Land Rover’s School Initiative ‘Land Rover 4×4 in Schools’ Chose Its Winner
A group of 16 year olds from The Kings School, Worcester, England came down as the Land Rover 4×4 in Schools World Champions. It was held in Ricoh Arena, Coventry, UK.
In Land Rover’s new global education challenge, each team spent months in designing, building, testing miniature remote-controlled 4×4 vehicles and these vehicles will complete challenging off-road tracks in regional and national final competitions.
The ‘Vertical Horizon’ team excelled at driving challenge on the tough test track, which included the following obstacles – Rope Bridge, water dip and rock crawl as it travelled through and round a Range Rover vehicle.
‘Vertical Horizon’ team manager Ben Weaver, said, “I’m delighted we won, it’s beyond anything we dreamed of. I think we were successful thanks to 1,000 hours of hard graft, team work and perseverance as well as attention to detail. We also developed a unique suspension and focused on quality craftsmanship, engineering and design throughout the project. As a result of the Challenge, we are all now inspired to become engineers. It’s been a great experience and we prove that if you put the effort in, you can succeed.”
Teacher Eric Lummas, added, “I’m extremely proud of the team. They have worked very hard to achieve success including lots of work outside school. The Challenge has helped them strengthen key skills such as team working, problem solving and communication which will help them when they enter the world of work. The competition is a great opportunity for young people and I’d highly recommend it to other schools and students.”
Les Ratcliffe, Head of Community Relations for Jaguar Land Rover said, “We’re delighted to host the first ever world finals in Coventry, UK, close to Jaguar Land Rover’s Headquarters, and show the students around our Solihull plant during the programme. Huge congratulations to ‘Vertical Horizon’ for winning the inaugural Land Rover 4×4 in Schools Technology Challenge World Final. Launching the hugely successful Land Rover 4×4 in Schools competition globally will help us engage 2 million young people in our education programme by 2020 and will introduce even more young people to the exciting world of engineering. Students have built skills, experiences, friendships and memories during the three day programme which will stay with them throughout their lives.”
The ‘Vertical Horizon’ team won an Arkwright scholarship from Land Rover, a £1,000 scholarship for Harper Adams University and the prestigious Land Rover 4X4 in Schools Technology World Challenge trophy. They also coveted ‘Best Engineered Vehicle’ and ‘Best Verbal Presentation’ awards.
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