Published: Friday, 29th January, 2010 12:00pm

Clara Youthreach's team cruise into regional final

Comments (0) | Print | Email

A group of teenagers from Clara's Youthreach programme has reached the final 100 of the Formula 1 for School's Technology Challenge.

'Team Avalanche' is taking part in the secondary schools' competition, where everything from the design and build of an F1 car to the marketing and promotion of the team itself, is taken into account.

The five students from Clara Youthreach taking part in the project are Team Manager Kirsty Real, Design and Manufacturing Engineer Emmett Dunne, Resource Manager Marie Mongan, Communications and Marketing Manager Zakk Halford and Graphic Designer Keith Hand.

"We are really delighted to have got this far especially as this is our first year to enter the competition. I think our Promo DVD which we developed as part of our marketing strategy gave us a bit of an edge in the qualifying round," said Team Manager Kirsty Real.

The team is now looking forward to the next stage, the Regional Final, which will take place in early March. "At the moment Emmett Dunne, our design engineer, is putting the finishing touches to our innovative car design using a computer package called Solid Works. Once completed we will be heading down to Limerick University to have the car manufactured from a single piece of Balsa Wood using Emmett's design. It really is exciting," added Kirsty.

As part of the project Team Avalanche have already created a Promo DVD and storybook based on the 'Legend of Team Avalanche'. They have also designed their own Team logo and are currently designing their own website, which they soon hope to have up and running. Another part of the project is developing a communications and marketing strategy as they have to raise the money to pay for the costs involved. F1 in Schools is a competition, open to all secondary schools, to design and manufacture compressed air-powered racing cars. Student teams will compete against each other in a National Championship to determine the best-engineered and fastest car in Ireland.