Information

The Silverstone Design Challenge is a competition brought to you by the Silverstone Innovation Centre, at the Silverstone race circuit, in collaboration with Darren Giles of The National School TC College in Nottinghamshire.

The competition is aimed at students in three age categories: KS2 and KS3+4 , from schools and colleges across the country, and focuses on the subject of Design Technology with a real world link.

• The competition is split into three main challenges, each linked to a Key Stage age group:
  
• KS2 pupils can enter the “stamp it!” challenge
• KS3+4 have 5 challenge briefs to choose from:
  • “what-ya-call-it?”
  • “fashion frenzy” 
  • “promo puzzle”
  • “marketing mealy” 
  • “engineering excellence”

The competition is open to teams of 1-4 pupils or students and will involve designing new innovative products through investigation and research into the challenge brief, develop ideas and concepts and finally for the KS3,4 teams involve presenting their ideas to a group of judges on a finals day at Silverstone, part of which involves a ‘Dragons Den’ presentation! The “Stamp it!” challenge for KS2 involves a display of work also on the finals day.

Each of the challenges is sponsored by a different company form the world of Design, Engineering, Motor Sport, Retail, and Leisure. There are many prizes on offer for the wining entries as well as being crowned UK champion for the year!

As well as providing an interesting and fun competition the challenge also offers entrants the opportunity to learn about Design Technology in a real world context and work in a way that is out of the ordinary. For teachers the challenge offers the chance to enhance the Curriculum and engage their learners in a new way!

As part of this competition, entrants will have the opportunity to attend marketing and product development workshops, run by experts in the field, with the aim of demonstrating how products are brought to market, and will hopefully enlighten them to the workings of industry. These workshops are designed to help entrants with the competition. There will also be some lessons on how to create good presentations to the judges, and construct realistic business plans ready for the finals day!

Challenge Timeline 
Registration of entries - end Jan 2010
Prejudging - 23rd April
(submit us an outline of your ideas so far and convince us of why you deserve to make the finals. This is used to select finalist. You do not need a finished project at this stage, just a plan!)
Training workshops for finalists – 24th June
Finals Day - 13th July

Full details of the challenge and instructions on how to enter can be found throughout this website.

CREST Awards

In taking part in the Design Challenges, students will already be demonstrating many of the skills they need to obtain a CREST Award, including working systematically, solving problems creatively and presenting work to others. Students participating in the Design Challenge are therefore eligible to apply for a CREST Award.

CREST Awards are available at Bronze, Silver and Gold levels, depending on the amount and depth of work you carry out. You can register students for the CREST awards by contacting your local CREST coordinator, to find out who the coordinator is for your region and more information about the Award scheme please go to- www.britishscienceassociation.org/crest

Contact details