Mary Webb Cars Club is starting again. After Ruth Bolivar’s success at the international race, we’re excited to gain more from our sessions.
Here’s the lineup of new teams and a few words from the drivers.
First race is Indianapolis - a fast but technical track, so we’re really testing our drivers’ skills.
The news has come through that the Mary Webb School entry has made it through to the semi-finals 0f the 2006-07 Challenge! Well done to all concerned, especially Jack and Cherise from Year 7 who designed the winning car - now it’s back to training for the May 11th semifinal entry deadline. We are the first Shropshire secondary school to qualify, and the only Shropshire school represented in this years’ leaderboard.
If we qualify at the semifinals, the winners will represent the school at the National Finals at the National Heritage Centre at Gaydon in Warwickshire on June 29th.
We’re allowed 2 pupils to enter a car for the race, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same car designers that we enter. We’re advised to start with fresh cars rather than re-tune old ones. This won’t present a problem, judging by the excitement in the Year 7 teams that I’ve spoken to.
We look forward to some replies to this post telling us what strategies teams might use for this race. Watch out though - people might try to mislead with incorrect information!
Again, well done to the teams and support crews who got us through to the semi-finals.
We’ve been reminded that it seems is ages since anyone posted on the blog. Here’s why; we’ve been busy with training new teams and preparing for the first qualifying race. It’s been an exciting half term - in her first major race, Cherise Page came in second, right behind Mr. Faichney (who is rumoured to have been copying other peoples’ setups to get a competitive edge, and he’s the teacher, and it’s his second race anyway) so hats off to all the teams who competed in their first practice race.
Now all the teams are “in the groove” and finding the racing lines they’re bound to continue to improve their skills in preparation for the next race. We’ll keep you posted. Promise.
The podcast of the race is soon to be published, taken from the commentary of an exciting session today at lunchtime. With The Maths Man in pole position with a half load of fuel, the race started with The Jones Man soon overtaking effortlessly and leading the pack for the first half of the race. Lowri, Mike and Ceri battled for third place, with Mike hot on the heels of the leaders. Ceri’s car developed a fault early on and kept emitting black smoke while “Careful” Mike challenged the leaders causing them to make some silly mistakes. Mathsman’s cornering was never anything less than erratic but luckily he didn’t draw the attention of hte marshals and managed to sneak past Jones after the first pitstop. For an encore, Jones managed to crash the car on a tight bend and Mike took second place. Lowri contended valiantly for the next position but overcooked it on a corner and ended up counting daisies. Ceri continued to belch black smoke, although this grew less and less (presumably because the oil was getting used up).
The race finished with the Mathsman in first place, Mike second and (I think) Lowri third. Ceri came in fourth place and I think Pete was there somewhere too. So it looks like a Team victory for the Pink Pigs - you were lucky this time girls, but maybe not next time…
Sorry that things have been so quiet on the blog lately. What with one thing and another progress has been a bit disjointed but it’s all coming together now. Cars are assembled and are being tuned ready for the inaugural race on Monday 11th December. favourites? Well, currently at pole position Mr. Faichney has recorded a sub-75 second lap with Mike in hot pursuit. Mr Jones is still battling at 82 seconds and scratching his head, giving the driver a talking-to and tweaking settings desperately. Things might change today though - the Amies are taking an extra session to set their car up ready for next week’s big race so we might have another challenger on the grid. What’s happened to Team Pink Pigs? At the last practice there was a lot of squealing going on in their corner; perhaps they’ve found the secret formula?
This session saw the teams setting up their cars for Silverstone. Even at this early stage, teams are running tactical events, with each car in their team having different characteristics for the same track. Most competitive at this stage are Team Flying Pigs who are not sharing any secrets yet but are trying to reap hints and tips from other teams (nice try girls); quietly confident are the Racing Green boys who are almost ready to race, setting up their team to cover all eventualities. 7Bull are making the most noise, let’s hope their success matches their efforts!
The excited buzz of teams quietly working out their plans and tactics for the race day is invigorating to witness. Each is confident of success yet is ready to make adjustments to their cars in practice sessions, tweaking settings just to get that competitive edge. All needling for that hallowed pole position, we look forward to practices early next week and then the first race on Wednesday. Go teams!
More planning today lunchtime. Teams were pressing ahead with their Silverstone planning, and nearly all got the first estimate round finished. The aim is to do the measurements on Wednesday, set up the cars next Monday then the first race is on Wenesday 29th November. We were jioned by another team today, Dominic who is looking forward to setting up his car livery.
There’s a podcast (hardly a podcast really - more of an audio mashup) of today’s session. It’s an 8Mb file, so I wouldn’t bother downloading it if you’re on dialup.
Roll on Maths in Motion!
A frenetic session this lunchtime as the teams all sat down ready to set up their cars for the first race at Silverstone. This is classed as an “easy” track but even under the expert guidance of Mr. Faichney some were still scratching their heads (notably Mr Jones who made just about every mistake imaginable. He’s too keen). Still in the “estimation” stage of this exercise, teams start to think about angles and distances and make their way around the 20 portions of the track.
The Jaguar Maths in Motion Challenge is under way here at Mary Webb. We’re hoping to get teams in the Christmas Challenge but we have a long way to go to train them up.
We’re using this opportunity not only as a mathematical skills building exercise, but we’re going to be developing a lot of ICT skills along the way.
To introduce the teams, they have posted below with their names and team aspirations. Each week there will be an update on the work they have done with their car, and we’ll put up podcasts of the race commentaries as they happen.