Team Bolt: First Girls F1 Team to Represent KCS

We are Team Bolt and we are proud to be Kinsale Community Schools very first girls team to enter the ‘F1 In Schools Competition’. Our team comprises of Bo Collins, Leah Horgan, Rachel O’Brien, Clare Cronin and Rachael Luke.  

F1 in Schools is a competition where a Formula One team must design, build (3D print) and race a Formula One car which is powered by compressed gas cylinders.  It also involved an element of enterprise and marketing as teams must raise sponsorship to fund the project and market and promote their brand e.g. using social media, sponsorship, merchandise etc.    

We entered this competition as we wanted to break the barrier of F1 being a boys competition and we wanted to inspire the girls in the years below us to try out F1 when they are in Transition Year.   

We began F1 by designing our own car on the CAD programme Solidworks. We then wrote up our 2 portfolios, engineering and enterprise, we promoted our brand and were lucky to receive sponsorship from 5 local businesses. Once our car was manufactured we spray painted it hot pink and added stickers promoting our sponsors.  

The competition involved judging in a variety of categories including racing, scrutineering, an engineering portfolio, an enterprise portfolio, a verbal presentation, a pit display and a social media and marketing plan. 

At first, when lockdown was introduced in January we found it hard to stay motivated to get the work done; but we were determined to keep going.  We attended weekly online classes with our teacher and organised regular zoom calls to keep in contact and continue working on our project.   

When we returned to school after Easter we were involved in four virtual interviews and verbal presentations with F1 judges.  This gave us the opportunity to impress the judges with our team spirit and our innovation.  Working online during lockdown really benefitted us when it came to our interviews as we had plenty of experience!  

We are so grateful to F1 in schools and our teachers for giving us the opportunity to be part of such a great experience and being part of a team and developing lifelong friends. We also learned some valuable skills along the way like teamwork, communication, time management, engineering, IT and practical skills. Many of these skills will continue to benefit us into the future and we would encourage future TY girls to consider taking on the F1 challenge next year!