Whittle Wonders team receives sponsorship boost from Mills CNC and the CNC Training Academy as it sets its sights on victory in Dubai.

Mills CNC, the exclusive distributor of Doosan machine tools in the UK and Ireland, and its independently-operated CNC training division, the CNC Training Academy, are sponsoring a team from a local Leamington school as it takes on the world at this year’s International ‘F1 in Schools’ competition in Abu Dhabi in November.

Both companies have agreed to donate £1000.00 each to the ‘Whittle Wonders’ team from North Leamington Secondary School who, after being crowned National Champions earlier this year, are representing the UK at the event.

The team, comprising four students aged between 17 and 18 from the School, are confident that the sponsorship they have received from Mills CNC, The Training Academy and other local and national companies and organisations will help them win the much coveted Bernie Ecclestone Schools’ World Championship Trophy.

Says Mills CNC’s managing director, Paul Hooper-Keeley: -

“The ‘F1 in Schools’ competition is a fantastic initiative focused on changing young people’s perceptions and attitudes about careers in engineering, science and technology.

“This is something we are passionate about here at Mills and recognise that if we cannot attract sufficient numbers of well-qualified, highly-skilled young people into manufacturing and engineering – the UK’s future growth and economic prosperity will be severely affected.

“The ‘F1 in Schools’ competition, with its emphasis on innovative thinking and design-for-manufacture knowledge and skills, ticks all the right boxes for us and that’s why we are proud to be sponsoring the Whittle Wonders team.”

To cement its relationship with Mills CNC and the CNC Training Academy the whittle wonder’s four-student crew was invited to Mills CNC’s Technology Campus in Leamington at the end of August to meet senior managers, take a tour of the facility and see a number of high-performance Doosan machine tools being put through their paces.

The ‘F1 in Schools’ competition

‘F1 in Schools’ is a truly international event with teams from over 40 countries taking part.

The competition is holistic in nature and requires participating teams not only to use and apply CAD/CAM software and manufacturing methods to design, test, make and ultimately race miniature F1 cars on a 20 metre track – but also to demonstrate their understanding of the wider commercial, financial and marketing imperatives involved in running a business – specifically one in the motorsport (F1) sector.
As far as Whittle Wonders’ miniature car is concerned – the focus for the team was on designing and manufacturing a light-weight, aerodynamically-sound and structurally-robust car powered by compressed gas that could reach speeds in excess of 70mph.
The team is confident that the model they have created (and which will be unveiled at the event in Dubai) will beat off stiff competition expected from the German and Australian teams (in particular) to claim a top-of-the-podium result.