Linda Gilroy today called in on Devonport High School for Boys to see first hand an internationally award winning technology project.

Pulse - a team of students from the school - have recently been crowned as F1 in Schools World Champions.

The F1 in Schools Technology Challenge is for school children aged 11 to 18 to use CAD/CAM software to design, analyse, manufacture, test and race their miniature F1 car made from balsa wood and powered by CO2 cylinders.

The team of 16 and 17 year olds from Devonport High School for Boys also came away from the International Finals held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with the Fastest Car award, after achieving a track time of 1.064 seconds - a scaled up speed of over 220mph, as well as The Ashes for knocking the Australian team out in the final of the Knock Out Racing.

"It's a fantastic honour that we have been crowned as World Champions, and I am really glad that our hard work over the past two years to raise sponsorship, design and develop the car has paid off” said John Ware, the Team Manager. “We are all absolutely over the moon with the result, and still can't quite believe that we have won the F1 in Schools World Championships as well as having the Fastest Car in the 2008 competition.”

Linda Gilroy, a former member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, said "I was delighted to congratulate Pulse on thier victory and learn more about their project. It is so important that we encourage interest in science and technology amoung young people".

You can visit the team's website at www.pulsef1.co.uk

Above: left to right, Samuel Wood, Andrew Lees, Thomas Simpson and John Ware.

20 June 2008