Motorsports Engineering Club

Wow first post. I've loved reading about other peoples projects and cars. Now I feel like I finally belong.

My name is Steve Toth and I am a Tech-Ed teacher at Lower Macungie Middle School, in Macungie PA. I bought this car a few years ago for a few hundred dollars with the intention of making it a dedicated racer. At the time I wasn't sure if it was going to be Auto-X Rally-X or just some weekend track days. Long story short, what originally started as a project for me has certainly evolved over the years. The addition of a few new family members has left little (I mean absolutely zero) time for me to work on it during my own time. After exploring some options, my school's intensified focus on STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) has given this car second life. This year I started a new after school club to give students more exposure to engineering and design. I took applications and wound up settling on a really solid group of 8th graders that will be working on turning this 2003 ford focus zx3 into a dedicated hill climb car. The school has been incredibly supportive and currently we have a designated area of the parking lot where the kids meet a few days a week after school to work on the car. Long story short I'm no mechanic. I am an engineer and great with tools, and all types of fabrication. But building a racecar is something I am learning about as I move along with the kids. I ask for your forgiveness in advance if you see me asking what are obvious questions on the forums as we move through this project.

Also feel free to visit our website below. I always make sure to post weekly updates.

Hornets Racing

Take Care,

Steve

Sounds like a great opportunity and quite a boon to all involved. I'm assuming none of the 8th graders will be the driver.

That means free work for you and you get all the glory?

Good luck. I'll stay tuned -Durty

I've volunteered for a few STEM events with work that reach out ti kids of the same age - but your project looks much better than the ones I did for a couple hours! I hope you can keep the kids interested and get that car built with as much help as they can handle.

What a great opportunity for you and the kids! I would have loved to get involved with something like that in Junior High.

Best of luck.

Let me know if i can help in any way. About 10-15 min from Macungie. Am mechanical engineer and frequent autocrosser with a stalled hillclimb build too. For example, could certainly arrange for all the kids (guessing you have 10-ish?) to get ridealongs at autox events to give them an idea of what they are building for. Might still know some people associated with the Lehigh FSAE program. Answer questions about car prep or point you in the direction of local events if youre not already aware. Whatever.

Red. That would be AWESOME! Could you shoot me an e-mail to HornetsRacing@gmail.com so I can save your contact information? Just wanted to swing in here and post an update. We got 99% of the interior removed. And started doing some painting on the inside today. These three weeks have easily been the most fun of my teaching career. I'm so pumped with how into the project the kids are. You can check out weekly pictures of our progress on the "Car & Progress" section of our page. If any body has any leads on safety equipment namely a seat and a harness. It would be greatly appreciated! We also have a go fund me page posted on our site, if you want to share it out through facebook or twitter.

Thanks to everyone for the support!

http://www.hornetsracing.com

Update There are a few interesting things going on right now, and I feel like we are actually making progress. As always feel free to check out our website

We began the layout for the front grille of our car. Our car currently does not have anything in the opening of the front bumper. The students are going to design a custom pattern, that will then be machined out of plastic on our CNC router. This is the beginning of that process.

Work painting the interior continues. We also removed the doors. The interior and exterior of the doors will be painted seperately to allow for more room for student work.

Just wanted to post an update. We have been going strong on body work and our rustoleum $50 paint job. I'm definitely impressed with the work the students are doing. Certainly it's not a professional job, but to think that 11, 12 and 13 year old kids have done EVERYTHING on this car I think it's coming along nicely! We've also started a facebook group that you can follow along with our blog. I'll be continually posting pictures on this site.Hornets Racing Facebook

Sweet! That's a great project.

Awesome! Keep up the good work.

My daughters in 8th grade and chose choir over STEM but she enjoys music. This is a great project.