“Race to the Future™ STLP KY State
Championships – Slot Car Competition
The Event: Tuesday, May 11th 2010, a group of thousands of students, teachers, parents and staff descended on Lexington Kentucky’s Rupp Arena for the Kentucky State Student Technology Leadership Program’s (STLP) State Championship. And what is STLP? The Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) is a project-based learning program that empowers students in all grade levels to use technology to learn and achieve. It was established in 1994 by the STLP State Advisory Council, which is composed of teachers, students and community leaders. Student-designed projects, products and services are created to help the school and community.
The program is open to ALL students in all grade levels in every school (P-16) in Kentucky.
Along with all of the student’s projects, several interactive displays were on hand to demonstrate how technology is applied in the every day world. Since last year’s slot car event, we built a program using HO slot cars and visited each of the eight education regions across the state. Tracks were set up in regional universities, and the students (elementary, middle and high school) like last years STLP State Championship event, learned related science and math and how they can be tied into slot car racing through improved performance and design. This was so successful, we moved a step further for this year’s STLP State Championship event, and had the students build a car, decorate it and race it for awards. We also had a vote-based concoures competition as well.
The Concept: This year we added the challenge of competition and artistic talent to the program. Students pre-registered in March for this event. When they arrived in Lexington’s Rupp Arena in May, they checked in and received a grab bag with a complete car, a second white undecorated body, some peel and stick decals, and tools. They were also instructed to bring paint, markers, decals stickers, tires gears, etc to work on their cars. They were given 3 hours to build, decorate and tune before the concours voting and racing would begin.
The Track, The Cars, and The Timing Setup: The track, power supplies grab bag cars, blank bodies and banners were donated by Tomy AFX and Steve Russell. We all thank you Steve and AFX, it may not have happened otherwise! The drag strip was constructed with AFX track, with three power jumpers added to ensure even power. A 20 foot powered section was wired with light bridges and photo sensors tied back to a laptop running Mario van Ginneken’s Slot Race Manager program, configured to capture the time of each pass down the strip. A braking section of 15 feet was added to make sure everyone could be stopped in time and with no damage to their cars. Controllers were out of the box AFX units, painted to match the lane color it controlled. Power was supplied to each lane independently from two AFX 21.7 volt wall packs. So we had plenty of power and no surges. We also built driver’s stations so the racers could face the Xmas tree lights on the starting line. The cars were box stock units from AFX (SRT Turbo Chassis). Students were allowed to alter their cars so long as they were no wider than 1-5/16ths inches wide and posed no hazard to themselves, track or other racers, cars or spectators. Many changed tires and gears and there was some creative decorating in the midst too.
http://www.cenobyte.nl/slotracemanager/hoofdframe.html
The Cars: AFX donated the cars for this event. SRT chassis were the order of the day and made for some great competition. This was the first slot car experience for many students and the SRT chassis made things simple to understand and to work on. AFX also donated a spare undecorated body, the GT 40. Here are the cars that were submitted for the concours competition.
The Racing: The racing format was based on a double elimination system. The winner of each race moved on in the first bracket, each loser moved to a secondary bracket with the chance to move back into the final race for the championship of their age group. The age groups were broken up into Elementary, Middle and High School. This year was a bit rougher on Kentucky with large snow falls and floods. Many schools had to reschedule year end testing activities and were not able to attend the Lexington event. This affected all of the events including Race to the Future. We still had a really good turn out for the first attempt at this level of involvement and had many students and teachers asking about how to get involved in next year’s event. The competition and creativity was present in every student that participated. And the many of the races were decided at the line and who got the fastest jump on green!
The competition brackets were operated from another laptop and projected on a large screen so the spectators could keep track of the race results. And we were pleasantly surprised by how many parents and students came out to support the racers. They filled a section of Rupp’s seating and did they cheer their favorites !!! We also had sound effects of real dragsters taking off from the line every time a race started. The roar of engines, the crowd cheering and the competitors psyched up, this became a racing event!
Below are some action shots of the students racing. I believe we captured a shot of everyone, so racers, look for your faces in here. These are in no particular order.
I’m sure am glad I wasn’t racing. I lose the stare down before the race started!
Here are some more at the line…
Here are some more “At the Line” shots….
Take a look below and check out the brackets and times that were turned.
The Results: The “Race to the Future” event was a huge success! Everyone had a great time. Teachers, students and parents were all involved, racing, cheering, voting, painting and decaling. Awards, necklace ribbons inscribed with “Race to the Future” with an STLP medal were presented to the 1st and second place finishers in the racing event. Concours did not carry an award this year, but the winners were given an honorable mention during the awards ceremony. The awards were held later that evening and our guest speaker was Phillipe Cousteau from the Discovery Channel. The students were brought up to the stage at Rupp Arena and presented their awards.
Elementary School Division: Drag Racing Competition
Winner: Tommy Carr Second Place: Alisha Mayberry
Elementary School Division: Concours Competition
Winner: Kegan Duncan Second Place: Tommy Carr
Middle School Division: Drag Racing Competition
Winner: Dalton Wheatley Second Place: Drew Cline
Middle School Division: Concours Competition
Winner: Dalton Wheatley Second Place: Claire Vice
The racing competition was really tight. Most races were decided in thousandths of a second. Dalton Wheatley came up from the loser’s bracket to get back into the final race and took the championship in the middle school division. Tommy Carr won the Elementary School Division with a very well prepared car and a consistent jump off the line when the lights turned green! Concours was decided on with a vote. Anyone watching the races could vote on who’s car they thought looked the best. The Elementary School Division was decided by 1 vote with Kegan Duncan squeaking by Tommy Carr The Middle School division was nearly as close with 4 votes making a win for Dalton Wheatley with Clair Vice coming in a close second.
All of these kids did a fantastic job. For most, this was there first time racing a slot car. And I can safely say, they all want to do it again! By using the slot car as a teaching tool, students learned a great deal about physics through magnetism, electricity, weight and mass and cause and effect. Figuring gear ratios and tire height brought math into the equation. This really brings the ideas of STEM and STLP to a fun event that was enjoyed by all.
And Now The Many Thanks….
I would like to thank the following people, businesses and organizations that helped make this a reality.
Dan Gorman, my right hand throughout all of the Race to the Future events. Dan without you, your focus and great announcer voice, no one would know where to be and what to do. You also get the best roadie award for setting up and tearing down a lot track, tables, posters, banners, extension cords and whatever else came along!
Donnie Walker, You kept all the records, came up with programs for the brackets and figured out who raced who and when! Donnie also covered the scene with camera in hand. He captured most of what you see here. Can’t wait to see what we come up with for next Spring.
Elaine Harrison-Lane, Director of the state efforts with the Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP). Elaine gave us the chance to make the little electric cars a learning opportunity and to show Kentucky’s students a new hobby that can take them to new ideas and maybe a different future.
David Couch, Associate Commissioner, Office of Education Technology (my boss) who gave me the resources and time to bring this new idea to the students across the state.
And Thank You to Our Sponsors:
Tomy AFX and Steve Russell, Steve heard about this idea and was ready to jump right in. He saw the possibilities of how the students could learn and maybe adopt this new concept as a hobby they can learn from for the rest of their lives. Steve made sure we had cars, track, banners, and all the goodies that can make an event like this work. Race to the Future cannot thank Steve and Tomy AFX enough. You have been a partner through all of this from the very beginning and we very much appreciate your generosity and efforts.
Slot Car Illustrated and Alan Smith, has provided us a venue on which to share the progress of our events and has been very supportive in the spreading of the slot car hobby and the idea of getting the next generation involved. Thank you Alan for having the foresight and generosity to allow our news be hosted on your site. And an extra thanks to Mike Litpak who makes what I send look so good when it gets up on the SlotCarIllustrated.com web site!
Bud’s HO Racing and Robert Budano, Robert was new to us this year and he helped me make sure if students wanted to do a little extra, he would have the parts and knowledge to assist. I’m not certain how many calls or orders he received (I hope a lot) but I’m glad he made himself available to our student racers.
Slot Race Manager and Mario van Ginneken, Mario created the Slot Race Manager program we used to time all our races. He has a really good product, designed to be set up easily and not requiring NASA level hardware to make it work well. Mario answered several emails from me about what to do and how to program his software. He’s a great guy and has a really good product.
Promote the Hobby!
Thanks to the efforts of everyone above and several more working in the background, Race to the Future has become a success for the Students of Kentucky. We have now been added as a regular event for the STLP State Championships in Kentucky and look forward to bringing this learning opportunity, excitement and fun to the next group of students returning for more and introducing this to the next new group of students.
This was a unique opportunity for me to be able to share this hobby with so many kids at one time. I often display a portable track at YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs. I’m a big believer in sharing the hobby and trying to get the next generation involved in order to keep our hobby alive and well for the future. You will have to invest some time, but believe me, when you see the kids’ eyes light up, or better yet, they start asking question about how they work, can I make it go faster, what makes it stick to the track, it’s all worth it.