Marist trio heading to Malaysia for international F1 contest

Three students from the Marist College in Athlone are flying out to Malaysia today (Wednesday) to compete in an international Formula 1 schools' competition.

Transition Years Padraig McDermott, Robert Lowe, and Ruaidhrí Campion are representing Ireland at the prestigious event in Kuala Lumpur.

Teams taking part are required to design and manufacture a miniature Formula 1 racing car to race against other teams. They need to construct an eye-catching pit display to show off their work, and must also deliver portfolios and verbal presentations about their journey in the competition.

In addition, the teams have to generate their own funds to take part, either through fundraising in the community or by securing sponsorship from companies.

The manager of the Marist team is Padraig, while Ruaidhri is finance manager and Robert is in charge of marketing and manufacturing.

"We competed in the National Finals under the name Force Racing and placed third overall, along with winning the Best Engineered Car award and the Research and Development award," said Ruaidhrí.

"We decided to collaborate with a team from Malaysia to form our current team – Team Quantum. We have been working hard all summer for this project, and hope our hard work will pay off.

"We’d like to thank all of our sponsors for helping us throughout the competition; Wineport Lodege, Westmeath County Council, Abec357, EDS, LIT, Yeloblade, ASTI, Mondello Park, Shannon Orthodontics, AIB, AIT, and O’Meara’s Opel Garage."

The students will be in Malaysia until October 2 and will attend the Malaysian Grand Prix as part of the trip. 

The F1 in Schools attracts entries from 25 countries and is regarded as the world's largest STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) competition.

This year’s participation continues the Marist's involvement in the F1 in Schools world finals for the second year running, after the Marist Hurricanes won the national title last year.