Audio Transcript

Published: March 17, 2018
APA 7 Citation: Newsome, B. (Host). (2018, March 17). Ep.45 Australian F1 Grand Prix & STEM [Audio podcast transcript]. Fizzics Education.
https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/australian-f1-grand-prix-stem/

Ben Newsome CF is the recipient of the 2023 UTS Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Churchill Fellow. He is a global leader in science communication and the founder of Fizzics Education.

[00:00:04]
Elyse Dawson: We’re always getting bigger and bigger, and this year it was exciting to have the STEM challenges and sort of get the kids thinking about this before the event. I think that’s really the direction that we’re sort of trying to go. It’s not just an excursion to come see cars at the event; it’s really a day of learning, but that also can be incorporated into the classroom before the event and afterwards as well.

[00:00:28]
Ben Newsome: And it is that attitude that’s making the Australian Grand Prix really shine for educators. We’re talking about the Industry and Innovation Precinct where over 30,000 students have registered to go learn about STEM. Tell you what, what a fantastic event.

[00:00:41]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:00:59]
Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Big week this week. It is all about the Australian Grand Prix, which is coming up in late March. Today we get to speak with Elyse Dawson, who heads up the Industry and Innovation Precinct. This is a really cool site. It’s been going for six years, which is all about showcasing Victoria’s innovation and capabilities in design and manufacturing. Seriously cool programme. They offer a free programme for students that attend on the Thursday and Friday prior to the main event, all about the Driving Learning education programme. It’s all about STEM and, seriously, like I said in the intro, we’re talking 30,000 students. Seriously cool workshops and career seminars and hands-on workshops and interactive displays. We’ll be there doing some science stuff too. It’s going to be a really cool event and you’re going to find out how you can get involved.

[00:01:48]
Elyse Dawson: So this is my second Formula 1 Grand Prix that I’ll be delivering. My main role is managing the Industry and Innovation Precinct. It’s an area at the event that showcases the latest in Victorian innovation and ingenuity. As part of the precinct, we offer a free education programme to all students to attend on the Thursday and the Friday of the event. It’s called Driving Learning.

[00:02:13]
Ben Newsome: Gosh, can you imagine what the students would be like just turning up to an event like that? It’s not every day you get to go to the Australian Formula 1. It’s a pretty exciting excursion.

[00:02:24]
Elyse Dawson: Just more than a little. I know there’s a couple of people here at work, and Justine, if you’re listening, I’m talking to you here. We’ve got someone who genuinely likes her motorsport. But how did I get involved with this? I started last year as a coordinator and I’ve sort of moved through the ranks a little bit quickly, which is good. And now I’m looking after this whole area and delivering the Driving Learning programme, which is really exciting. It’s a great programme to be involved with, encouraging students to take on STEM learning, showing them the cool career paths, and linking it back to Formula 1 and the technology behind the F1 race teams and what they do.

[00:03:06]
Ben Newsome: So how long has this precinct been around for the Australian Formula 1?

[00:03:10]
Elyse Dawson: It’s been about six years now. So it’s going from strength to strength, getting bigger and bigger. This year we’ve just ticked over 30,000 students registering for the programme, which is amazing. We have over 15 exhibitors in the area as well.

[00:03:27]
Ben Newsome: So just describe the space for us, because there’ll be some people guaranteed to be interested, and more importantly, may not have been to the site. Of those 15 exhibitors and things like that, what do they get to see?

[00:03:38]
Elyse Dawson: Sure, so as you know, it’s a park that gets transformed into the circuit for the event. One of the big football ovals that we call the precinct in the week of the event, we have the Australian Defence Force come in and they bring all their static displays. This year they’re bringing in a Navy helicopter, some of their armoured vehicles. The Air Force is bringing in a simulator, an Air Force simulator, so that’s really exciting this year. RMIT is one of our biggest partners and they have a 20-metre by 20-metre marquee with all sorts of their robots, 3D printing. They’ve got a big drone display as well, so outside of their marquee, they’ve got some of their bigger drones on display and showcased throughout the event.

[00:04:28]
Elyse Dawson: We have a seminar stage, so talent from Supercars and Formula 1 and the Defence Force talk about the different career paths that STEM learning can lead to. And then we also have some really great workshops. VicPolytechnic will be hosting some of them, and Fizzics Education as well.

[00:04:47]
Ben Newsome: You’ve got a lot of fun going on. I know there’s a lot of effort to be able to pull all these things together, let’s be honest, I know that for sure. But gee, it must be cool to just stroll around and just see all this happening all at once.

[00:04:59]
Elyse Dawson: It’s an amazing area. It’s just full of buzz, the latest tech and gadgets, VR experiences. The students love it. Even the staff love coming to my area because it’s just so different from everywhere else. A lot of learning, a lot of different new things that no one’s seen before. So yeah, it’s a really cool area.

[00:05:22]
Ben Newsome: One of the things that really grabbed my attention, I mean if you just jump on grandprix.com.au and just follow the links and things, the STEM design challenges are certainly something I thought was just brilliant and a really great way to work right from the really young kids right to the old kids. Let’s just have a bit of a chat about what that’s all about.

[00:05:38]
Elyse Dawson: Absolutely, that’s a really exciting part that we’ve just brought together for this year. We’ve worked really closely with the STEM Circle. They’ve created these challenges for us to include school curriculum. There’s the three challenges for the younger kids, middle kids, and secondary school kids. Each comes with its own set of challenges that they have to go through. And then they submit their final entry and we are awarding the winning school and the winning student at the event.

[00:06:10]
Elyse Dawson: We’ve got a really great partner that’s providing some prizes with their little mBot robotics, that they’ll be including a workshop to be hosted at the school as well. So it’s really beneficial for the school to get involved in it, and also the students to learn about all the different things that are happening, and then when they get to the event, they get to see it in live practicality, pretty much.

[00:06:36]
Ben Newsome: It’s awesome. I’m looking at these three specific challenges: Pit Lane Robot, Fastest Car on the Track, and Travel Smart. I can see you really got young ones, saying Foundation to Year 2, so those people in other states, we’re talking kindergarten and that type of thing. Let’s just go through each one, because I’m just really personally curious about what they get up to. Pit Lane Robot, what’s that all about?

[00:06:55]
Elyse Dawson: They get to design their own pit lane robot, which is quite cool. They’ll just sort of have a base of what they’re looking at and then create their own sort of idea of how it could work. The next one is more about coding. The next age group is more about coding and that’s getting Ricciardo around the circuit. The final challenge is more about transport. That’s a very present issue with us being in the city and how to get all the patrons into the venue and that sort of thing. So these are real-life problems that we face. It’s really great to get the students involved in a practical challenge.

[00:07:49]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, and it looks like you’ve got a lot going on. One of the things I was quite interested in as well is this programme around Driving Learning, getting career professionals in a line in STEM fields and all the rest going on. This has really come out of obviously the accumulation of six years of work. I kind of wonder where you’re going next. What are the plans over the years to come?

[00:08:12]
Elyse Dawson: We’re always getting bigger and bigger, and this year it was exciting to have the STEM challenges and sort of get the kids thinking about this before the event. I think that’s really the direction that we’re sort of trying to go. It’s not just an excursion to come see cars at the event; it’s really a day of learning, but that also can be incorporated into the classroom before the event and afterwards as well.

[00:08:38]
Ben Newsome: Now during the actual Grand Prix itself, have you had any interest from the public to see some of these exhibits?

[00:08:45]
Elyse Dawson: Oh, absolutely. Thursday and Friday are our dedicated schools days, but it’s definitely open to the general public as well. And then on Saturday and Sunday, you have your general punter come through and families and their kids come through. All the exhibitors are highly interactive and engaging. Even if you weren’t aware of what STEM was, it’s still really exciting to come through and see what’s happening, the VR experiences, the simulators, and so forth.

[00:09:16]
Ben Newsome: I’m just wondering as a student there walking through effectively a playground, it almost puts you on the spot in some ways, but out of all the different experiences, what is the one that is a complete bottleneck? Which is the one that students always completely crowd around?

[00:09:33]
Elyse Dawson: Simulators are pretty popular, but we do have a lot of VR this year as well, which I think will be really cool. And then new for this year is the Defence Force bringing their flight simulator, and RMIT will also have one as well. So I think they’re going to be very highly populated areas to get into.

[00:09:55]
Ben Newsome: Wow. Virtual reality can mean a lot of different things. Do you know what they get to see in that experience?

[00:10:02]
Elyse Dawson: So we’ve got Taylors, who are a surveying company that works closely with us, and they’ve actually got two elements. They’ve got augmented reality, so you put your glasses on and you’ll be able to see the whole circuit. And then we’ve got the VR experience of that where you put the goggles on and you’ll be on the circuit, and you can move around and you can point to areas and go straight to it. So they’re really cool, and then Victoria Polytechnic are also including a VR workshop into their micro-experiences.

[00:10:33]
Ben Newsome: I want to come! Everyone should get involved. It’s really cool. I guess out of interest, advice for teachers planning on bringing their classes to your event. What would you say would be a couple of things that you’d suggest as advice to get the students’ heads together before they arrive?

[00:10:54]
Elyse Dawson: We do have bag checking on the door, so it’s always good to, if possible, bring as little bags as possible, but also do the checking before you arrive just to not hold you up at the gate. Once you’re in there, make sure you have a meeting spot and meeting area so everyone knows if they get lost to go back to that area. Plan your day beforehand. So we’ve got all the seminars and the workshops up on our website to register before, so it’s always good to know what areas that you want to go to beforehand. And then I guess it’s Melbourne, so be prepared for all types of weather.

[00:11:34]
Ben Newsome: Four seasons in one day, right?

[00:11:35]
Elyse Dawson: Exactly.

[00:11:38]
Ben Newsome: Fair enough. And undoubtedly there’ll be people wanting to get in touch with you. Just before you give out all those details, obviously you’ve got mainly Victorian schools, do you get many from interstate coming in, that are schools, not so much the public?

[00:11:50]
Elyse Dawson: We have had a couple. Not many obviously for the travel factor, but there have been a few from New South Wales that have come down for it. We get lots of regional schools that come for it as well, so that’s really great they make the trip over.

[00:12:03]
Ben Newsome: Fantastic. So obviously we need to make sure that people know how to get in touch with you or find out more about the event. How would they do that?

[00:12:10]
Elyse Dawson: They can register online. On our website, there’s the Industry and Innovation Precinct tab, and part of that is the schools programme. If you click onto that, it’s got all our details and also has the registration. You could also email [email protected].

[00:12:27]
Ben Newsome: No worries. And what are the important dates that people really want to get themselves involved in?

[00:12:35]
Elyse Dawson: So 22nd to the 25th is the Grand Prix, and Thursday the 22nd, Friday the 23rd, that’s the school days. That’s where we offer the free tickets for the schools to come through. It’s a general admin ticket, so not only do they get to come to the precinct and be part of all the activities within the precinct, but they’ll get to have on-track viewing and go around the whole venue and check it all out, which is really exciting.

[00:13:01]
Ben Newsome: No worries. And if you are getting involved with the STEM design challenges, as well, just remember that March 12 is the date that you must get your challenges submitted by.

[00:13:08]
Elyse Dawson: Yes, so we have extended that to the 16th. Any more submissions coming through, please get them in. And register for it beforehand too.

[00:13:18]
Ben Newsome: Awesome. Well, thank you very much for popping in. I know you’ve got a lot to sort out. I mean, it’s not that far away before it’s game on.

[00:13:25]
Elyse Dawson: No, it’s very close. Scary but exciting.

[00:13:28]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, it’s good fun. You must have quite a little bit of a break after it.

[00:13:33]
Elyse Dawson: Oh we do. We have a good party at the end, and then we have a couple of days that we close the office and a refresh.

[00:13:39]
Ben Newsome: Understandable. Well, enjoy it and hope we get to see you trackside.

[00:13:44]
Elyse Dawson: Hope to see you all there.

[00:13:49]
Ben Newsome: Well there we go, we were speaking with Elyse Dawson, who is the manager for industry integration at the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. What a cool job. She’s in her second year doing it and I must say, being able to stitch together all these fantastic providers is all about rich experiences. It really is. I mean, can you imagine students doing AR and VR stuff with really cool tech being brought into the room from all these different providers?

[00:14:15]
Ben Newsome: I would love to be there and I must say I’m going to see if I can make my way down. It’s going to be fantastic. And if you can’t make your way down, coming up after the break we are going to do some of the experiments that are all about the Bernoulli principle, which by the way keeps these cars, these seriously fast cars, on the ground as they whip around the circuit. It’s going to be a bit of fun.

[00:14:30]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re all about science, ed tech and more. To see 100 fun free experiments you can do with your class, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S and click 100 free experiments.

[00:14:48]
Ben Newsome: When it comes to F1 cars, obviously they’re very fast. We all know that they’re very quick. But it’s not just about designing engines that make this car seriously fly along the track. The issue is they really want to fly. If you go too fast, air gets underneath the car and pushes it up into the sky. The surfaces of the car itself have to be designed so the cars literally don’t fly off the track. The way they get around this is using Bernoulli’s principle.

[00:15:08]
Ben Newsome: Who was Bernoulli? He was a mathematician and he did a lot of work around how fluids flow and what are their pressures. We won’t go into the maths because it’s a podcast, but just know for now that if you have fluids flowing, the faster they go, the lower the pressure, which is very counter-intuitive. You’d think fast fluids would be high pressure but they’re not. They’re actually low pressure. You can go check that out, look up Bernoulli, B E R N O U double L I, and you can go read up to your heart’s content.

[00:15:38]
Ben Newsome: But for now, it turns out that air flows like a fluid, especially as it goes over surfaces. It’s that principle that low pressure is found in fast-moving fluids like air, which acts like a fluid, allows these cars, which are almost like planes in some ways, they’re going so fast, to stay on the ground. Now, how do they do that? It’s all about those surfaces that are curved, those aerofoils. If you’re not sure what an aerofoil is, think about the wings on a plane. They’re curved, right?

[00:16:08]
Ben Newsome: That curve on a plane wing, the air will go over the top of the wing and it’ll go underneath the wing, and there’s a longer distance going over the top of the wing compared to underneath the wing. Turns out as the air goes over the wing, it’ll stick to the wing due to an effect called the Coanda effect. As this air goes over the wing, it has to go faster over the wing than it does underneath the wing.

[00:16:30]
Ben Newsome: By the way, let’s be honest, there’s actually a bit of conjecture about what actually makes a plane fly up in the air, and feel free to send us some feedback because I undoubtedly know there’ll be an engineer going, ‘This is exactly how it works.’ But anyway, the air going over the wing, in a simplistic way, is travelling faster over the wing because there’s a longer distance to travel than underneath the wing.

[00:16:48]
Ben Newsome: What’s this got to do with keeping the plane in the sky and therefore the F1 car on the ground? Well, if the air’s running over the top of the wing that’s quite fast, that will be low pressure above a plane wing. That means air underneath the wing has high pressure. There’s a science rule that says high pressure moves into low pressure. So as your plane takes off, you’ll see it’s got a nice curved wing, especially the big 747s and things, that forces air to rush over the wing quite fast and you create a massive amount of lift.

[00:17:19]
Ben Newsome: You get this pressure differential where high pressure pushes the plane up into low pressure. Now think about the F1 car. If you have a look at it, especially as they’re rushing around the track at the Australian Grand Prix, you will see curved surfaces again. Well, they are aerofoils and they create lift, only in this case, the lift is not forcing the car up into the air, it’s forcing the car down onto the ground.

[00:17:40]
Ben Newsome: What could you do in the classroom to make this a bit easier to show kids? Here’s your homework, here’s what you’ve got to do. Get yourself some toilet paper. Get yourself a leaf blower. Seriously, get yourself a leaf blower. And get yourself a paint roller. Put your toilet paper onto your paint roller and peel the paper off just a bit so it’s hanging down a little bit like you’d see in a bathroom stall.

[00:18:04]
Ben Newsome: Show the kids the cross-section. The cross-section of a toilet paper roll is actually not that much different to the aerofoil cross-section that’s found on F1 cars or on a plane. All you need to do now is hold your paint roller up, have the paper hanging down away from where a leaf blower is, and get someone to turn the leaf blower on and let the air rush over the top of the paper.

[00:18:25]
Ben Newsome: Knowing that that fast air has low pressure means you have a tremendous difference in pressure between the top of the paper and below the paper. Remember that fast air is low pressure, right? Which means you have a lot of high pressure which will lift that paper up into the air. Because the toilet paper’s on a paint roller, it’ll start rolling crazily and you’ll shoot paper all the way over the room.

[00:18:46]
Ben Newsome: It’s a very simple experiment but I tell you what, it seriously grabs kids’ attention and helps show that Bernoulli’s principle generally allows planes to fly in the sky and F1 cars to stay on the ground.

[00:18:57]
Ben Newsome: Let’s be honest, there is no way a kid is not going to pay attention when you bring out a leaf blower. It’s loud and it does all its stuff, air going everywhere, kids are going to pay attention if you show that in your classroom or museum or whatever. If you haven’t got access to a leaf blower, you can actually show Bernoulli’s principle in a simpler way. Get yourself a funnel and get yourself a table tennis ball, like those ping-pong balls.

[00:19:23]
Ben Newsome: All you’ve got to do is hold your funnel up as if you were going to pour liquid down through it so it’s upright, and put the ball into the funnel. That’s all it is, just two simple objects. What you do is you get yourself a volunteer from the audience, get them from the classroom and get them to stand up and ask them to blow the ball out of the funnel. Let’s be honest, a table tennis ball is incredibly light.

[00:19:43]
Ben Newsome: So people look at you funny going, well, that’s pretty easy, right? They will try and blow the ball out, but I must say they nearly always put their mouth on the funnel’s spout and blow as hard as they can. And you know what? You can’t do it. In fact, we call it the Impossible Puff on our website because it’s impossible. The harder you blow, the worse it gets because you’ve got this curved surface on the ball.

[00:20:11]
Ben Newsome: Remember we were talking about aerofoils in the last little segment? That curved surface is a bit like an aerofoil as well. Remember that things move from high to low pressures and the faster the air, the lower the pressure. Just like we were talking with the Bernoulli thing, moving air will move from high pressure to low pressure. When you blow on the bottom of that funnel really, really hard, the fastest air is beneath the ball and the slowest air is above the ball.

[00:20:36]
Ben Newsome: That means that the harder you blow this ball, the pressure above the ball holds it down. You get yourself a stronger differential in pressure and you can never really blow it out. How do you blow the ball out of the funnel? You actually hold the funnel so it’s sort of below your mouth, so the widest opening is below your mouth, and if you blow across the top of the funnel, air from underneath the funnel will then push upwards from slow air into fast air and take the ball up in the air too.

[00:21:13]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. Why don’t you book us for a science show or workshop in your school? We love seeing students get excited about science, and you will too. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au and click on schools for more info.

[00:21:28]
Ben Newsome: So you can really use Bernoulli’s principle in a lot of ways to show how the Australian Grand Prix truly works from keeping the cars on the ground. Here’s one more experiment which will keep the kids very interested and teach them at the same time. This one is called Blow Them Apart. By the way, all these experiments you can find on the Fizzics Ed website. Just type them into the search bar, I guarantee you’ll find them.

[00:21:49]
Ben Newsome: If you look in the free experiments section, there is a force and movement section which has this stuff all listed. Last one, here’s what you need. You need two balloons. You need a rod, like a stick basically, and if you can’t get yourself a stick, just get yourself a volunteer. You need some string and that’s about it. Blow your balloons up in identical sizes, like the size of your head. For some people, it might be bigger.

[00:22:11]
Ben Newsome: So you’ve got two balloons and what you’re going to do is tie string onto those balloons, a reasonable length of string, about 30 or 40 centimetres. Either your volunteer holds the string so the balloons hang down at even heights, or you tie those strings onto that stick that you’ve got and put the stick across a stack of books or something so the balloons hang at the same height.

[00:22:34]
Ben Newsome: You say to the students, “What I need you to do is blow as hard as you can between the balloons and your job is to get the balloons to push apart.” Of course they’ll go, “Well, that’s pretty straightforward.” They will try and they will likely fail. The reason why is it’s the same thing as what we were talking about before. You’ve got fast air going between the balloons and slow air on the outside of the balloons.

[00:22:58]
Ben Newsome: Remember that slow air moves to fast air because high pressure moves to low pressure, and the balloons will come together as you blow. There is a bit of a confounding part of this experiment. It works with balloons, but the problem is they bounce off each other because they’re bouncy, which means maybe what you could do as a variable test is to try different objects.

[00:23:17]
Ben Newsome: Maybe you could try tennis balls, footballs, soccer balls, basketballs, balloons, or maybe cubes. The reason being is that does it really matter whether it’s curved or not? It’s just worth a bit of a try. Anyway, I hope you’ve had a bit of fun with this particular podcast. The Australian Grand Prix is just around the corner in late March. However, you can still get involved with doing all this stuff.

[00:23:41]
Ben Newsome: I’d really encourage jumping on the Australian Formula 1’s website and checking out all the details. In the meantime, I hope you’re making your classroom and your museum, your zoo, your aquarium, wherever you happen to be working, as vibrantly cool and engaging as possible. You’ve been listening with me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I will catch you next week.

[00:24:00]
Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the primary goal of the Industry and Innovation Precinct at the Australian Grand Prix?
The precinct aims to showcase Victoria’s innovation and ingenuity in design and manufacturing. Through the Driving Learning programme, it provides a free educational platform where students can engage with STEM concepts, explore various career paths, and see the real-world application of technology used by Formula 1 race teams.

What are the specific STEM design challenges offered to students?
There are three main challenges tailored to different age groups: Pit Lane Robot (aimed at Foundation to Year 2 students for design), a coding challenge involving Daniel Ricciardo (focused on middle years), and Travel Smart (focused on transport and logistics for secondary students).

How does Bernoulli’s principle apply to the aerodynamics of an F1 car?
Bernoulli’s principle states that as the speed of a moving fluid (like air) increases, its pressure decreases. F1 cars use curved surfaces called aerofoils to force air to move faster. Unlike an aeroplane wing that creates lift, these surfaces are inverted on a race car to create a pressure differential that pushes the car down onto the track, known as downforce.

What interactive technologies can students experience at the precinct?
Students have access to a wide array of high-tech displays, including flight simulators from the Australian Defence Force and RMIT, 3D printing demonstrations, drone displays, and Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) experiences that allow them to explore the circuit and engineering micro-experiences.

What logistical advice is provided for teachers bringing school groups to the event?
Teachers are encouraged to pre-register for specific workshops and seminars via the Grand Prix website. On the day, they should perform their own bag checks before arrival to speed up entry, establish a clear meeting point for students, and ensure the group is prepared for Melbourne’s unpredictable weather.

Extra thought ideas to consider

Real-world STEM contexts: Consider how large-scale sporting events like the Australian Grand Prix act as “living laboratories.” Educators can use the high-stakes environment of professional racing to demonstrate that physics and mathematics are not just textbook subjects but are critical tools used to ensure safety and performance at the highest levels of global sport.

The “Coanda Effect” and fluid dynamics: In the interview, the Coanda effect is mentioned as the tendency of a fluid jet to stay attached to a convex surface. This provides a great starting point for a classroom discussion on how engineers manipulate air flow not just with wings, but across the entire body of a vehicle to improve efficiency and grip.

Career diversity in innovation: The presence of the Australian Defence Force, surveying companies like Taylors, and universities like RMIT at the event highlights that a STEM education leads to a vast range of careers. Discussing these diverse pathways can help students recognise that “innovation” isn’t limited to a laboratory—it spans across urban planning, military tech, robotics, and professional sports management.