back then to get my adrenaline rushing like F1 in Schools does for students today.

F1 in Schools is a world-wide program, currently involving nearly 30 countries, that is funded by Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and the other nine Formula One teams in which students between the ages of 11 and 18 research, design, build, market and race F1 model cars.

That would have been right up my alley. Instead of studying arts and sciences, as I did when I eventually made it to university, I might very well have gone into engineering.

In any event, a week from next Wednesday — April 27 — at the Ontario Science Centre, teams from Toronto and across Canada will compete in the 2011 Canadian F1 in Schools finals for the right to represent our country internationally in 2012. A team from Brandon, Man., won the 2010 Canadian championship last April and will be Canada's rep at the world finals in Abu Dhabi come September.

The Bernie Ecclestone Trophy is the big prize and Bernie himself is usually on hand to award it. The closest Canada has come to the podium since the program was launched in 1999 was last year in Singapore when the team from Woburn C.I. in Scarborough, which won the 2009 Canadian championship, was named Best Newcomer to the world finals.

Now, the rules say the students — there can be anywhere from three to six per team — have to design and build an F1-model racer and that means from scratch. Although team members can return, they can't bring back last year's entry. Everybody has to start over with the help of a computer-aided design (CAD) program. The challenge is to construct a 1/20th-scale model F1 car out of lightweight balsa wood to be powered by a CO-2 cartridge.

But that's not all. Although the name of the game is to build the fastest car, teams are also judged on their business plan and budget, as well as their sponsorship and marketing programs. The real fun, though, is in the racing. Cars race side-by-side along a 20-metre-long track. While the Manitoba team won the overall Canadian title last year, the race at the Science Centre was won by Woburn with a time of 1:079 seconds (67.289 km/h).

Eeshmam Munir was on last year's team from the Scarborough Academy of Technological, Environmental and Computer education, which is part of W.A. Porter C.I. The then-Grade 10 student is keen on a career in motorsport and his ambition is to drive a real race car some day. He also likes the idea that the team that wins the Canadian championship gets to go to the world finals.

Which is why he was crushed when — and there is no really nice way to say this — the wheels came off SATEC's race car. In the middle of the run, the wheels fell right off that race car and, although it was disappointing, it was also mostly embarrassing.

So Eeshmam decided to do something about it. He went out and recruited a whole new team from not only his school but two others, with the aim of redeeming the reputation of SATEC but, most important, of winning the championship.

Kind of a zero to hero plan.

“Last year, when the wheels fell off our car, we knew what we had done wrong and we knew what we had to do to make it right,” he said during a chat I had last weekend with him and the team.

“We needed the right people to do it, which is why we have a collaborative team this year. The regulations say you can only have one team per school, but there can be collaborative entries so we decided to go that route.”

Through presentations and word of mouth, Eeshmam and two other SATEC students, Sadben Khan and Jaydeep Mistry, signed up Prakhar Garg from Woburn and two girls, Euniss Ng and Kirusanthy Kaneshwaran, from Victoria Park C.I. All are in Grade 11.

Everybody has a particular job. Euniss and Kirusanthy are in charge of marketing and sponsorship and have attracted supplies, technical support and money (enough, in fact, for the team to purchase uniforms for the national finals) from Grand & Toy, Gateway Financial Insurance, Oakville Blueprinting Digital Print Centre, S2 Consulting Inc., NSK Bearings, BMW Canada and the University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team.

The high school team has its own website ( http://velocitaracing.weebly.com/) and a full-colour brochure that explains everything about them.

Jaydeep is the team's graphic designer (“I love the job I have”) who assisted in designing the car but also worked with the others to design the templates for letters, the brochure and so on.

Sadben is the chief race car designer. “Last year, we kind of slapped things together,” he said. “This year, I researched like crazy. I went to university libraries and read textbooks on physics. I went online. I studied aerodynamics. Our car this year is much more sophisticated than last year's.”

Prakhar has been tasked with ensuring the car fits the design. Translation: he makes sure that all parts of the car are machined with precision and accuracy.

Said Eeshmam: “I'm really proud of this team and how hard we have worked — sometimes till 10 p.m. on a school night. Last year, we felt rushed; this year, we've had enough time. The design, manufacturing — everything is terrific. At the end of the day, I can be proud of my team and I know we can say that we did a good job.”

If the wheels don't fall off.

I have attended the last three F1 in Schools national finals as a judge. I have been impressed, beyond belief, by the intelligence, commitment, talent and enthusiasm of each and every young person involved.

I also know how important the marketing and public relations aspect is. So I knew exactly what Eeshmam was up to when he emailed me several months ago and suggested I do a story about his team.

No one had ever done that before — I only ever reported on this competition after the fact — and I was blown away by his initiative.

So I went along, knowing full well that as part of their presentation a week from Wednesday, the team will be able to say that they got a story about themselves into the Toronto Star. Good for them, but now I can't be a judge this year.

Norris McDonald writes an almost-daily blog at wheels.ca. Read it here.

nmcdonald@thestar.ca

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