By Craig Hingston
F1 in Schools is the biggest Stem competition in the world involving 26,000 schools and more than 1,300,000 students…and Pacific Hills was represented when the top 43 teams came together this week to do battle at the World Finals in England.
Three members of our Class of 2020, Lachlan George (Team Manager), Lachlan Vos and Joshua Kan,
joined forces with three students from Magdalene Catholic College to form “Celestial” and design,
make and race a miniature F1 car capable of accelerating from 0-80 KM/H in just over one second.
They were supported by classmates Sam Kirkegard and Jemma Swaark who had shared the journey
with them over the past two years through Regional, State and National finals. Stem, Stem
Due to COVID restrictions, the event was live-streamed from Yorkshire and our trio was judged via
Zoom sessions. They had the unique experience of seeing their car race down the track from a
distance.
The car’s slippery design was overseen by Lachlan Vos (who topped the state last year in Engineering
Studies in the HSC) and his innovation led to Celestial having the quickest car in the Oceania region
and the fifth-fastest in the world! On top of this, Celestial was named as a finalist for the Identity
Award sponsored by Scuderia Ferrari F1!
Well done to the students who represented Pacific Hills. It was a fantastic effort having progressed
from being rookies to reaching the pinnacle of the competition in their first attempt.
