North Leamington School pupils taste life in the fast lane

Pupils Ryan McLaren, Thomas Bradford, Thomas Govern and Harry Birch with Paul Hooper-Keeley, of Mills CNC.

The youngsters at North Leamington School have been given £2,000 sponsorship by Mills CNC and the CNC Training Academy to take part in the competition in Abu Dhabi in November.

Called the Whittle Wonders, after jet pioneer Sir Frank Whittle, the pupils were crowned F1 in Schools national champions and will take on teams from more than 40 countries.

The competition requires teams to use CAD/CAM software and manufacturing methods to design, test, make and ultimately race miniature F1 cars on a 20-metre track.

They also have to demonstrate their understanding of the commercial, financial and marketing imperatives involved in running a business.

As far as Whittle Wonders’ miniature car is concerned – the focus for the team was on designing and manufacturing a light-weight, aerodynamically-sound car powered by compressed gas that could reach speeds in excess of 70mph.

The model they have created will be unveiled in Dubai.

The pupils were invited to Mills CNC’s technology campus in Leamington for a tour of the facility and see a number of high-performance Doosan machine tools being put through their paces.

Paul Hooper-Keeley, managing director of Mills CNC, said: “If we cannot attract well-qualified, highly-skilled young people into manufacturing and engineering – the UK’s future growth and economic prosperity will be severely affected.”