Engineering Champions again!

Our Year 11 students became Engineering Champions for the second year in succession after competing in the Fleet Air Arm's Annual Engineering Challenge held at Yeovilton.  The successful team is pictured here with the trophy which was presented by Mr Fred Ditchburn (Chief Aircraft Engineer) in school assembly.  Ross proudly displays the winning design!

 

The morning started positively, with one of our students Louis Patterson answering the first question posed eloquently and an interesting opening address with slides introducing the surface controls on aircraft from an ex Fleet Air Arm Wing Commander, one of the members of the Yeovilton team of aircraft experts. After a tour of the museum to study the different designs and mechanisms used to activate the rudder, elevators, ailerons and wind flaps on these planes, students were then given the Design Brief by chief aircraft engineer Mr Fred Ditchburn which was to produce a prototype of an aeroplane with port and star board surface controls correctly operated by a joystick, together with a corresponding cockpit indicating system. Our students started the challenge very positively, working flat out throughout the afternoon to complete the task set by the 3pm deadline. After the rules were explained our students soon realised that there was much to do and very little time remaining. All materials had to be selected carefully and purchased from the shop, with penalties given to the teams who spent the most money. At the end of the afternoon the groups were asked to present a sales pitch to the experts and the aeroplanes that each team had built were tested and evaluated against a set criteria.

Congratulations to our students, Natasha Dennington, Ross Mangles, Louis Patterson, Emily Francis, Joseph Brown and Ewen Wu who represented The Park so well, displaying great effort, positive team spirit and ability which was demonstrated so ably for winning us the Engineering Challenge Day trophy again.