2014 STLP State Championships

Racing to the Future™ Event
April 22, 2014
Rupp Arena – Lexington, KY

Spring has sprung and The Kentucky Student Technology Leadership Program’s (STLP) State Championships have rolled into Lexington, Kentucky’s Rupp Arena.
Every Spring Rupp Arena is taken over by students from all over the state. This year we had over 6000 students participating in various competitions from videography, computer repair, Sumobot wrestling and Racing to the Future™. STLP is a fantastic program that allows students to learn about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through the events and programs offered. This is the sixth year for Racing to the Future™ at KY STLP and we are growing, not only in the KY program but in other states and countries that have adopted the program for their schools. Maybe one day we can get a national championship started!

This year, we changed the racing format, so that every student raced every student in their age group. That made for a lot of racing, but by discarding the old bracket system, we eliminated the need for “byes” and there was much more fun seeing all students getting to race more often! Whoever has the highest number of wins takes the event. If there is a tie, we go back and look at the results for the race between the tied competitors. Which ever student, won that race, is moved up into the winning position breaking the tie.

Racing to the Future™ explores the physics, engineering, technology and math in teaching students how to build a competitive slot car. They are judged on their design and alteration, including the decoration and finish of their cars. Then they compete against each other on our scale quarter mile drag strip. Age groups are split into Elementary, Middle and High School for each of the 2 competitions, the Design and Engineering Competition and the Racing Competition. We award first and second place in each age group, for both competitions.
First place winners in the Racing Competition also get to take the AFX Champion’s Trophy to their school for the rest of the year and their name is engraved on the trophy, along with the year they won. In the Spring we collect the trophies from the schools for the next year’s competition. The schools receive a plaque to display with the student’s name and year they won, to help inspire the next group of students to compete in Racing to the Future™.

This year we had 79 students registered to compete, but due some make-up days due to snow earlier in the year, some were not able to make it to Rupp Arena this year. We did have 49 students ready to race, up 7 from last year! Our sponsors came through with flying colors again this year. Through their generous donations, our Student Racers competed for a great haul of prizes! AFX Racemasters, Auto World, Walther’s Life-Like, Bud’s HO Racing and Speed Inc all donated prizes and other items or offered discounts on their products to students, parents and teachers. All the sponsors went beyond our expectations again with race sets, cars, t-shirts and handout goodies for the students!

As you can see, the sponsors came through in fine fashion. We will have lots of happy students receiving new race sets at the end of the day!

Once again, we would like to thank our most generous sponsors in making Racing to the Future™ a success with the KY STLP State Championship events. Having great backers in AFX Racemasters, Auto World, Life-Like Racing, Bud’s HO Racing and Speed Inc really grabs the interest of the students and gives them wonderful awards for their efforts in this competition and keeps their motivation high.

Racing to the Future™ continues to grow, not only within STLP, but we have now expanded to include 13 states and 3 countries using the program in some form or fashion, as it best fits their needs. We have also grown to be able to participate in science fairs, summer camps and other education programs. We will also participate in the 2014 Innovations For Learning Conference, demonstrating how we use slot cars to teach math, science and reading skills.

This year we were not able to secure a 1:1 race car for display. So! If you own a race car, dragster, dirt-tracker, whatever goes fast, and you would like to display it at our state event, contact us through this website and we can see if we can make arrangements. April 2015’s STLP event is coming sooner than we think!

2104’s Racing to the Future™ Team

Many thanks to everyone on the Racing to the Future™ Team. This crew makes the event run smooth and ensures everyone has a good time racing!

Getting Everything Ready

We arrived a little before 6:00 AM at Rupp Arena and started setting up the track, displays, seating and projectors. It takes about two hours to get everything in its place, double checked and tested. So by 9:00AM, when the students started to pour into Rupp Arena, we were ready for registration.

It’s so nice to have a whole arena to stretch out in. But all this nice real estate will be filling up fast with student racers, slot car entries, and a very active audience!

You can’t tell it from this picture, but Donnie is getting a bit nervous that we haven’t set up our big projector screen yet! Helen, Donnie and Emily are getting ready to register the entrants and start setting up our racing schedule.

We did get the screen set up in time! That screen shows all of the standings during the event and keeps the audience up to date while they cheer on the student racers.

The Track – The Events – The Run Down

The track is a combination of Tomy AFX and Auto World and we use the Auto World Drag Strip Xmas Tree and Finish Line sensor systems. The Xmas tree counts down from red through yellow and green. It is also equipped with a foul light, so you can’t jump the light! If you do, you forfeit that race. Each lane is independently powered with matching AFX Tri-Power power packs set at the expert level. This year’s track was powered at 26.7 volts and 1.1 Amp per lane. The track has power jumpers evenly set in three places across a scale quarter mile measuring 20 feet 7 inches in length. There is a 15 foot braking area just after the finish line that is not powered. The track is ready, the power is on, and we are ready to go!
All we need now are the Student Racers!

So here’s the quick run-down of Racing to the Future™ event and the basic rules. The event is broken down into two main competitions. The first is the
Design and Engineering Competition, the second is the Racing Competition.
Both competitions are split into three age groups, Elementary School,
Middle School, and High School. All three age groups follow the same rule sets and rubrics for the competitions.

Design and Engineering Competition

The Design and Engineering Competition gives students an opportunity to show off their building, engineering, graphic design and decoration skills. Their entry must be raced and follow the size and safety guidelines in the Racing to the Future™ rule book. The entries are judged by a panel of Racing to the Future™ Officials. Cars are judged on their appearance, the design of their chassis and how well the student documented what they did to make the car perform faster. The documentation is required to enter the event. The judges award points in 6 categories and are tallied for part of the total score for that entry. The points are awarded based on the following:

• A. Internal Detail (0-10 points) – General appearance, neatness, realism of driver, roll cage or bar, and dashboard along with any other interior details will be considered here.
• B. Exterior Detail (0-10 points) – Areas to be considered include mirrors, numbering, lettering, decals, headlights, bumpers, engines, and any other exterior detail.
• C. Paint and Finish (0-10 points) – Quality of the paint, neatness of the application of the paint to the body and evenness of the coat will be considered here.
• D. Chassis (0-25 points) – General appearance of the work done and neatness will be considered here.
• E. Overall Impression (0-20 points) – Realism and the general aesthetic quality of the car will be considered here. Scale replicas and original paint schemes of equal quality shall be given equal consideration.
• F. Documentation (0-25 points) – Presentation of car design and changes made to improve performance. Details of documentation, presentation of ideas and understanding of the math and science behind the performance of their entry will be key components of scoring high in this portion of the Concours Competition.

In addition to the judges score, the public gets to vote on which car they like the best. Each person gets one vote. The entry with the most votes, for each age group, receives an additional 10 bonus points added to their judging score. The first and second highest scores for each age group are awarded prizes for their design, engineering and documentation efforts. My apologies for not taking pictures of the chassis this year. With the new racing program, I forgot to get the techie photos showing off the fine design work of the students.

Elementary School Design Winners

Middle School Design Winners

High School Design Winners

The Drag Racing Competition

The Drag Race Competition is where the rubber meets the road…Literally!!! And this year we changed up the racing format in a major way. We dropped the double elimination bracket in favor of a matrix in which every student races every student within their age group. After all the races are completed, we tally the win/loss record and whoever has the most wins…WINS! The student with the next highest number of wins takes second place. In the event of a tie for position, the following procedure below will break the ties:

In the sample below, Student 1 has 5 wins and takes 1st place. Student 3 and Student 4 are next with 4 wins each. Ties are broken by which student won in their race against each other. In this sample, Student 3 won against Student 4, so Student 3 gets 2nd place.

The matrix is computer generated from the entrant registration list and we set up the races with the first student on the list racing the remainder in the matrix. When they finish, we start the process over with the second student in the bracket, and continue until all of the students have race one another. Each pair of student racers are called to the line and Dan lines their cars up on the starting line. The Xmas tree is started and turns white, yellow, yellow, yellow, then green. A sensor lights up the red foul light if the student racer jumps the start before the lights turn green. If the student racer fouls, they are disqualified for that race and score a loss for that race only. Wins are made by the car that crosses the finish line sensor first.
The new formula worked perfectly and we received many positive compliments about the new program. The students were able to race many more times, the competition was closer because the winners needed to be consistent and the new formula clearly showed the winners at the end of the competition. This new program takes more time, but we ran 2352 races in just under 5 hours. Since we (the race officials, and the student racers) were learning this new system on the fly, we think we can trim the time it took to complete the event, down by at least another hour. But who noticed it took 5 hours? None of us! We were having WAY too much fun!!!

I want to recognize our student racers again, for showing a tremendous amount of class and sportsmanship during the event. We saw fist bumps, handshakes and high 5’s before and after a race. Several students helped each other with a spare parts (pick up shoes turned evil on us this year) and in at least one situation, a student volunteered their car to another student who was having a rough time with their car running up to par.

And I want to send a special thanks to Stan Shelby for assisting several students getting their cars fixed/running or scrounging up a needed spare part and in one case a body for one of the student racers. He has been a major contributor to Racing to the Future™ in Fayette County for the past few years and we really appreciate his participation and help to all the students in the state championship competition.

Elementary School Drag Racing Competition Winners

Middle School Drag Racing Competition Winners

High School Drag Racing Competition Winners

2014 – Racing to the Future™
Student Racers

Congratulations to all of our 2014 Racing to the Future™ Champions!!! Now let’s take a look at everyone that participated this year. We can take this chance to get a good look at their cars too! These students have put in a lot of wrench time to get their cars race ready and looking good for this year’s competitions.

Elementary School Student Racers

Middle School Student Racers

HIgh School Student Racers

The Racing Competition
-Elementary Schools-

The Racing Competition
-Middle Schools-

The Racing Competition
-High Schools-

It’s more than obvious, our student racers really get into the racing part of the program. Just from the body language, you can see the “serious”, the “concentration”, the “focused” and the “excited”!!!
This year we made an extra effort to show the role women have played in racing, in both 1:1 race cars and in the slot car hobby/sport. Well, our efforts paid off as we had a record number of young ladies sign up and race. And race they did! We look forward to increasing that number of participants next year!
We had a great group of student racers. The good sportsmanship, support and friendly, but competitive attitudes made the event a whopping big success!

The Awards Ceremony – Rupp Arena

So after all the racing is done and the last section of track is packed away, STLP has the awards ceremony for all of the events. We took some of the video from the awards ceremony to show the winners with their AFX Champion’s Trophies and STLP plaques and ribbons. A few weeks later we will visit the student’s schools and present their trophies, with their newly engraved names and dates on them, at their school’s award day or assemblies. Stayed tuned to this website! We’ll have coverage of the AFX Champion’s Trophy presentation at the schools in our next article!

Last but not least, I would like to thank everyone that helps make Racing to the Future™ possible. From the volunteers on the RttF Team, to the Kentucky Student Technology Leadership Program, Jeff Sebulsky and David Couch, the Rupp Arena staff and all the teachers, parents and students that go above and beyond to make this a unique event.

Of course we are already planning more activities for visits to schools, getting new programs fired up across the states, going to summer camps and clubs and planning next year’s regional and state events with KY STLP. We look forward to seeing new student racers and returning veterans, along with new schools and all their imaginations adding to what can be accomplished in this unique and growing program.

~Paul Shoemaker