Hello and welcome to the official blog of the Cobra Racing STEM Racing team! In this first blog post, we’ll introduce you to our team, our previous achievements, and our goals for the 2024/25 competition.
About Us
We are a group of four 2nd years from Naas Community College. Our Team Principal is Daniel Wilson, our Head of Enterprise is Craig Giles, our Head of Design and Manufacturing is Charlie Derham, and our Co-head of Design and Enterprise is Padraig Byrne. We all have an interest in cars, motorsport, and Formula 1. This is our second year competing in STEM Racing Ireland, both for us and our school.
Our Achievements
Last year was our first year at STEM Racing. We were the only first year team at the National Finals, and the only team not in transition year. We were also the only team from our school, and it was our school’s first year.
Our first achievement was our acceptance into the National Finals following our 5-page proposal to STEM Racing in December 2023. From that point on, it was all hands on deck for the remainder of the year, as we worked hard on our verbal presentation, two 10-page portfolios, our pit display, and of course, our car.
At the National Finals, our car (the NSP-1, or Naas Speed Project 1) placed 8th out of 24. Even though we were happy with this result, we were slightly annoyed that we didn’t do better. We believe that our main issue was a car that was not manufactured to our specifications, which led to it being inevitably slower than our original design.
Overall, we placed 12th out of 24, and we won the Judges’ Choice award. Taking into account that we were the youngest team by 3 years, and that it was our first year, we were very happy with this result.
Cobra Racing, pictured at The Lenovo F1 in Schools 2024 Ireland National Finals, which took place at the University of Limerick
Pic: Don Moloney
Our Goals For The 2024/25 Competition
Work and preparation for the 2024/25 competition has already begun for us, with our goals set high. Naturally, it is every team’s dream to win the National Finals, or at least secure a place on the podium so that they can progress to the World Finals, but only the top three teams can achieve this. While we don’t want to be too ambitious, one of our goals for next year is to win another award, if not multiple awards. After the competition, we received a breakdown of our scores, which we are going to use to improve our points and hopefully achieve our goals.
That’s it for now, thanks for reading! Keep an eye on this blog for regular updates, including our upcoming ‘Racing Roundup’, and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram! If you would like to receive updates straight to your inbox, you can sign up below:
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