Brentwood F1 in Schools team competing in Abu Dhabi

The Brentwood High School auditorium erupted in cheers as a tiny sleek silver car with teal accents appeared on the large screen.

It’s that car — along with the seven students who created it — that Brentwood is hoping will catapult the school to a world championship at the F1 in Schools World Finals in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, taking place Nov. 24-27.

“It feels like all of our hard work has finally paid off,” said Paige Umbel, the team’s lead graphic designer.

Members of this year’s team, named Team Valkyrie, left Pittsburgh on Nov. 19 to head to Abu Dhabi to race their miniature car and present all of their work to a team of judges. The competition is down to about 55 schools. Only the top three from the U.S. made it to the world competition.

Team Valkyrie raised $50,000 to be able to make the trip.

The team consists of Umble, manufacturing engineer Ethan Wright, team manager Abby Klemm, lead design engineer Peter Carozza, manufacturing design engineer Aidan Davis, assistant graphic designer Paige Mortimore and graphic designer Cecilia Foley.

“It’s such a sense of accomplishment,” Carozza said of making it to the world competition.

Over the past several years, Brentwood has become a standout in F1 in Schools, which requires students to form a miniature race car business, where they design a car, along with a “pit display,” and raise funds to support their company. This is the third team from the small district, with about 1,200 students, to qualify for the world competition in the last six years.

“There’s a lot of hard work that goes into this,” said Jennifer Hughes, digital media teacher, who oversees the program along with technology, engineering and design teacher Beau Sedlar. “These kids really go above and beyond.”

The team has been working for more than a year on the car. They’ve designed, then redesigned. Carozza estimates between research and designing the car that he alone spent 1,400 hours on the project.

Students from both Elroy and Moore elementary schools gathered inside the Brentwood High School auditorium on Nov. 15 to learn more about the team and give them a proper send-off. That was followed by a pep rally held with the high school that combined both the football team headed to the WPIAL semifinals that night and Team Valkryie.

Students said they liked that the school was holding a pep rally for more than sports. It showed the importance of academics.

“It’s pretty incredible. We’re a really small school. In the Pittsburgh area, people are like, ‘Where is Brentwood?’ To be able to take our tiny little district to the worlds three times is just incredible,” Klemm said.

Headed to Abu Dhabi, the students are not only excited for the competition, but also for the cultural experience. While there, they’ll visit a grand mosque and ride camels. During a layover in Amsterdam, they’ll even visit the Anne Frank House.

“School never stops, even when we’re on these really exciting trips,” Hughes said.

The students know a trip like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, they say.

“I’m very excited, but also very nervous,” Foley said. “I’ve never been outside the country before.”

The youngsters from Moore and Elroy were excited to watch their bigger peers at Brentwood achieve such big success in academics.

Layla Ho, 10, a fifth-grader at Moore, was wowed by the car, and hotel the team was staying at in Abu Dhabi.

Aidan Leach, 10, a fifth-grader at Moore, said this taught him that “you need to pay attention in class, especially in science and engineering.”

Both Aidan and Layla already were talking about ways they could alter miniature cars to hone their skills in elementary school so they can someday join the F1 team at Brentwood High School.

For Team Valkyrie, they have big hopes for the competition. They want to win. But they also want to enjoy the experience.

“We can’t forget to have fun though,” Carozza said.

Follow along with the team on their journey through Twitter at @Valkyrie_Racing.