Young Engineers Prove Vehicle Safety is No Yolk in the Smallpeice Trust Egg Crash Challenge

Leamington Spa, United Kingdom, June 14, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Pupils from four Leeds schools teamed up to create some cracking designs when they took on the Smallpeice Trust vehicle safety challenge, using eggs as their crash test dummies.

The pupils were taking part in a scheme to promote further study and careers in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), organised by national educational charity The Smallpeice Trust.

At the year 8 STEM day, held at The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL), 90 pupils were given a brief, a budget and the materials to design and build a vehicle that could hold two passengers and survive a high speed front impact test. Members of each team assumed individual management roles including finance, resources, marketing and product design.

The moment of truth came as Tolulope Olajide, Education Officer with the Smallpeice Trust, took each vehicle with two eggs stowed on board, and launched it down a steep ramp to test whether the eggs remained intact, cracked or got scrambled.

Tolulope told the students: “Although you all had the same brief your designs were very different. The task has been a great success - when you walked in it looked impossible but you got stuck in and worked together to build something that worked well.”

Jonathan Hern, science teacher at David Young Community Academy, said: “The pupils have engaged well with their peers from other schools, working collaboratively to design and construct a model to explore the crash safety of cars. An activity like this that relates to the real world gives pupils an insight into the work and process of being an engineer, and lets them use their knowledge and creativity to come up with their own design within the brief.”

Olivia Dixon, pupil from Benton Park School, said: “It’s been interesting doing lots of teamwork with people I didn’t know. We had to work to a brief and a budget, which was hard, we needed more money!”

Year 8 pupils from Benton Park School in Rawdon, Lawnswood School, David Young Community Academy and GSAL took part in the day.

Notes to Editors:

About The Smallpeice Trust

The Smallpeice Trust is an independent charitable trust which promotes engineering as a career, primarily through the provision of residential courses for young people aged 12 to 18.

The Smallpeice Trust was founded in 1966 by Dr Cosby Smallpeice, a pioneering engineer and inventor of the Smallpeice Lathe. Following the stock market flotation of his company Martonair, Dr Smallpeice invested his energy and part of his personal fortune to set up the Trust to ensure that British industry could continuously benefit from his proven design and engineering philosophies: “Simplicity in design, economy in production.”

The Trust is now governed by an eminent board of non-executive trustees and members from a diverse range of engineering, industry, educational and professional bodies.

In the past academic year, The Smallpeice Trust has reached out to 20,353 young people through 33 different subsidised residential courses, 1-day in-school STEM Days and STEM-in-a-Box kits. The Smallpeice Trust has also trained 913 teachers to enhance their delivery of STEM in the classroom.

A strong interface is maintained with industry, education and professional bodies that help to support, promote and develop the courses. Through these relationships the Trust is also able to provide a number of tailored or specialised courses.