We were delighted to lend our support to a team of young engineers from Howes Primary School in Coventry as they embarked on the Greenpower IET Formula Goblin Project.

Earlier in the year the children entered a competition, which involved working with engineering students from the Warwick Racing team and our technicians, to build and then race an electric kit car.

Over the past academic year the Warwick Racing team, led by Warwick Racing Outreach Manager Mankin Lee, paid regular visits to the school to help the team of seven youngsters prepare their car, which they named The Dark Knight. The children then had a chance to race against 29 other schools from across the region in a special race day in Staffordshire.

Rebecca Bollands, Deputy Head Teacher at Howes Primary said: “On behalf of Howes I would like to express our sincere thanks for giving us the opportunity to take part in the Greenpower Car Project. It is something that we have never had the opportunity to do before and it has been absolutely fantastic.

“The children have loved doing it and it has really enhanced their understanding of science and technology, in a very motivating and purposeful way. The kit car has been the talk of the school and we have it proudly positioned in our main entrance.

It will be something that our pupils will never forget and will be one of their highlights of their time at primary school. Hopefully the children involved and others will be inspired to consider jobs in engineering in the future.”

Our Professor of Advanced Propulsion Systems, David Greenwood said: “It has been fantastic to see the Howes team get stuck into their car build project over the last year and the engaging way in which they have worked with staff and students from the University. The Howes team has shown fantastic levels of enthusiasm and commitment to doing their very best and they should be rightly proud of what they have achieved this year.”

The competition was run as a pilot scheme by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC UK) in conjunction with all of its ‘Spoke’ universities. The APC Spokes are a national network which brings together key areas of expertise in strategic automotive technologies. WMG, University of Warwick is the APC Spoke for Electrical Energy Storage.

The role of the Advanced Propulsion Centre is to position the UK as a centre of excellence for low carbon propulsion development and production. The APC team brings together and supports those who have good ideas in the form of innovative technologies with those who can bring them to market as products.