Published on: 3 November 2016



After a semester of hard work, the Year 9 Design and Technology, Materials and Engineering students proved their resolve when they raced their CO2 dragsters.

The project involved the boys learning a computer aided drafting program, analysing virtual testing and computer numeric machining of the cars, before manufacturing their dragsters by hand.

Using a CO2 soda bulb for propulsion, the dragsters were raced on a 20 metre track. The fastest eight cars were then chosen to represent the School at the State Championships.

Peter Carstens won the state competition with a time of 1.043s at 70km/h. Finn O’Callaghan came a very close second with a time of 1.077s at 68km/h and Alex Brown placed fifth with a time of 1.132s at 63km/h.

These top three Christ Church cars were then sent to the national competition where they excelled again. Finn O’Callaghan placed second in Australia missing first place by 58 thousandths of a second. Peter Carstens finished fourth missing a podium finish by four hundredths of a second.

The cars will be on display at the Design and Technology Annual Exhibition from 11 to 18 November.