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Junior Engineers for Britain

K'NEX Challenge

Are you up for a thrilling primary school challenge?

The Junior Engineers for Britain K'NEX Challenge is owned and managed by Young Engineers and is sponsored by Network Rail, Tomorrow's Engineers and Data Harvest.

This year our engineering theme is Prince Arthur, his friends and Camelot! It promises to provide an exciting series of challenges fo rthe pupils!

Junior Engineers for Britain K'NEX Challenge

The aim of this challenge is to provide primary school children with an introduction to the exciting world of engineering and technology in a fun and educational way.

Who can enter and when?

The challenge is open from November 2009 to primary schools or organisations teaching school years 4, 5 and 6 or equivalent (approximately pupils aged 8 - 11 years old) in the UK. The initial challenge is normally run for a classroom of approximately 30 pupils and is suitable for children of all abilities. Schools may enter more than one class of pupils.

Once the challenge opens in November 2009 the closing dates for registration are as follows:

30 April in England and Wales
31 March in Northern Ireland and Scotland

Please remember that closing dates are subject to both availability and to individual local organiser schedules.

What happens next?

You can register for the challenge here on the website, all expressions of interest will be forwarded to the local deliverer who will contact you to discuss your requirements and arrange a suitable date for the challenge to be run in your school. Please be aware that the challenge may be subject to a small fee (approx £50) to cover administration costs of the local delivere, who will discuss this with you. The local organiser may offer you the opportunity to extend the challenge session into a full educational delivery session, please note the extended service is separate to the challenge and brings with it its own set of costs.Young Engineers does not charge for the challenge.

There are many delivery methods for the challenge such as

The organiser or engineer can visit your school and run a special activity session lasting at least half a day.
You can borrow the K’NEX kits and run the activity session yourself.
Your local secondary school may run a primary school feeder session.

It is up to you to discuss with your local organiser the best method of delivery for your school.

The challenge

The challenge requires the pupils to work in pairs and involves them in building a design solution to a problem that has been set by Young Engineers. The challenge encourages the pupils to develop and demonstrate their problem solving skills, their imagination, creativity and ingenuity as well as early project management skills. The pupils start the challenge by drawing their ideas first and then building their solution, adapting their initial designs as they learn what works and what doesn’t.

The Junior Engineer for Britain K'NEX Challenge has a long and established history with over 53,000 pupils taking part in 2009. A UK National Final will be held in June 2010 and it is expected that over 30 teams will be invited to attend. The selection process from an in school challenge to national final will involve a combination of methods including juding in school to county finals.

How to register

Terms and conditions

Please ensure you read the terms and conditions page when you register.

Competition support

Check out the competition support page for general information and assistance to help your school and pupils gain the most from this fun and exciting competition.

Contact information

Please contact Young Engineers if you have any general queries about this challenge,

Secondary schools wishing to run primary school feeder sessions or get involved in any other way, should in the first instance contact Young Engineers who will then forward your query to the local organiser.

Young Engineers can be contacted via: