Automotive

Rolls Royce's electric go-kart takes on Goodwood Motor Circuit

Rolls Royce's electric go-kart takes on Goodwood Motor Circuit
Team March takes the track
Team March takes the track
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Rolls-Royce helped the local March CE Primary School compete in the Greenpower event
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Rolls-Royce helped the local March CE Primary School compete in the Greenpower event
Team March takes the track
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Team March takes the track
The children pose in their RR overalls
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The children pose in their RR overalls
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Three weeks ago, the famed Goodwood House estate hosted its annual Festival of Speed. In a couple of months, noteworthy personalities and vehicles like the new Ant-Kahn Barchetta will descend on the UK motoring destination for the Goodwood Revival. In between those staple events, Goodwood has been keeping its asphalt hot with less famous events like this week's Greenpower IET Formula Goblin. Rolls-Royce sponsored a local team of primary schoolers, developing an "ultra luxury" electric go-kart for the event.

Rolls-Royce may not have road-readied the electric Phantom up to this point, but it has helped put a smaller electric vehicle onto the street. In a school project way cooler than the homemade volcanoes and potato clocks we remember from elementary school science classes, Rolls developed the electric mini-racer directly with the group of 9- to 11-year-olds from the March CE Primary School.

The boys and girls on "Team March" finalized the design before Rolls-Royce's team stepped in to help them build the car. Rolls' engineers and designers provided some insight into vehicle engineering, manufacturing and teamwork during the process.

This year's IET Formula Goblin proved to be a record-breaking event. Nearly 90 cars designed by school teams around the UK showed up on Sunday, July 13 to test their mettle at Goodwood. The Typhoon car developed by a team from St. Mary’s School, Clymping, emerged as the overall winner and took home victory at the Lap of Champions, among several other triumphs.

The children pose in their RR overalls
The children pose in their RR overalls

Team March's car performed toward the middle of the pack on the track, but it did snag the prize for "best bodywork." We're guessing the Rolls Royce-inspired grille and badging helped to persuade the judges in its favor. The team was also presented with a set of hand-stitched race overalls made in the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Leathershop. Team members posed for a few group photos in the pit crew-style outfits after touring Rolls' headquarters.

"The team at Rolls-Royce were impressed with the children’s enthusiasm and passion for the project and we have no doubt that they are engineers of the future," says Andrew Ball, Rolls-Royce communications manager and team leader of the project.

Those interested can see the full results of the 2014 IET Formula Goblin on Greenpower's website. Further recap is available in the Greenpower blog post linked below.

Source: Rolls-Royce, Greenpower

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4 comments
4 comments
The Skud
Some photos of the competition would have been nice, even though this was a RR story. Cudos to those who had the idea though, it is amazing what suggestions kids can give.
BigGoofyGuy
I too think it would have been nice to see a photo or two of the competition.
I think they did a nice job on the little vehicle.
Bongo Drum
I was involved in the project and can tell you that all concerned worked really hard and got a lot from the experience.
It certainly helped inspire the children to think about careers in engineering and made the STEM subjects come to life.
Terence LO
The long term goal for transportation vehicles shall be zero collision on the road. Go-kart motor circuit will be the only place where juniors can possibly inflict self injury by deficient cornering and braking.