faraday challenge 2026

Today a group of our Year 8 scientists participated in the IET Faraday Challenge, working in teams to design and build a prototype rocket that is transported from hangar to launch site on a programmable robot.

After a briefing from Mr Murray, Mr Sharp and Mrs Wilson, the students got to work.

Within each team, they took on the roles of accountant, software engineer, mechanical engineer and aerospace engineer, and they were tasked with managing budgets, deciding which components to spend their "Faraday credits" on and designing and engineering the end product.

After a break for lunch, the students delivered presentations on their work before testing their robots.

Then it was time to test launch them on our front field, with the support and help of Mr Leech.

There were some amazing results and Mr Sharp worked hard on scoring all elements of the task, but ultimately, the winning team were announced: huge congratulations to Oliver, Rory and Charlie!

Really well done to everyone who took part, with huge thanks to our staff who facilitated the great opportunity for the students to learn all about the core skills required for careers in the different fields of engineering.