Background on our F24 team:
Greenpower Education Trust is a UK based charity with an outstanding track record in kick starting careers in engineering. Greenpower inspires young people to excel in Science through designing, building and racing an electric car. To race effectively the teams must learn a mix of Teamwork, Engineering, Electronics, Computing, Racing and Business skills. The challenge is to see how far you can travel in 90mins. Each team has identical batteries and motor so it is what you put around them, how you prepare the car and how you drive that really matters.
We have recently established a Greenpower and are competing in the F24 driving class (ages 12-16). Mr Mark Hiller, school governor and STEM ambassador, has very kindly sponsored the car, which he started construction on through lockdown.
“I want to increase awareness and get more people involved in engineering,” said Mark. “It’s a brilliant path for people who don’t know exactly what they want to do because it doesn’t close any avenues off – it’s a really good general-purpose degree. The focus is also to get more women into engineering, as it’s woeful that such a small percentage of females are in the industry.”
The Hillview Greenpower team is comprised of students from Years 7-10, all of whom are getting hands-on experience with an electric car for the very first time. The team has had to learn to drive, discovering the racing line and rules. More recently they introduced to the use of high tech materials such as Carbon Fibre, Kevlar and Innegra. The on board computer controls the car and the next project is to discover more about this and learn some C++.
Hilary Burkett, Headteacher, said “Greenpower has offered Hillview students the opportunity to explore a world that for many has not been accessible in the past. As a school we actively seek opportunities to give students experiences that enable them to build their character, independence, confidence and employability skills, and Greenpower does this in a huge way. Girls can often be daunted by science and the practical manner that Greenpower allows them to be engaged with science, can only support their studies and provide the kinaesthetic learning opportunities that will allow them to flourish and achieve higher outcomes.”
In addition to the STEM and engineering skills the students are learning on their Greenpower journey, the team is also gaining valuable real-life business experience as it endeavours to find and manage sponsors to help fund the project. These currently include an Engineering company several materials companies, and an electronics company. We also have offers for the student to visit the workplaces. A sixth former has also run a team building session for us. It is wonderful to see how the team have all acquired so much self-confidence.
Roles within the team include: Overall Captain and two Vice-Captains (One pit crew and one driving team).
The Hillview School for Girls team made its Greenpower debut at Castle Combe in September 2021, followed by Dunsfold Park (Top Gear track) and qualified for the International Final at Goodwood in October! With some superb driving by the team and a lot of spectator encouragement, we finished in 12th place out of 63 with a distance of 36.7 miles!!!
As one of a few state non-selective girls’ schools in the class we certainly showed them what a Hillview Girl is made of!
See below for full accounts of our event fixtures.
The next season begins towards the end of March 2022 with a practice session at Goodwood. We are aiming to have two cars and race both in both categories (i.e. two F24 races and two F24+ races per event) depending on the rules. The team will be very busy as they need to build the second car and will learn even more new skills, and of course there will be more driving opportunities for all!
Keep visiting this page for further updates.
For more information on the scheme please see: https://www.greenpower.co.uk/
A grateful thanks to our sponsors:
All the engineering and precision parts – main sponsor
Renold
Terry H – Critical for the telemetry. Wrote all the code for it from scratch and some of the serial code for the speed controller.
Parents – Stickers and photos
On Friday 25th March, seventeen members of the F24 team went to practice their race driving skills at Buckmore Park.
After a safety briefing the girls were given tips on racing lines and how to get the most out of their kart. They were then let loose on the track. After a practice lap, the lap times kept getting faster as the girls got more confident in their driving skills. The fastest lap time was 1.08 by Eleni Head closely followed by Baileigh Alexander and Jemima Waller. Awards were also given for the best line and most improved.
The team left buzzing with new skills and knowledge, excited for our next F24 race later in the year. 🏁
Our team’s first race outing took place last Sunday, 5 September, when 7 students, plus staff supporters and our Stem Ambassador, Mr Hiller, went to Castle Combe Race track. After a touch of confusion on passing through Kent’s Bottom after 2 hours of driving, the team arrived at Castle Combe Race Track, Waze had not gone mad! This was our first chance to glimpse what other teams’ cars looked like – and a real race track! The Pink Camo car was the favourite.
The team set up their pitch in the paddock, immediately unpacking the car, inflating the tyres to race pressure and putting on the wheels ready to roll. With 3.5h of racing scheduled, Elsie on the pits was very busy and had a lot of responsibility. The first race began and we made a special note to make some larger pit signs. Lois was first and went round and round and we eventually had to have her black flagged to pull her in to the pit lane! The girls were doing really well and the car running smoothly. With novice drivers and on 80% power, we were half –way up the field. Really impressive for a first run!
After some lovely ‘brownies’ followed by sandwiches out of Eleni’s stack of tupperware; with the next set of batteries installed, practice over, we were off for the real race. We had a slow start but Emily saved the day remembering about the kill switch. We were right out of the back of the field of 45. However, little by little we were gaining. Our second driver Lucy put in an amazing performance taking us up to 24th place. Baileigh on mobile telemetry kept us informed of the progress. The car was on track for exceeding 30 miles. Then catastrophe stuck. The battery cable disconnected. Although we spotted the problem fast this meant we missed the 3rd stage. At least we were first on the grid for the final stage. However, eeking out the battery involves some complex timing calculations and the car became confused. We chugged along to the end of the race, with Lois coaxing the car along with the electronic equivalent of one cylinder in 5th gear.
We came 35 out of 44 and have the potential to do much better next week Dunsfold. We think the car handles well in tight corners. Top Gear here we come!
It was a fantastic day out. The team was amazing. Well done to all; you were a superb ambassadors for Hillview. As a side show we picked up the award for the “Best Engineered New Car”.
A big thank you to: Miss Rance, Ms Boag and our school governor Mark Hiller (chief engineer)
We were racing on half of the Top Gear circuit, an iconic place to be. First come first served, we had a great spot close to the pits for our paddock. Our main sponsor Royce UK (Cliff) was there with us for the first time. It was also our chance to qualify for the finals at Goodwood. A big day. Our target was to exceed 30 miles and we had 35 in sight if all went extra well.
With some parents supporting we had the gazebo up in no time at all. Then, only to discover that one of the bolts which attach the wheels to the car had been cross threaded. It would not go in however hard we tried. Three wheels is not an option! These are not regular bolts, they are M9 fine pitch drilled out. Nobody on the site was going to have a spare, nor did we have one. Fortunately, the camaraderie between rival teams is great and in no time we had been lent a file and were massaging the bolt back into shape. Hurdle number one crossed.
The team went off to walk the track and sort the driver order out. The format of the day is two practices, one of 90-mins, the other of 60-mins and the race which is 4 stages of 20-mins (one set of batteries for the 4). Experienced drivers were held back for the race but everyone was to get a go in the practice sessions.
The cookies came out, another feast of treats was on show!
Our drivers were excellent. First on the grid was Emily – as she hit the first bend disaster struck. We had a puncture. She did a fantastic job keeping the car straight and continued to race with the car pulling hard to one side. She was eventually black flagged with a totally shredded tyre. Despite this, she managed an amazing 5.5 miles and a speed of 24.8 mph for the time she was on track. At the pit stop we swapped out all our wheels just in case – great team work! The next three stages showed more amazing driving from Eleni, Lucy and Lois. They made it very exciting for the spectators, holding a great line on the corner, often overtaking on the bend and coming out a lot faster than the competition. The car was lapping extremely steadily at 25.5mph.
We did as follows:
Stage 1 28th Overall 24.8mph 5.52 miles (flat tyre)
Stage 2 10th Overall 25.7mph 8.56 miles
Stage 3 12th Overall 25.6 mph 8.53 miles
Stage 4 11th Overall 24.8 mph 8.26 miles
From the 40 teams competing on the day:
In the F24 Scratch we were 6th (Our prize category)
In all F24 we were 14th
We had around 15% unused power in the batteries, so 35 miles is not an unreasonable target (this would have put us on the edge of third prize)! Amazingly, all these miles come from 11p worth of electricity!
Even with a flat, we are on the cusp of the qualification distance for finals at Goodwood on 10 October (Our category is the distance covered by the top 30 Scratch cars during their best race). However, the super people at Greenpower have given us a place anyhow! Goodwood has a hill, so this will be an entirely new adventure for us!
We all arrived at Goodwood with butterflies in our stomachs. Driving on a new track; Goodwood of all the iconic places. What would it be like racing with 60 cars on a circuit? Had we charged the batteries properly? Would we have another puncture? Would our car with the Rudolf red nose work?
It is all very well looking at the data and projecting that we could be a top 20 car, but completely another thing to actually do it. A top 20 finish means being alongside veterans of the sport and only in our third ever race!
Luckily Mrs Burkett was there to keep giving us the positive vibes we needed, to do our very best. As all great leaders, she was confident we would do well!
There was a parade before the race and the team had a full range of outfits to keep Rudolph company, with Santa keeping them all in order.
We did a double take when we were given our grid position – number 18!
The official told us that this was based on the fact we had done three races and our total miles. We were left expecting to sink gradually lower down the ranks ending around 20.
The Union Jack flag was dropped and we were going well from the moment we set off. We held our place on lap one and as the time progressed we started to pick up speed and places and soon we were in 13th position. By the end of stage two we were in a very heady 9th position. Despite a very fast stage 4 we had dropped back to 11th position and held this to the end.
WOW what a result…12th with a distance of 36.7 miles, in with the top flight scratch cars (but still 5 miles off the winner) and possibly the best performing fully-geared car ever to compete. We also beat all of the kit cars!
On looking at the batteries afterwards, we had enough for a further lap spare, 7%, – worth a place or three. The experienced cars have data to adjust their performance for the final laps to leave much less in their batteries when the flag dropped so this is even more amazing.
It was an exciting race, there were lots of incidents on track, Status Quo span off and was badly damaged. We were run into the grass and cut up a few times. Our drivers were superstars!! We beat Whitgift and Uckfield (our two closest schools) and some other pretty impressive names too.
Driver 1 – 9.29 miles, 20.39 mins, 27.89mph PB lap 28.27 mph
Driver 2 – 9.17 miles 20.52 mins 27.6mph PB lap 28.14 mph
Driver 3 – 9.57 miles 20.02 mins 28.73mph PB lap 29.45 mph
Driver 4 – 8.65 miles 22.17 mins 25.63 mph PB lap 26.38 mph
(Driver 4 is not a true comparison of skill as the car ran out of battery)
A fantastic end to an amazing season! Thank you to the staff, parents and drivers for supporting the early starts and coming along to watch, it was great having you there.
The next season begins towards the end of March 2022 with most likely a practice session at Goodwood. We are aiming to have two cars and race both in both categories (i.e. two F24 races and two F24+ races per event) depending on the rules. Much more driving opportunities for all!
Official photos can be found here
Buckmore Park photos: A Rance
Goodwood FINAL photos: ©Lorna Pearce Year 13
Dunsfold Park photos: ©Lorna Pearce Year 13
Preparation photos – L Brown
