Somewhere off Morgan Johnson Road, down a drive flanked by "Keep Out" signs in a brick building they call simply “the 800,” the engineering/racing team Slipstream constructs a wind tunnel to test the aerodynamics for itslatest creation. Fresh off a May win in national competition, the team is in the design phase of the racecar members hope will net another gold medal finish at the international competition in Abu Dhabi this coming November.

Here’s the catch, all five members of Slipstream are yet to graduate high school.

No, they’re not dropout savants; the team of high schoolers–Merritt Kendzior, Madelyn Kumar, Hannah Figueras, Domenic Aluise and Victoria Sinclair–are all competitors in the world finals of Formula 1 in Schools, an international science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) contest pitting students from around the globe against each other in a battle to create the best car, best display and best overall campaign for their team. Although the races are the centerpiece and watching the carefully engineered models hurtle down the track, blazing through 20 meters in the blink of an eye, is doubtless thrilling, the competition tests far more than a team’s engineering prowess.

“We’ve all competed in other STEM competitions and what we see with this program is that it encompasses so much more,” said Sinclair, graphic designer and manufacturing engineer for Slipstream. “You learn things about how you work with other people, you learn things about the world around you, you learn how to collaborate.”

While the team has certainly had to test their engineering skills, led by design engineers Kendzior and Aluise, they’ve also had to enter the world of marketing and networking, with Kumar writing press releases and making contacts and the team presenting work in front of crowded rooms, describing projects in a way that feels more like a sales pitch than a high school project. Sitting around the wooden table at the 800, the team looks more like a company board than a group of teenagers.

Since their win at Nationals, the students allowed no resting on their laurels, instead jumping back into the project with fresh ideas and lessons learned. Aluise connected with an engineer from Daimler, swapping notes and extracting tips and advice from the judge who was impressed by Slipstream’s performance. The team has even wrangled help from Yoshi Suzuka, an aerodynamics expert heralded throughout the racing world for his expertise, who arrived yesterday to assist in the wind tunnel construction.

“Usually to do these types of roles, we would have wait to until we’re adults, but with F1 in Schools, we can do everything a professional Formula 1 team is doing as teenagers,” said Kumar, resource manager for the team. “For my role, I have to create a marketing strategy and we were able to collaborate with a professional advertising agency. So many real-world applicable things come through this competition.”

But while Slipstream has earned its spot in the World Finals and the members are hard at work on a new design, they still have to actually get to Abu Dhabi. Community sponsors have stepped up and shown their support, with Two Scoops Ice Cream donating the building that became their headquarters and Ramm Recycling lending funds alongside local businesses such as Coastal Orthopedics and Net Biologics, among others, but the team is still seeking support to finance the production of their entrant.

For more information or to lend your support, follow the link to Slipstream’s website below.

Slipstream