The girls from St Cecilia’s, Derry at the NEC in Birmingham after winning the Jaguar Sports Car Challenge in Schools

Youngsters from an all-girls’ school in Derry have scooped top honours in the first ever Jaguar Sports Car Challenge in Schools contest.
The final took place at the Autosport Show on January 13 at the NEC in Solihull and St Cecilia's College emerged as winners.
The 10 finalists competing at the show followed the same real-world engineering processes as auto-motive product development teams from sketching, modelling, scan-ning and digitising to analysing, making, testing and racing.
Before reaching the final, student teams competed against each other in regional and national championships to design and manufacture the best CO2 powered model sports cars.
Russ Varney chief progra-mme engineer for Jaguar said: ‘It was great to see the level of enthusiasm and passion shown by the teams - events like these allow us to raise awareness of engineering in schools and develop brand passion - a big thanks to the young people, teachers and Jaguar personnel for a truly super event.’
Maureen McGee, technology teacher St Cecilia’s College, said: ‘The girls have benefited enormously from competing in the Jaguar Sports Car Challenge this year as it embraced not only their imagination but also embodied their knowledge of technology and design. The girls liaised with professional designers, engineers and animators as part of the design process. Of course the learning curve for teachers and pupils was immense but the outcome very impressive. For the girls, it’s just like being in a real automotive design and engineering team.’
The Jaguar sponsored Sports Car Challenge in Schools is a competition open to all UK based secondary schools, colleges and organised youth groups. For further information contact Les Ratcliffe – email: lratclif@jaguar.com or telephone: 024 7620 3866.