Some of Canada’s brightest young minds in high school science, technology, engineering and math are in North Bay, Ont., this weekend as the country hosts its first-ever STEM Racing 2026 Canadian National Championships. The event marks a major milestone for STEM education in Canada and a historic first for the country. ‘Everybody’s into this stuff’ Before their two big races Saturday afternoon, team ‘Nitro Knights’ from Westmount Secondary School in Hamilton, Ont., was busy tinkering with their miniature racecar, making sure it was ready for top speed. “Everybody’s into this stuff. Building the car is also fun because you have your own ideas,” team manager Dhyan Patel said. “You get to customize them. Working with everybody is another big factor. It’s very fun.” Patel discovered STEM Racing through his passion for cars, particularly Formula 1. “I was searching through my physics classroom and I was like ‘Okay, I found this program.’ I asked in an email, ‘Hey, can I try out for this?’ They said yes. Then I created a club at our school and that’s how we created our team,” he told CTV News ahead of his first race on April 11. ‘A loophole we found in the regulations’ A few booths down, Team Ignite from SATEC @ W. A. Porter Collegiate Institute in Toronto was preparing their model car at their pit-stop styled booth. “This year, the front wing is probably the most important thing we have on our car,” said team captain Tanai Mehta. “Our front wing takes advantage of a loophole we found in the regulations to guide air over it.” Team Ignite came in second place and was judged to have the fastest car at the 2025 national championships in North Carolina, competing against both Canadian and American teams. “We’re looking to capture lightning in a bottle again,” Mehta said. “For us, it’s just taking a look at everything we did and seeing how we can make it better.” Formerly known globally as F1 in Schools, STEM Racing is widely recognized as the world’s most prestigious STEM competition. The three-day tournament is taking place at Canadore College’s Sportsplex. ‘Trajectory changing experiences’ “InspireTech Canada brought it here one year ago. Over the last 12 months, we’ve been setting it up,” said Kyle Boyko, InspireTech Canada’s president and board chair. Boyko said it was made possible through the support of the college. Taking place in more than 80 countries worldwide, the program challenges high school student teams to design, build, brand, and race miniature compressed-air-powered cars. “That race car is then fired down a 70-foot track at 50 mph with an eight gram of CO2,” Boyko said. Each team is judged based on five criteria: how fast their cars go down the track, their pit display, their verbal presentation, their design and engineering presentation and their enterprise presentation. “A lot of people here want to be engineers in the future,” Mehta said. At the same time, Boyko said the student racers are gaining professional marketing, branding and business skills. Twelve teams, from as far as Foothills, Alta., are competing for the chance to represent the country at the world championships in Singapore this fall. Two teams earned the chance to qualify. “There is a lot of global notoriety. For teams that win at worlds, some of them have been competing for 15 years,” Boyko said. “For Canada, we started out with one team when we inherited this and took it over. In our first season, we got up to 12 teams.” For Mehta, a trip to Singapore would be an “insane experience of a lifetime.” “It would be great to compete on the world stage,” he said. Went the final races were done, Team Ignite finished first, while team Northern Rapids from the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School in Okotoks, Alta., finished second. ‘Reinforces North Bay’s reputation’ Tourism North Bay is encouraging members of the public to watch the races and interact with the students as they compete. “Hosting a national championship of this calibre reinforces North Bay’s reputation as a destination that supports innovation, education, and major events,” said Tanya Bédard, executive director of Tourism North Bay. “We’re excited to welcome students, educators, families, and supporters from across Canada and introduce them to everything our city has to offer.” InspireTech Canada said part of the competition is to inspire the next generation of students to get involved in STEM to prepare them for unique science, technology, engineering and math industries in the workforce down the line. “Science, technology, engineering and math is used as a launchpad. In our world, we create trajectory-changing experiences,” said Boyko. “These experiences allow them to apply their STEM education to go into the workforce with actually a knowledge and transferable skills.” For more information about the STEM Racing Canada program, visit STEMracing.ca.
