Who are Ysgol Bro Edern?
Ysgol Bro Edern is a Welsh community secondary school in Penylan, Cardiff just a few miles from CMB’s Cardiff Office.
In the last 5 years, Bro Edern have formed an F1 student-led team that takes part in F1 competitions and championships across the UK.
Pictured: Bro Edern F1 Team
How did CMB contribute?
Chloe, a student from the school, recently got in touch with our Managing Director Steve to enquire about sponsorship or support for their school. Luckily for Chloe she contacted the right person – Steve is a sports car fanatic and was taken aback by both the passion Chloe and her peers shared as well as the engineering element that these students have to be clued up on.
CMB committed to the Platinum Package with Bro Edern Astra team, donating over £600 to the school team. Mr. Dewi Thomas, a teacher at Bro Eder, commented on the funding saying: "The money has helped Astra develop a team identity, they have worked fast to order t-shirts for the UK finals. It has helped them further develop their pit display and to order materials and paint. Without your support, it would not be possible for us as a school to compete. We are very grateful - thank you".
How did Bro Edern get involved in F1?
Since 2017, Bro Edern have competed annually in F1 tournaments, with their first year of entry simply being an extracurricular activity for their sixth formers. However, by 2018/19, the team had become serious about this hobby, and they had their first success with year 11 team, Apex Alpha, who qualified in second place in the development class for the UK Finals. By 2019/20, they entered 5 teams for the first time, including a junior team which gave younger students a chance to gain experience in the sport.
By the time 2020/21 came about, the conversation about continuing the school team became a little harder. With COVID restrictions and lockdown measures in place, the students didn’t know how it would be possible to keep it going. However, thanks to the help of Google Meet and Zoom, they were able to organise their work flow and keep up the focus on the project despite the difficulty.
How does it work?
Each team has an amazing project manager who designs the cars at home on paper during their summer holidays. When they return to school in September they then learnt Fusion 360 and designed a CAD version on each car.
EESW then very kindly machined their cars and brought a racetrack to school for the students to test the cars while Imperium and Hypernova redesigned their cars after testing. In the meantime, the rest of the team set about completing Engineering drawings, Enterprise & Design portfolios and digital presentation. They sent all elements either digitally or in the post to F1 in Schools and they eagerly awaited the Wales wide digital race and results shows.
Bro Edern have already seen a great amount of success from their F1 endeavours, and we look forward to seeing everything else they achieve as their team and expertise develops.
Watch some of the schools videos on their YouTube page below:
F1 in Schools Regional Final Awards Show - Wales 2021 - YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPHNag5IW4Q&t=2408s>
F1 in Schools Regional Final Primary Class - Wales 2021 - YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_9705MZrqk&t=10s>
Published November 18th 2021.
