Xanthus
During the 2024 curriculum enrichment week, the car was built and driven by 6 students from the school, with the help of the Year 11’s.
This was a fantastic opportunity for students who are interested in STEM and offered the experience of building a race car from scratch!
They also made a start on Xanthus’ portfolio and researched the rival kit cars and which races to attend.
Two school-wide competitions were held: one to decide on the name of the car, and another to decide on the logo and colour scheme.
All the entries were carefully considered by the team, and we eventually settled on the name Xanthus.
The name belongs to the largest species of hummingbird, and as the new kit car is larger than Hummingbird, the name suits the new car whilst incorporating it into our Hummingbird legacy.
Our Branding Team then decided which colour scheme they thought suited the car the best and created a design for the outer bodywork of the car.
She said:
I decided to build Xanthus because I love being part of Hummingbird, and it was a good opportunity to see what the car [Hummingbird] would have originally been like, and how Hummingbird and all the other cars work because, as a driver, I don't see much of that. I also thought it would be cool to be one of the people who built the racing car and one of the first people to test drive it.
I really enjoyed making Xanthus during Curriculum Enrichment Week because I liked learning new skills and meeting new people and working as a team. It was quite busy as there was a lot to do, but very fun!
I learnt how to use wires and do the electrics of the car and how the team has adapted Hummingbird from a kit car to make it better. I also learnt how to build the main frame of the car and what is needed in a portfolio.
My favourite part was the driving at the end, because it was nice to see what we had built being used, and I enjoyed the building too!
I found doing the electrics probably the most challenging part because it was hard to find where the wires were meant to be plugged into, and it was sometimes hard to reach to plug in the wires.
There weren't many issues as we were building it, just that the car was quite big (compared to Hummingbird) and heavy, which meant that it was hard to carry up the science stairs, and the car didn't fit in lab 10, so we had to store it in the Newman Hall.