With only days to go, the first-ever all-girl engineering team have smashed their fundraising target to enable them to take up their well-deserved place in the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge in Abu Dhabi.
The Denbigh School Sixth Form team ‘Epsilon Engineers’, fly out on Thursday to spend a week at the Yas Marina Grand Prix circuit in the capital of the United Emirates. They secured their place with their impressive engineering skills at the UK Nationals, held at Silverstone in March this year.
One of only four UK teams to travel to Abu Dhabi, the Denbigh students are the only all-female team to take up the challenge to design and build a special scale model 4x4 vehicle, which will be tested on a tough obstacle course. In a bid to become World Champions, the team’s work will be judged against 24 teams from 17 countries.
Roz Bird, Commercial Director for Silverstone Park, said: “The Epsilon Engineers are a real inspiration for women considering a career in science and engineering. Silverstone Park was therefore keen to sponsor them, when they made contact with us in the summer. Encouraging more women into engineering, electronics and software development will bring in that much needed talent over the coming years.
“The Epsilon team are not just ambassadors for young female engineers; they are ambassadors for the Silverstone Technology Cluster. It’s a privilege to be involved with them and we wish them every success in Abu Dhabi.”
Accompanying the students on this unique and exiting educational experience, Assistant Headteacher, Lesley Dale, said: “It is a privilege to attend the finals with this impressive team of young women, who have drive, determination and the skill set to make themselves and Denbigh School proud. The judges will ask them to explain their thinking behind the car’s design, demonstrate its capabilities and show how they promoted themselves and attracted funding.
“The students are very excited to be competing at this level and I am sure they will prove that, in such a male-dominated environment, they will go some way to break this mould.”
