Goroke zooms across state line
A team of Goroke P-12 College students are state champions, after taking out Quantum Victoria’s Print-a-car competition in Melbourne.
Teacher Louise Hobbs, who facilitated the program, said the school’s Porsche Pirates team finished first out of 40 entrants, with another entry from the school also making semi-finals.
Miss Hobbs said students were tasked with designing a 3D-printable car powered with a carbon dioxide cannister, creating a portfolio and taking into account scientific principles including downforce, dragresistance and velocity.
“It’s a little bit like a mini-olympics,” she said.
“The students have to launch it and they go down a 20-metre track. They normally reach the finish line in about one second and reach up to 80 kilometres an hour.
“The judges then go through and penalties are given to different cars, which is applied to their fastest time.”
Miss Hobbs said both school teams, the Porsche Pirates and Zoomies, reached the semi-finals in Melbourne. “We came runner-up in the final, but because of our cumulative score, we were the overall winner,” she said.
“Our other team had the fastest adjusted racing time.”
Miss Hobbs said the process of creating a car was time consuming, with printing alone taking 20 hours or more.
“We work on it all year here at Goroke,” she said.
“So much work and effort goes into it. It’s a big deal, especially for students from the Wimmera. There were all sorts of private schools there – our students couldn’t believe it. It’s a real confidence booster for them, which is really important.”
Miss Hobbs said, as state winners, the school took home a new 3D-printer from event sponsor 3D Printer Gear.
“We’ll use it for our print-a-car. In humanities, it will be used to create dioramas for different historical periods,” she said.
“It will also be used to 3D-print bands for chickens, to help identify them.”