A team from Easton & Otley college has won the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) Young Engineers competition two years running.


The Easton and Otley winning team Ike Neave and Harry Gillingwater

An apprentice from GreenMech Ltd, studying at Warwickshire college was runner-up.

The team beat off competition from 11 other teams from UK landbased colleges at the event held at GreenMech Ltd, the manufacturer of wood chippers and green waste shredders based in Alcester, Warwickshire.

The competition is open to all UK training and education providers and involves creating a remote or radio controlled vehicle. Teams are given a set of standard wheels, a battery and maximum dimensions and the challenge is to produce the top performance vehicle of the competition. The vehicle that powers its way to the highest point up a curved ramp is the winner.

Richard Robinson, managing director of sponsor Autoguide Equipment and previous President of IAgrE explains, "The standards of entrants was good this year. The competition is designed to reward the team that invests the most time, can employ a winning strategy and make sure the vehicle conforms to the rules. GreenMech’s managing director Jonathan Turner was very supportive spending a lot of time talking to students and during the factory tour we witnessed Greenmech’s support of the apprentices as they had erected a practice test ramp in the work shop.”

Another member of the judging panel Peter Leech, also a former IAgrE President said, “We had a brilliant day. Greenmech were fantastic hosts and it was great to see one of their own apprentices coming a close second.”

Cash prizes were awarded to the winning teams plus power tools from sponsors Rexroth Bosch Group.