16 May 2018
Four teams from Abingdon left school and went to RAF Brize Norton for the rocket car regional finals. These teams were called: Mavericks, Team Italia, Vroom Vroom and TALA Engineering. These were the four fastest teams from the previous competition in Abingdon School itself.
On arrival we were greeted by one of the RAF engineers who then brought us inside to talk us through how the day would work out. We were also told that we were actually only allowed three teams and not four. Mavericks offered to spread their team throughout the others so then we had three teams. After that the fun really began, it was time to make the cars!
There were several rooms with different tools to use over the hour and a half of construction time. Each of the teams worked hard and they all managed to finish their cars within the time limit. Next was racing time. There were 3 groups, each with 9 teams in them – three from each school – so overall there were 27 teams. The first car to race in the whole competition was Team Italia and straight after them was TALA Engineering. These two teams had to then re-race their cars because the speed calculators weren’t working! After an hour or so of racing the results were announced. Despite one of the Abingdon teams coming top in their group, unfortunately none of us placed in the top three so our rocket car adventure came to a stop.
All in all, this was a great experience for the people that took part and I hope that next year’s first year will have the same opportunity as we have had.
Written by Matteo Bignone
