THREE teams of young design engineers from Droitwich Spa High School have achieved competition success.

Pupils from the Briar Mill school won half of the awards on offer at the central region finals of the ‘4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge’ held at Matthew Boulton College in Birmingham on Tuesday, January 21.

The aim of the competition was for teams of students from years nine to 11 to design and build to set specifications, a radio controlled four-wheel-drive vehicle that can successfully negotiate a series of obstacles and tasks. The vehicles were tested on a specially designed track that emulates the real conditions that a full scale 4x4 vehicle would be expected to be able to cope with.

The students spent several months designing, researching, building and project managing their vehicle to enter it into the regional heats, competing against other schools from all over the central region. Their entries were then scrutinised by experienced Jaguar Land Rover engineers.

Mr Andy Millicheap, who led the project with the students, said: "The competition is really important as it highlights just how good we are in this country at design and technology and it seems our students here at Droitwich have got what it takes to ensure that British design is always seen as the best in the world.

"I am so proud of their achievements. To win one award would have been great, but to be given half of those on offer and to make it through to the national finals is amazing."