To lose is one thing, to be humiliated completely to the point where one cannot bring themselves up to participate in an F1 in Schools (now STEM Racing) world finals, is another. I will be going though the experience I had at the 2023 world finals event, while while of course was pretty fun, it was humiliating enough for me to run back to Japan to start a completely new team out of scratch.
Before the Competition
I was, am am still an absolutely hardcore F1 fan. To learn of the competition F1 in Schools was a pretty astonishing and uplifting experience to say the least. Finally my days looking through tech Tuesday and "How to Build a Car" by Adrian Newey would pay off as an engineer. I managed to get into a team near December at a high school on the opposite side of Japan. Far away, but we were in the information age: I could do it.
My task was simple: design a fast car using the provided resources including a CFD software. This was the chance. I learned fusion 360 in a complete rush, around the span of 3 months, and then began the development of the 2023 world finals car.
Why world finals and not regional? One may wonder. Well, the thing is, we were the only team in Japan and while we could have held a regional competition, have one team participate and call it a day, the ICC decided that may not be necessary, which is a reasonable choice to make.
Anyways, the car design was made, and later tested at the high school on the other side of japan, and recorded a whopping 1.05 for a time. At that time, for the new regulations, that would have secured us a fastest car award by a mile (figuratively). To be fair we were using nylon shafts and wheels made using a lathe, as well as an extremely expensive pair of bearings, or at least they told me they were.
A few drafts of portfolios later: I was as prepared as I could be.
The Competition
Before the competition even started, I figured out there was one massive issue lying ahead. No one could speak english, except me. They told me this a month before the world finals. So I went through the marketing and enterprise portfolio to check, only to realize that they were nearly empty.
Obviously I asked: where'd the money come from? The school had funded them. Almost no marketing or enterprise, a barely complete pit display, and a team with no official website and a social media account that barely posted. The school did not allow us to make our own money for some reason, and had to regulate social media usage strictly.
So off course, we went. Everything went miserably.
Presentation was just me taking about marketing I didn't do nor exist.
Engineering was fine until the judges started asking questions like how did I align the wings and what angles the wings were placed, which I had no answer to. I just winged everything and called it a day.
We did have a car that met the regulations, but not very fast.
Why? Apparently the canister we used for testing was not refrigerated, which meant that the thrust would be significantly faster than when refrigerated like in the world finals.
On the third day I could not wake up, and went down to the competition late just in time for the pit interviews, and you can see that I was not very happy.
Post Competition
So that is why I have come back to japan and am absolutely doing everything I can to get revenge not only at this competition, but also to fight against the Japanese custom to not make children touch money because even the schools think that money is the root of all evil.
Out motto is: Ignite the future.
We need to ignite a future in Japan so that the students will be able to freely participate and compete in order to get a great not only STEM but marketing and project management, teamwork experience.
Us proving to the world that Japanese students can indeed do it, is the first step.
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