Patrician Brothersโ€™ College Fairfield students embraced a stellar opportunity to build their mentoring and problem-solving skills in a multi-school Solar Car Challenge.

The college hosted a race day after 22 of its Year 10 iSTEM students mentored pupils from four Sydney Catholic primary schools to design and build a car using solar power that can follow a 20-metre track of plastic conduit.

Students raced their vehicles in the regional Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) initiative ahead of the University of NSWโ€™s Sunsprint Challenge.ย 

The challenge asked students to examine the factors that affect the speed of a solar car in two-hour sessions across 10 weeks.

โ€œStudents appreciated how the disciplines of Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are integrated in designโ€ – Siran Galeb

Patrician Brothersโ€™ STEM Coordinator Siran Galeb said students were introduced to the challenge with trivia on types of energy and renewable and non-renewable energy sources.

Students built cars from an advanced kit of materials comprised of a solar module, motor, gears, wheels, corflute chassis and additional circuit components.

They tested and evaluated their initial car designs in a trial race.