RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, the global distributor for engineers, brought its RS Live Innovation in Motion truck to Silverstone in celebration of the partnership with the UK Land Rover 4×4 in Schools Technology Challenge – providing the opportunity for the engineers of tomorrow to interact with the truck, at the recent national final of the competition.

The event saw students from 150 secondary schools nationwide battle for the championship crown, after submitting their bespoke 4×4 all-terrain scale model remote-controlled vehicles in the national competition.  RS ran a Facebook competition, in which teams were invited to vote for their favourite car on the RS and Education Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RSandEducation/ page. The winning team for this competition was Epsilon Engineers, Denbigh School, Milton Keynes, Overall National UK Winner of the challenge was Robust, Moor End Academy, Huddersfield. Three judges from RS joined the panel to assess the finalists.

RS is the official technical partner of the UK Land Rover 4×4 in Schools Technology Challenge, an educational initiative for 11-19-year-old students which encourages teams to build a remote-control vehicle and put it through its paces in a series of tests – the same that Land Rover use for their full-size vehicles – in various regional events in the run up to the UK Final.

RS also donated Arduino starter kits http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-development-kits/7617355/ and various other components to participating schools, as well as helping with advice on technical equipment. In addition to bringing its innovation truck – a platform for young students to learn about engineering and technology through various activities within its interactive display zones – RS supported the competition finals event on its social media channels, running a competition for teams and streaming the event live on Facebook.

The RS sponsored Innovative Thinking award was presented by James Howarth, Head of Product Management at RS Components, to The Panthers, Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester.

Tracey Taylor, Community Manager at RS, said: “It has been truly inspiring partnering with this initiative, and seeing just what the potential engineers of tomorrow are capable of producing when asked to rise to the challenge. The competition involves the teams presenting business plans on their designs and project management, as well as answering technical questions from the Land Rover Engineers, so it really is a great opportunity for them – and one they seem to have grabbed with both hands. The results of all of the teams’ hard work and efforts were outstanding.”

Mark Wemyss-Holden, National Project Manager, Land Rover 4×4 in Schools, said: “We’ve seen exceptional talent competing today, with such ingenuity, depth of engineering knowledge and application, as well as innovative design and tremendous hard work. It’s great to see the Land Rover 4×4 in Schools programme bringing STEM learning alive through practical application and really engaging the students in a range of learning disciplines. The students really enjoyed experiencing the RS Live Innovation in Motion truck and this was a great fit for our event.”

Further info:

Video here: https://youtu.be/tvzLq-8y6YI

Follow the ‘RS and Education’ FaceBook page:

https://www.facebook.com/RSandEducation/