The project forms part of the Engineering Education Scheme (EES), a six-month programme which links teams with local companies where they work on real scientific, engineering and technology projects to provide students with hands-on experience of problem-solving, project management and working alongside professional engineers, scientists and technologists.  

At the end of the project, the team presented their solution with a formal written technical report to a panel of senior professional engineers and then answered questions on their project.  

Lower Sixth girl, Georgia reports on the project, 

“Since October, our team of four has been designing a new sign-off procedure for a Formula One car which has involved writing code and building a model to check the pressure along a pipe to be used in the fuel system, pitstop gun and brake fluid system. 

The project has given us an amazing opportunity to learn skills in which we had absolutely no experience such as coding Arduinos, soldering and using CAD design software. We also had to write and present a formal report about our project which developed our presentation, communication and teamwork skills.  

The highlights of the project were the visits to both MH Development Engineering, the company we were working with throughout the project and of course, the F1 Team, Haas. This allowed us to see exactly how our work would be used by the F1 Team and we were lucky enough to have a guided tour around the factories. We also went on a residential trip to Bath University, where we were able to use the brilliant facilities and benefit from the knowledge of staff and students. 

At the end of the project, we went to Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for the Engineering Education Scheme Presentation Day where we were joined by five other teams. We set up a stand with photos from the process, copies of our project report and our large-scale system model. We gave a presentation about our project to the judges from EES. We then had the opportunity to look at the other teams’ projects, which were to a very high standard. At the end of the day, all the teams achieved their Gold Industrial Cadettes Award and we were delighted that our team were also voted the ‘Best Project’ by the students, teachers and engineers at the event.  

Thank you so much to MH Development Engineering, Haas, the staff at Bath University, our two engineers, Matt Hill and Amy Taylor who have been so supportive. Many thanks also to all of our teachers at Downe who have helped us on the project, particularly to our Physics teacher, Mr Smith for organising this fantastic opportunity for us.”  

The girls were presented with their Industrial Cadet Gold Awards and the trophy for winning best project in the School Assembly to celebrate their success.