The Blair Project moves up a gear with Team Sport partnership
The youth-led social enterprise has partnered with indoor karting company, Team Sport, to boost its ProtoEV STEM Challenge.
The Blair Project, which uses motorsport as a vehicle to engage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in STEM and the green technology revolution, has partnered with the UK’s leading indoor karting company to enable it to roll out the ProtoEV Challenge, having launched in London on Tuesday 17 Jan at 5pm at TeamSport Indoor Karting track in Mitcham. They brought along a specially converted STEM Truck, complete with solar powered roof packed full of STEM activities, and one of their self-build ekarts!
Its flagship programme, the ProtoEV STEM Challenge, is targeted at under-represented youth aged 13-19. Teams from schools and youth clubs compete to retrofit used petrol go karts and convert them into fully electric ekarts which they get to test and race, to see which is the fastest and most energy efficient. The challenge gives participants hands-on experience with green technologies such as powertrains and batteries, and helps them develop transferable, practical skills to inspire them to become the innovators, technologists, engineers and entrepreneurs to tackle climate change. The ProtoEV STEM Challenge forms part of Planet Possibility, a new drive funded by the Institute of Physics Challenge Fund to get more young people from diverse backgrounds to pursue physics based careers.
This partnership with Team Sport will allow The Blair Project to use the company’s 32 indoor karting sites to stage induction events. Team Sport has a number of multi-level circuits, which range in length from 400m to 1000m each with a unique combination of twists, turns and straights. Its racing tracks will provide the perfect challenge for the participants of the ProtoEV Challenge.
Nile Henry, CEO and Founder of The Blair Project, and a Radio 1Xtra2021 Future Figure said: “After having to delay the ProtoEV Challenge for two years due to Covid-19, we are really excited to come back bigger and better with this partnership with Team Sport. We’ll now be able to bring the challenge to even more young people across the UK, helping them discover talents they never knew they had.
Through the ProtoEV Challenge, we’re changing the world of motorsport for the better, championing sustainable technology, and giving young people, no matter their background, opportunities to engage with the sport. It’s companies like Team Sport that make this possible, so we’d like to thank the team who helped get this partnership off the ground.”
