VIDEO: Thrills and spills in William Alvey School soapbox race
An exciting soapbox construction challenge by a Sleaford primary school has proven so successful it is now being considered to run it every year.
Since completion of their SATs exams at half-term, Year 6 pupils at William Alvey School have been taking pains over brainstorming, designing, building and testing their own push-along go-karts.
Just before the end of term, parents were invited along to cheer on the teams of children as they took turns to do four laps of a track laid out on the playground in the quickest time, coming into ‘the pits’ after each lap to change drivers.
As well as a prize for the fastest circuit, there were also awards for the best design, decided by part-time racing driver Mark Reynolds, who races in the Classic Touring Car Racing Club series and is currently leading his class.
His wife, Elizabeth, is a teacher at the school and he offered to bring his racing car in as a treat for the children to sit in and rev the engine.
He said: “When she told me what they were doing I offered to bring the car up.
“It has been a great effort by the boys and girls and I could see some engineers of tomorrow.
“In these days it is nice to see kids getting hands on and making something physical - away from computers.”
The children spent a couple of hours a day working on the project over the last three weeks under supervision of staff.
The school is now condsidering repeating the event next year.
