The Scalextric4Schools final competition will take place this Sunday, June 24th at the RAF Museum, Cosford.
For the first time, this year’s competition has drawn participants from schools outside of the UK to include two teams from as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia.
The competition aims to inspire young students to consider design and engineering in higher education and as careers. Over 500 schools participate annually, many incorporating the competition into curriculums. PTC sponsors the challenge along with its UK partner, Root Solutions, and Hornby Hobbies Limited. Hornby Hobbies is a long-time user of PTC solutions for the design, manufacture and documentation of its world-renowned Scalextric, Hornby, Corgi and Airfix branded products.
Since this year’s challenge was launched in October 2011, children aged 11 to 18 have been designing, manufacturing, testing and refining their slot cars. Ten teams have made it to the finals this Sunday. The teams will be racing their cars on a landscaped Scalextric layout and presenting to a panel of judges on how they designed, manufactured and tested their cars.
Tom Malloy, industrial designer at Hornby Hobbies will be part of the judging panel this year. “I’m excited to see how the children have worked on their designs and what’s finally been created,” said Malloy. “We all have to start somewhere when thinking of a career path and what a brilliant way of nurturing the designers and engineers of tomorrow by involving our brand and giving them a tangible competition. These students have been working with the same design software that I use – what a great, fun introduction.”
Last year judges commented on the very high standard of designs and the technical innovation shown by the teams. Roger French from Root Solutions highlighted the wide range of manufacturing processes used by teams and commented on “the clever use of PTC’s Creo Parametric 3D design software to create aerodynamic bodies and chassis to accommodate the motors, gears and pick-up systems.”
Overall winners in 2011 were Team Cobra from Our Lady Queen of Peace School, Lancashire. Team Cobra were supported by their teacher Mark Seddon and sponsored by Turtle Wax.
The award for Best Engineered Car went to Team Leek & Potato Pie, from Leek High School, Staffordshire who were chosen by judges because of the sophistication of the design, clever use of 3D CAD and outsourced rapid manufacturing of their car components.
“PTC Scalextric4Schools has gone from strength to strength since its launch four years ago with students showing genuine enthusiasm and innovation in the development of their cars,” said Tim Brotherhood, Curriculum Development Manager for PTC. “The aim of providing a low–cost, design-make-race curriculum project has enabled hundreds of schools to build the challenge into their lessons.”
The public are invited to join in on the fun this Sunday and see the teams in action.
