Rocket car competition helps modernise secondary STEM education

There’s no doubt inspiring school children in the world of STEM, as early on as possible, to drive interest in careers in key skills shortage areas like engineering, is of paramount importance. 

While navigating the traditional channels of government and pushing for sweeping educational reform is a mammoth task beyond the capabilities or capacity of any single organisation, there are ways to work towards the cause. 

These can be individual efforts or collaborative ones, with varying outcome levels. But one thing is for sure: no effort is too small. Each and every way any organisation can effect a positive awareness around STEM in school children is another brushstroke in the bigger picture.

To this end, RS became a partner for the relaunch of The Learning Partnership's rocket car challenge ‘Race to the Line’, which took part over the 2023/2024 academic year. It aims to modernise STEM education across schools, as an integrated part of core curriculum delivery.

The challenge started in 2013 and, pre-pandemic, had more than 700 participating secondary schools. The most recent  one – the first since 2019 – saw 180 schools from across the UK sign up.

The challenge requires students to physically build a high-performing, large toy-size rocket car. RS assisted The Learning Partnership with compilation of materials and instructions, and funded the kits for 16 of the participating schools, as part of its sponsorship support. Our involvement in the project saw us making up kits of around 55,000 components for 23,432 school students!

Schools were invited to participate on a whole year group basis, moving engagement from the STEM club to mainstream education, inspiring a wider pool of children in the subjects. 

On sign-up, they were sent the materials and instructions required for the build. They also received curriculum material covering an entire spectrum of subjects, not only the expected sciences. Media studies pupils may have learnt how to promote a rocket car race team, while those in maths classes may have investigated the numbers behind building a rocket car. It really is a multi-faceted project to engage children in different ways.

The challenge included provision of a whole year STEM package to schools at zero cost to them, as it is funded by business sponsors like RS. 

Eight regional finals for the 23/24 Race to the Line challenge were held for schools with the fastest rocket cars. One of these area finals was held at RS’ Corby headquarters, for which RS also provided volunteers, and in addition, gave the following kit support to the challenge: 3,782 foam blocks, 7,473 axles, 7,523 rawl plugs, 7,523 screw eyes, 12,090 cans of CO2 and 19,076 wheels. No mean feat at all!

The great news is there are already 280 schools signed up for the challenge for the 2024/2025 school year, with RS planning to expand its support of the programme as it launches the year eight follow-on challenge. 

Additionally, RS and its business partners within The Learning Partnership network are seeking to support all secondary schools in the UK to engage in a three to five-year programme of whole year group STEM activities. This will ultimately support a pipeline of STEM talent feeding into post-16 employment opportunities in the sponsor networks.

Being personally involved in this event, I found it really rewarding. Seeing first-hand how this kind of grass roots engagement can have such a profound impact on school children and their interest in STEM subjects really does illustrate, to me, the benefit of these kinds of initiatives. 

It’s a very worthwhile way for any organisation to play their part in driving awareness of STEM to young people. After all, it’s the responsibility of us all in related industries to make this investment now, to secure our skills pipeline for the future. It’s vital both to the UK economy and our industry survival.

 Steve McIntyre is branch manager for RS Local in Aberdeen