It’s less than a month now before the start of the 19th Aramco F1 in Schools World Finals at Dhahran Expo in Saudi Arabia. We’re excited to tell you that Team LEAF1, the UK F1 in Schools National Champs (from Simon Langton School in Canterbury) that we have helped support have been very busy over recent weeks and months with lots of activities – as well as preparing for the Finals!
Earlier in the year we were able to sponsor the team with an additional £2,000 thanks to the generous donations of two anonymous donors. The donations will help the team travel and stay in Dhahran for the competition. It’s really nice to be able to back such a bright, hardworking and enthusiastic team – and of course we support the their promotion of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Over the last few months the team has carried out a number of school visits and virtual consultations in order to get other schools involved with the F1 in Schools competition. They’ve also built the first (of many, they tell us) “living walls” to offset their carbon emissions; in the meantime they’ve visited multiple Business Network International (BNI) meetings to raise additional sponsorship.
As for engineering – apparently it’s all quite “hush-hush” at the moment, although they tell us that they have made technical partnerships with two of the F1 teams. The youngsters also visited the British Grand Prix at the start of the summer holidays (one of their prizes for winning nationals), and three of their members have completed their week’s work experience with the Williams’ F1 team!
On top of all this they have introduced a “Bottle Cap Recycling Project” at their school as part of their LEAF1 Inspire and LEAF2 Eco initiatives – in which students can transform their bottle caps into key rings and so get introduced to design. “Parents, students and teachers alike have come together to donate all their bottle caps,” they state on Instagram. The team also visited The Big STEM Challenge at Sandwich Discovery Park where they gave a brief talk, while back at school they’ve taken part in their school’s open evening. Well done to them for doing such a lot, all between their studies!
The team has continued to get more sponsors on board – but if you or your company would like to help these local youngsters attend the World Finals, you can donate to their GoFundMe appeal here or contact them via their website here. Also, why now follow them on social media (e.g. on Instagram)?
Picture: One of LEAF1’s carbon offsetting “living walls”. Picture credit: Team LEAF1/Simon Langton School (reproduced with permission).
