Yesterday we, along with our colleagues from the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) welcomed a group of 9 to 11 year olds from Richard Crosse Primary School in Staffordshire.

The students enjoyed a tour of the APC showcase and our engineering hall where they were introduced to the Warwick Racing student team and shown our state-of-the-art 3xD Simulator. They also took part in a number of activities throughout the day, including a steering wheel CAD design session and paper rocket making and launching.

We first met the children, from class five, back in January when they won a competition run by the APC to become one of eight schools presented with a Greenpower Goblin kit car. Each winning school was then partnered with an APC Spoke, in this case WMG as the APC Energy Spoke, who provide financial support and mentoring throughout the electric vehicle build along with driver training ahead of the race.

Construction of their go-kart kit car is now almost complete. The next stage of the project is for the children to race against other teams at Rockingham Speedway in July. We’ll keep you updated on how their race day goes.

Formula Goblin has been set up with help from the Greenpower Education Trust to address the skills gap that is growing in the UK automotive industry by engaging students in engineering at a young age. It is designed to engage students with maths, science and design technology in a fun way, promoting equality regardless of economic background and gender.

The initiative is supported by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, the APC and the APC Spoke Community, made up of six of the UK’s leading universities each focussing on R&D of key technology areas in the automotive industry.

Notes to editors:

The APC is a £1 billion, 10-year programme to position the UK as a global centre of excellence for low carbon powertrain development and production.

The APC Spokes form a national network to support industry with specialist academic, technological and commercial expertise. The Spokes are designed to provide access to the best expertise and facilities the UK has to offer in key strategic technologies for the automotive industry.

Each of the Spokes is hosted by an organisation with recognised expertise in those key technologies, but the fundamental role of the Spoke is to coordinate a community of common interest. WMG at the University of Warwick is the Electrical Energy Storage Spoke.

The full list of school/Spoke partnerships are:

Advanced Propulsion Centre – Stoke Primary School

• DETC (Loughborough London University) – Curwen Primary School
• Loughborough University – Fairfield Primary Academy
• Newcastle University – Bournmoor Primary School
• Newcastle University – Kings Priory School
• Newcastle University – Northburn Primary School
• Nottingham University – Abbey Road Primary School
• WMG – The Richard Crosse C of E Primary School