Students from schools across four counties in the south put their creative skills to the test in a two-day Lego tank-building event

The Tank Museum Engineering Challenge saw teams of secondary school pupils from Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire competing to engineer, build and demonstrate miniature Lego tanks at Bovington Tank Museum.

Children used computer programming and scenery maps built by Bournemouth University to test out their tanks.

The initiative, which is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and is now in its fourth year, saw local school pupils from Harewood College, Avonbourne College, Carter Community School, Queen Elizabeth’s School among others navigate their way around a series of challenging environments, from forest scenes, to deserts and even an arched apex bridge.

Claire Cooper, education officer at Bovington Tank Museum, said the event, which has been running since 2014, is getting bigger and bigger.

"We’ve got new obstacles built for us by Bournemouth University this year and they’re absolutely fantastic; the children have had lots of fun using them.

“We really get the children to think about how they are going to work as a team, whether building, designing, or driving, just like the Tank Corps with each tank crew having their own individual thing to do.”

Matthew Robinson, year ten student at Lytchett Minster School and Centurion team member, said: “It’s been very fun, I’m into engineering and I quite like programming and building stuff. I quite like tanks, what’s not to like, they’re tanks."

Over the course of four years, the annual event has grown from a single school initiative with Harewood College, to that of a multi-day competition involving more than ten schools across the region.

Naomi Capell, outreach officer for STEM and Primary at Bournemouth University, said: “The event has grown in size over the years, and we’ve enjoyed receiving really great feedback from those involved.

“Hopefully students will be able to take away those transferable skills learned over the course of the competition, and put these into their future studies, perhaps even discovering their own ambitions to go on and study in these areas in the future.”

On the first day, the winning teams were Team Chieftain from Holyrood Academy, Team Centurion from Holyrood Academy with runners up Avonbourne College and Carter Community School.

Closing the event were winning teams Team Chieftain from Lytchett Minster School, Team Grant from The Burgate School & Sixth Form and Team Whippet from Trafalgar School at Downton.