• Team of students from Worcester celebrate after beating  thousands of young people from across the UK to be crowned UK challenge champions
• Land Rover 4X4 in Schools Challenge helped Jaguar Land Rover engage 650,000 young people in 2015
• The winners will represent the UK in the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools World Final in July

Coventry, 28 April 2016: Team Ascent, team of 16 year‑old students from the Royal Grammar School, Worcester have scooped the prestigious Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge UK Champions trophy. The team has won an Arkwright scholarship from Land Rover, a £1,000 scholarship for Harper Adams University and a place at the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools World Final in July.

The Land Rover 4x4 in School Technology Challenge UK Final brought together the cream of young engineering talent, who had won a series of regional finals across the UK earlier this year. In a hard‑fought competition, Team Ascent narrowly beat runners‑up, 2FAST from Richard Hale School, Hertford, and third‑placed team, Sector, from Clyst Vale Community College in Exeter. All the finalists were rewarded with the industry recognised accreditation Industrial Cadets Silver Award.

Newly crowned champions, Team Ascent's Team Manager and Electronics Engineer, Alec Berry, said, "We've been working on our vehicle since last October, but we'd never done it before, so we really didn't expect to win on our first attempt. We think we impressed the judges with our engineering, as our car had a unique double‑wishbone suspension system.

"The biggest challenge for us was keeping to a schedule and making sure we'd made everything in time. We learned so much, especially with CAD/CAM software and electronics. The Challenge has been a really amazing experience and we now all want to be engineers in automotive engineering and others in aerospace."

The biggest challenge for all the teams was undoubtedly the Land Rover test track, with a variety of obstacles including a rope bridge, water dip and rock crawl, that went through, up and over a Range Rover vehicle. As part of its long‑term global partnership, Land Rover and pioneering commercial spaceline Virgin Galactic challenged the teams to tow a scale version of SpaceShipTwo around Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic's operational headquarters in New Mexico, USA, using their remote controlled vehicles.

Joining Team Ascent at the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools World Final, which will be held at Ricoh Arena in Coventry in July, will be 2FAST, representing England, and The Doc's team from Woodfarm High School, East Renfrewshire, who took the Scotland Champions title. They will be competing against successful Land Rover 4x4 in Schools teams from 15 other countries all vying for the World Champions crown.

Les Ratcliffe, Head of Community Relations at Jaguar Land Rover said, "The Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Challenge demonstrates the importance and excitement of STEM subjects and we hope it will encourage more youngsters to pursue engineering careers. During the competition, students gain a depth of understanding in vehicle design, development, research and manufacturing which enhances classroom learning and world of work awareness. Congratulations to all the teams who made it to the UK finals for achieving such a high standard and to Team Ascent, who will be representing the UK in the hotly contested world final in July."

Mark Wemyss‑Holden, National Project Manager, Land Rover 4x4 in Schools, said of this year's event, "We've seen exceptional talent competing today, with such ingenuity, depth of engineering knowledge and application, as well as innovative design and tremendous hard work. It's great to see the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools programme bringing STEM learning alive through practical application and really engaging the students in a range of learning disciplines."

The Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Challenge takes place with the assistance of a host of sponsors and supporters. Amongst these are lead sponsor Jaguar Land Rover along with The IET, WNT(UK) RS, Luke 1977, Harper Adams College, Arkwright Scholarship Trust, I.Rob (UK) Ltd and Denford Ltd.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITOR

Full list of Award winners:

For further information contact:

Alison Hill, Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Press Officer
Tel: 01327 856060, Mobile: 07710 306588, Alison@id‑pr.co.uk

Kate Birkenhead, CSR PR and Communications, Jaguar Land Rover
M: 07780 494 352, E: kbirkenh@jaguarlandrover.com