Junior Engineer Challenge – RIAT 2022

Friday 15th July saw the final of the Gama Aviation Junior Engineer Challenge, held at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) in Fairford. This competition was the climax of weeks of work where 10 local primary schools were visited and pupils aged 8 – 11 years were tasked to design and build a space glider.  The winning team from each school was invited to RIAT to face 3 more challenges – a design challenge, a presentation challenge and the flight challenge.

The design challenge was supported by Meccano and pupils had to use this to design and build a machine that was able to recover a stricken helicopter and move it to safety.

We were very fortunate to have Kerry Bennett with us for the day. Kerry is an aspiring astronaut having reached the final three candidates in the BBC series – Astronauts; Do you have what it takes?  She proved to be a real inspiration for many of the pupils and was involved in judging the presentations. 

Congratulations to Isabella and Lilly from Southrop Primary who were awarded Overall Winners! Fairford Primary took the Design Award and Presentation Award went to Kemble Primary. All children who attended the final were also awarded a CREST Discovery Award for their hard work.