Team Queen Protea (left to right) Sibahle Dlamini, Nasreen Bayat, Lerato Mokoatle, Andiswa Shange, Akira Arjoon and Aaliya Mahomed.
Team Queen Protea and Team Elly from Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School celebrated huge success at the Mahle F1 in School’s challenge, securing first and third place respectively and taking home all but two of the awards for the day.
On Friday, 23 August at the Pavilion in Westville, the event started with the racing where there was a great deal of excitement watching their 20cm cars whizz down a 27m long track. The first heat was Team Elly racing against Queen Protea. These heats were based on time and by the semifinals both teams had not yet been eliminated. Queen Protea went on to the finals while Team Elly lost their semifinals.
Then came the more important aspects of the day, the presentations and engineering questions. Both teams excelled at these, receiving countless compliments from a number of judges on both teams’ confidence and preparation.