Thursday 7th April was the National finals of the F1 In Schools Competition. We had spent a busy few days getting ready for it and the last-minute pressure was really on...we all had to work hard to get everything done on time and to ensure that our posters, porfolio, presentation...but most improtantly...OUR CAR were ready for the competition.
I was relieved when, on Wednesday, the box arrived back from Cork with our car in it...I was a bit worried, though, when we opened it up and saw that our aerofoil had been broken, however all was resolved when Michelle & Mia got together to make a new one out of pink plastic. Still, there was so much to do...Sarah volunteered to collect our posters from a guy in Newbridge and Hayley's mam (who pretty much came to the rescue all the time throughout the project) organised for the portfolio to be printed and then collected it for us. Most of the team spent extra time in the Tech room on Wednesday getting ready for the competition, along with Mr W who gave up loooads of time to help us. I worked on our Powerpoint for the Verbal Presentation. Hayley & Mia sanded the car, Sarah varnished it, Mia & Michelle built the aerofoil and the last-minute work was getting done pretty rapidliy...until the bell rang and we had to go home with our car still not ready. Mia took the car and offered to paint it, but she didn't have a vice to finish the aerofoil, so Michelle said she'd do it and drop it to Mia's house later. Hayley's mam had bought the spray-paint, so she had to go to Mia's house after school too to drop it off...and I had the glue to stick the aerofoil on so everyone was going to Mia's house in dribs and drabs when school was over just so the car would get done! :L
The next morning, we had to be at school at 7.45am! We left soon after...and I saw the finished car for the first time...I must admit I was kinda scared! It looked great though...Mia & Michelle had done a fab job! When we arrived there, we could see the competition was fierce...most of the other schools had big fancy displays and impressive-looking uniforms, but we set up our stand and it looked really good (and not OTT like some of the others)!
First thing we had was our verbal presentation in front of 5 judges. It went really well - they seemed to like us and they were all very nice. Our "speech" could be no more than 5 minutes and we sort of ran out of time but we got in all we wanted to say when the asked us questions afterwards. Then we had our display judging. Two judges did that one. We thought it went good aswell and they really liked our logo too which was a bonus! This is the logo here..
By the way...Éalú is the Irish for escape!
Last but not least was our race...probably the worst bit of the day for us! Our "driver" Sarah was fantastic....her reaction times were brilliant and much faster than the other team, but unfortunately the way the car was manufactured this time meant that it was a lot slower and sadly, it didn't perform at all how we would have liked...oh well!
We had a great day, despite only winning in our hearts :D Thanks Mr. W for all your help! :)
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