Golden Gears’ Team Reach UK Finals Of Jaguar Primary Schools Race Car Challenge

A team of pupils from Stamford Junior School in Lincolnshire named ‘Golden Gears’ were thrilled to compete in the Jaguar Primary School Challenge UK Nationals yesterday following their success at a regional final in May. Golden Gears were among 35 teams from across the UK to compete in the finals at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon, Warwickshire.In the challenge, teams of young children designed, made, tested and raced a miniature race car. Students used computer techniques and foundation engineering skills to create a car, which was fired along a 20 metre track by a compressed air canister.Students were judged on all the elements of their work including a written portfolio, a project presentation and explained their engineering designs to a panel of experts from Jaguar Land Rover, in addition to the all-important track racing. Understanding how design and engineering influence speed is just as important as the stopwatch in this race to the chequered flag.Commenting on the success of her ‘Golden Gears’ pupils, Emma Smith, Head of Stamford Junior School said, “I am incredibly proud of Golden Gears and this significant achievement. To witness such young minds being driven by curiosity and a love of learning new techniques and understanding some of the foundations of engineering is immensely inspirational. Their preparation, hard work and tenacity over the last months is to be highly commended and to reach a national final is a wonderful recognition of their endeavours. Well done Golden Gears! We could be looking at our engineers of the future.”Victoria Perry, Global Social Impact Manager, Jaguar Land Rover, said: “We need more bright young minds to join Jaguar Land Rover and help us design and create our innovative future vehicles and technologies. As well as being fun and providing an insight into the world of engineering, we hope the competition sparks an early interest in STEM subjects and inspires students to become our next generation of scientists, technologists and engineers.”Mark Wemyss-Holden, National Project Manager for the Jaguar Primary School Challenge, said: “Bringing education to life with practical application of science and engineering, as well as students working closely as a team and the fun of racing a car makes the Jaguar Primary School Challenge one of the best competitions for this age group. The students are totally engaged, enjoy learning and gain so many skills, both academic and social, by competing and sharing their experiences.”The Jaguar Primary School Challenge was launched in the UK in 2011 to offer primary school children an exciting and engaging engineering project. In 2015, the programme was launched globally with the goal of helping the company engage with two million young people by 2020. It is the only hands-on STEM school challenge of its kind, and has been proven to spark a long-term interest in engineering.