A team of four pupils from a Burton-on-Trent High School built a small-scale aircraft from scratch to secure a top prize at the UK’s biggest STEM event.
John Taylor High School beat off the challenge of 15 schools from across the UK to win the Manufacturing category award at the Design & Make Challenge 2023, the largest ever held by the Manufacturing Assembly Network (MAN).
The students worked together to design, test, and build an aircraft, using just a box of simple materials and a selection of hand tools.
The brief was to create a machine that could be launched from a pair of purpose-built air cannons, with the pupils surpassing the organisers’ expectations with the quality of the model and the ease of manufacture.
MAN – a group of seven sub-contract manufacturers and a specialist engineering design agency forming a global collective to secure contracts for UK industry – runs the competition to enthuse young people about a career in engineering, manufacturing and technology.
In the fourth year of the Design & Make Challenge, other winners were Great Wyrley Academy, Lawrence Sheriff High School and Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School.
Austin Owens, Managing Director at Grove Design (Pembridge) and Co-Chair of MAN, said: “Massive congratulations to the John Taylor High School team, who proved once again that they have a natural aptitude for design, engineering, and science. Hopefully a few of them will go on to be the industrial talent of the future.”
The event was hosted by WMG at the University of Warwick. Pupils were able to tap into the expertise of MAN apprentices and WMG engineers during the eight-hour challenge, with the organisers offering the opportunity for school visits, work experience and placements.
