Scalextric4Schools: Full Throttle Learning for the Engineers of the Future

0:01Welcome to Third Angle, where we are racing to create the next generation of engineers.

0:18I'm your host, Paul Hames, from industrial software company PTC. In this podcast, we share the moments where digital transforms physical and meet the brilliant minds behind some of the most innovative products around the world, each powered by PTC technology. Did you know that the iconic racing toy Scalextric, which has captivated generations, is now entering classrooms to inspire tomorrow's engineers? The Scalextrics for Schools initiative brings the thrill of motorsport design into secondary schools across the UK, challenging students to engineer, test and race their own slot cars while learning real-world engineering principles.

0:59What started as an educational experiment has now become a nationwide movement, engaging students who might never have considered engineering as a career path. From designing aerodynamic bodies to optimizing weight distribution, students experience the same challenges faced by Formula One engineers, but with the excitement of seeing their creations race head to head on the track. I travelled down to Scalectrics parent company Hornby Hobbies headquartered in Margate to meet some of the people behind Scalectrics for Schools. I spoke to Simon Owen, head of brand at Scalectrics, Simon Hooker, project lead for Scalectrics for Schools, Anthony, a teacher at Bishop's Bluecoat School, and Izzy, a student participant who's discovered a passion for engineering through the programme.

1:48They shared with me how Scalectrics for Schools is inspiring a new generation to work in the STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering and maths.

2:02We're at Wonderworks, which is taking me back to my childhood. Wonderworks is part of Hornby Hobbies and it's the customer facing part of this. Hornby is the parent company for Scalectrics and we're here today to talk about Scalectrics for School. Now I can just see coming through the door, Simon Owen. And Simon, great to see you. Thank you. Great to see you. So we're just stepping through into the customer centre, which really is a treasure trove of all of the favourite brands and toys, everything from Hornby, hobbies, the railway locomotives, rolling stock, trains. Come on in, then I'll take you through to meet the guys and just get chatting about Skeletor for Schools.

2:43Hi, my name's Simon, and I run the Skeletor for Schools programme for all UK schools. So my name's Anthony I work with Simon and I teach Izzy. So my name's also Simon and I am head of brand for Scalelectric so I'm responsible for all of Scalelectric's marketing, commercial and product activities throughout the world.

3:06Yeah so the company was founded in 1957 so we've been around now for approaching 70 something years. is still one of the most recognizable toy brands in the uk we have incredible product recognition and really proud to be a company that you know we're like hoover we're like jacuzzi we are the go-to brand for slot racing we produce a massive range of cars accessories and tracks that enable adults and kids to take motorsport to their living rooms and help them discover the racing drivers of tomorrow so let's turn to scale electrics for schools and can you just explain why that as a program is so important to the company.

3:42So from a very boring commercial aspect, it gets more people playing with Scale Electric, enjoying it. But from a more marketing and woolly, fluffy, warm perspective, it enables kids, people like Izzy, who otherwise possibly wouldn't have been playing with Scale Electric at 17, to actually play with it and enjoy it. And it's helped her on a career path that hopefully will have her in good stead for the rest of her life.

4:06so last year I was in a team with three other girls and I was designated driver so it meant going on the track being timed to go around the track as fast as I possibly could but what people don't see is the actual process that us four went through so Hannah was our designer however we all chipped in with design work because one person could have an idea about the car but another person could have an even better idea we had molly who actually made the car and put it together and if she had a problem she'd be like well how would you do this how would you make this better so we adapted and then tori was our social media manager who had to come up with this video and basically the judges got to see it and we ended up winning that part of it and got a price because of it so yeah so it really is like a a small scale racing car team and racing car company just talk me through how that's developed and what skills you think you've brought to it and also what's needed to really be successful in the program well if they looked at me two years ago i probably wouldn't be able to have even designed the car from scratch career is the tool we used from making the body of the car to then adapting to it i think we redid our car like about three times and for me as the driver I practiced every day after school just going around the track trying to develop my skills.

5:31Some people will go full throttle fully down and the car will go straight off the track so for me it was like finding the balance and in the end I got I think I got the third fastest lap of the day so. If we think about the development of your skills as well Izzy and the other team members the STEM the science technology engineering and mathematics sort of development of skills. Super important, obviously, for industry, for everybody's future careers. How has that developed within the team, would you say? I study product design at A-level, and so do the other four girls. And the skills that I've learnt from doing the Scale Electricist competition, I've put forward into my actual product.

6:08At the moment, I'm designing the lamp, and I use Creo in order to make the actual lamp. And I've only got into Creo the last two years, and that started through. Scalelectrics basically and from where I started to where I am now I've made a car, made a lamp, you know the skills are important and I want to go into this side of it so those skills I'm using to show off basically.

6:39So I'm here now at the Scalelectrics test track I'm driving Izzy's car around the track and just about holding it together and I'm embarrassed myself too much. One spin and two spins. It's easy to see how the students get hooked on this and particularly the level of competition because Izzy is driving one of the other cars. I'm doing everything I can to beat her and she's showing me a clean pair of heels here. Maybe not after a crash too. I'm going to try and get a bit of a head start here. Oh, crashed. Although, you know, there was a slight potential case of cheating there. And what a great way for them to start with a clean sheet of paper, design, develop and evolve their car and then race it competitively.

7:44So it was originally developed by two teachers based in Staffordshire who just had the idea of making slot cards as then it wasn't associated with Scalectrics originally. And that was then brought to the attention of the UK PTC education person at the time, a chap called Tim Brotherhood, who then rolled with the idea. It turned out that Hornby as a brand used PTC software, so there was a really nice link between the two. and that link is so important with the pupils that when we're watching videos about how Hornby do things we're saying you're doing exactly the same processes as that Hornby would do okay we're not doing it quite as much detail we haven't got the resources that they have but you're copying the same techniques you're using the same software to create a similar item at the end of the day it was originally late 2000 it came about and we were probably a little bit too early with our time It was very much ahead of its time back then.

8:423D printing, CAD in schools wasn't mainstream. As time's gone on, CAD's become a lot more accessible within education. 3D printers, the cost has come down phenomenally. And it just felt after COVID and things that there was an opportunity to do something with the scheme again and to bring it back. I've been told I was mad for trying, that pupils, kids just wanted to be on Playstations and things, they weren't interested in this. But as soon as you see them with a Skeletrics car on a track and controller in their hand, it comes to life. It's a different experience for them and there's so much within the program and so many different pathways that they can take from being involved, it just makes it a really worthwhile cause.

9:32So we've got two of our cars from last year, two of the finalist cars. One came first, the other came third. I think they're going to have a bit of a race-off with Paul and Izzy, having a go and seeing how they perform on one of the more professional setups that we were able to put them onto today. You were keen on picking this car, why was that? Well, it's my car, first of all. me and Hannah are the big F1 fans in our team and we were like if we're going to make a car might as well do it with one of the F1 teams even if it's not obviously an F1 club so we chose Ferrari 3, 2, 1, go

10:12no

10:18it's lonely drivers for you that

10:24So far we've got about 30 schools across the UK signed up. We've also had recently some interest from the US. So we've got a couple of schools in the US now who want to take part remotely and a couple in Australia. So it had the tagline design, make and race originally. And we've kind of kept to that, that they use CAD software to design a car. They then manufacture it using 3D printing, laser cutting. Some schools are using CNC routers and vacuum formers. So it's tailored to what the schools have got. We've got schools doing CFD dynamics of the car, looking at the airflow and things over it. So it's proper industry-heavy things.

11:02And then we all come together once a year and all the teams race against each other to see who's got the fastest lap. And each year we try to look for somewhere iconic to host the event. So we've done the Silverstone Museum, which was a great event, just before the British Grand Prix, of course. and then this year we were very fortunate to be at the Triumph Visitor Centre. They're meeting with engineers from these companies and things and it's helping them with their careers and their pathways and we're also putting these students in front of industry which is another great benefit. It's always really interesting for me as head of Brandfusco Electric to go to these events and see what the kids are working on and how much effort they're putting into.

11:39The fact they add CFD and Aero onto a slot car and I always laugh at it because it's like you guys are putting in way more effort into how these things run than we do it just shows the level of of interest and passion there is for the project

11:55just by way of an example we had one of the teams this year i think i'm right in saying simon that actually included something called a mass damper in the car yes they'd actually thought about the idea of a mass damper in the car to try and take out some of the undulation as it's going around the track it would have very little effect or success in the actual car but the thought process they've gone through to actually have thought of that and to done some research and try to work out how they could incorporate in the car just shows the level that they're at the mass damper was a development in formula one i think they ran it for a year or two and then it got outlawed because it was such an advantage so it just really is demonstrating the level of complexity and i I think perhaps one of the nice parts of the programme is that the winning team actually gets to go and visit one of the Formula One factories here in the UK and see just how relevant what they've done is in terms of the process and the tools that are being used to the way in which a Formula One team, a really successful F1 team, actually goes about building their cars as well.

13:01A lot of what we hear from people is this idea of the skills gap in industry, that we don't have enough engineers coming through and how do we recruit them and there's so many key skills that not only Scalic Trips for Schools provides but design and technology as a subject and engineering provide that we're trying to promote as well. The creativity, the problem solving, critical thinking. They're all things that industry are crying out for and we're trying to help them in that way and a lot of people are starting to see the benefits of the programme and what it can offer to them and how it can go on for the greater good really.

13:40So, Ant, I'd like to turn to you now as the teacher of the subject at the schools that are actually running the programme. Can you just talk me through, first of all, how does a school get involved in this? For anybody that's listening that might be at school, they might have kids at school who are interested in maybe taking part in the programme. How does it work? So there's design technology groups on social media and Simon's kind of quite prolific there. And there's lots of information about how to sign up. And there is also a website as well. So I think if you search Scale Extracts for School, you'll find the website and instructions to how to join up.

14:18Now, so you would recommend this as a program to all schools, anybody doing design and technology engineering GCSE level? The students that have taken part, not only are they kind of better than other students because of their skill set, they've developed soft skills as well. So it might be they're doing the work, they'll have a little look and see one of the friends that's maybe struggling a little bit and they'll get up and go over and go try this. We've had students that have come through design technology with us and now are design engineers in industry. It's all going towards filling that skills gap in industry.

14:55So if we can inspire students with the Scalelectrics for Schools programme, and then they can end up working in that industry, what more can you ask for? We just want to inspire that to a new generation, that it doesn't all have to be Playstations and Xboxes or games consoles. There is real things you could do, and these skills will help you in later life. Recently I did work experience at a PDS Vision who's a sponsor of Skeletor's Schools and they were really surprised that I already had some of the work based skills that they look for in industry and they were like how do you that? And I was like well I do this competition which uses software which you use in everyday life which they were surprised about.

15:47It was fantastic to visit the Scalectrics headquarters and meet the spokespeople, teachers and students involved in the Scalectrics for School scheme.

16:00Please rate, review and subscribe to our bi-weekly Third Angle episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow PTC on LinkedIn and X for future episodes. Companies that make products the world relies on rely on PTC. This is an 1860 production for PTC. Executive producer is Jackie Cook. Location recording by Hannah Dean. Sound design and editing by Clarissa Maycock. And music by Rowan Bishop.