KARACHI: Around 1,000 people, including around 200 participating students, held their breath with their eye glued to the 20-metre track in the central aisle at a spacious hall at the Karachi Expo Centre on Saturday. A track-side announcer provided the desired crescendo in the lead up to the final showdown, between teams Aerionix (from Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, or AKHSS) and Axion Racing, comprising students of private schools.

The team drivers had their palms on the buzzer, plunging which would send their miniature Formula One car model whizzing towards the chequered finish line.

The race was the culmination of four months, for most participants, of painstaking preparation and planning — which included mentoring by students and alumni of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) — as part of a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) racing competition.

Nuvex, a startup of over a dozen recent NUST graduates aspiring to bring high-end technology programmes to students, organised the competition. The competition is called Formula Pakistan, named after the student club of technology enthusiasts at their alma mater.

33 teams participate in STEM racing competition organised by Nuvex; Aerionix from Aga Khan School emerges victorious

The competition featured 33 teams, including school teams as well as individual students coming together, either of their own or after a nudge from the organisers. A team had six members on average, including engineers, designers and marketers.

Each team was provided three blocks of polyurethane, a highly versatile and durable synthetic polymer. Once the students designed their vehicle’s chassis on the software SolidWorks, a computer numerical control (CNC) machine was used to chisel and sculpt the vehicles. Then, students added 3D-printed components to the chassis, such as tyres, nose cone, wings, etc. The vehicle was then mounted with a carbon dioxide (CO2) capsule — the size of a ring finger — which provides the vehicle its accelerating force.

The students also designed team identities, created social media accounts and raised money for their teams.

On the day of the competition, the teams were marked on five different aspects: presentations on their engineering and design; a verbal presentation of their journey, including designing, branding and manufacturing; a 10-page enterprise document, to deal with the commercial side of the project; adherence to competitions requirements for the Formula One car; and, finally, speed.

Eleven teams’ cars failed the scrutiny part of the competition, as they violated the competition regulations provided in a 40-page booklet, says Abdul Mateen, co-founder of Nuvex. It included specifications such as weight (minimum weight 50 grams) to complicated ones requiring a minimum distance between front and back tyres.

“The students not only had to use what they learn in classrooms, such as laws of aerodynamics, but it required designing on computers, including 3D, creating simulations, and then moving to manufacturing phase, seeing what works and what doesn’t,” Mateen says. “Then, there was the commercial side, with one team even raising half a million rupees.”

Darsh Krishna, a 17-year-old from AKHSS and team captain of Aerionix, echoed Mateen sentiments. He told Dawn that being part of the team, and leading it, not only showed him the practical application of what he is learning, but also how to manage a team with tight deadlines.

His team, Aerionix, went on the win the speed race, getting almost twice the score of their rival. Krishna’s team also won the overall competition, bagging 623 out of 700 points. Drift X came second with 478 points.

But they weren’t the only winners. The team from Idara Al Khair won the best identity award, with 14-year-old Ribad showing off his trophy to his class-fellow Umme Hani.

Fizza Abbas from Lahore Grammar School’s Islamabad branch won the Women in STEM award. Sohani Chawla, a 19-year-old from Ghotki, was part of an all-girls team put together by the organisers, doing the designing and planning remotely.

Fatima from Nixor College made 120 cold calls and was able to raise Rs50,000 for his team. Her team-mate, Omar Saeed, gave an elevator-version of the competition and their journey to Dawn, despite having a food break at the end of a long and tiring day. All this time, the students made sure they weren’t littering.

There was also a bit of glamour, as students posed with Dina Patel, Pakistan’s first female drifter and a licensed Formula One driver.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2026