The Challenge: 
Design, build, test and race a battery powered race car using a set of standard components including a standard motor, batteries and gears supplied by race organiser and sponsor PalmerSport)
The Team:
Jesse Billington, Ross Cawood, Charlie Gee, Peter Wood, Will Sedgwick, Tom Rainbow, Matt Diemer, Andy Martin, Oliver Smith, Rohan Sanghera, Conrad Staroscik and Jordan Legg, supported by Mr. Waite, Mr. Fourey-Jones and Dr. Calverley.
A team of twelve boys (all from Fourths & Remove) with an interest in design and engineering took up the challenge of entering the Schools' Grand Prix for the very first time this year.
Meeting as an extra-curricular club every Monday evening, the boys built scaled down prototypes and then a full scale wooden model to prove the driver safety, chassis geometry and drivetrain, before embarking on the final aluminium car.
With the help of local company, Alutec, and specialist aluminium welder, Jamie Catlett, the team prepared the chassis, which ended up being a little more than robust.
When test day dawned on Tuesday 4th June the car was put on the road for the first time and performed exceptionally well: the car ran smoothly with no mechanical or electrical failures.
However, the team did not realise during testing that the motor ran hot and lost efficiency after a relative short period of time – a problem in a race 2hours 40 minutes in duration. As such, the next few weeks saw the team modifying the car to aid air flow over the motor.
On race day, Sunday 16th June, the team had no real issues with scrutineering and got the go ahead to race. Given that they had spent a great deal of time preparing for the final race day, they were all understandably buzzing with excitement on the day. During racing it was clear that their car was a little heavy and lacking in raw speed.
Even when battling for 8th place with Bedford Modern School, the boys remained cheerful, good humoured and focussed on doing their best and seemed to enjoy every minute of it.
The reliability of the car was faultless, but the weight was considerable. As such they were beaten into 9th place purely on speed, which was painfully emphasised over such a long race.
Surprisingly the team did not pick up the prize for reliability, but were delighted to win Best Presented Pit Crew for working efficiently under Jesse Billington's leadership.
Who knows what next year's competition will bring?
Special thanks goes to:
Alutec and Jamie Catlett for their assistance in building the chassis
Kevin Cawood for providing the Land Rover and trailer, and transporting the car to and from both the testing and the race day.
Conrad Staroscik for helping with commentary
Peter Wood who did great job in hospitality
And all the families, friends and staff who supported the boys