Barry Comprehensive School

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A team of Barry Comprehensive School students triumphed in the recent South Wales Regional Finals of the F1 in Schools Challenge by taking overall victory in the Formula 1 Class

The team, named ‘BCS Racing’, comprising of Jon Scott, James Cosgrove , Gareth Crapnell, Stefanos Grigorio, Alex Parker and Jack McCabe also won the fastest car award with the time 1.826 seconds on a 20 meter test track.

The team now progress to the UK National finals of this global competition with their win in the F1 class at the Auto Sport International Show. The winners of the UK National competition will progress to the world championship in Singapore.

The competition challenges students to design, construct and race a race car of the future, made from a block of balsa wood, and powered by a compressed air canister. The car is raced over a 20 meter track and the fastest time is recorded. Aside from the on track action, teams also produce supporting evidence of their design, develop a sponsorship and marketing campaign and produce team merchandise, with all these elements presented with their race car at the regional finals.

Barry Comprehensive School’s F1 Team recently attended the U.K. Finals at the National Education Centre, Birmingham. This two day event was extremely demanding and saw the best seventeen F1 teams from all four home countries competing to become national champions and qualify to take part in the World Championships in Singapore.

This was the first time the school had competed at this level and the standard was incredibly high. Judges interviewed the team, scored their marketing and publicity material, timed their car over the measured track and tested them on their knowledge of the support of their sponsors.

The team performed incredibly well in their first venture as did their car, which was the seventh fastest over the weekend. An extremely tiring and demanding weekend, but the team cannot wait to start preparing for next year’s competition.