Reliance Precision Limited (‘Reliance’) apprentices have been presented with an Engineering Excellence Award following their participation in the UK CanSat Competition 2025/26. The team – named the Reliance Orbiters – was made up of the company’s current first-year apprentices and was led by third-year apprentice, Harry Baxter.
The UK CanSat Competition provides students with the opportunity to gain practical experience working on a small-scale space project. Each team is tasked with designing a CanSat, which is a simulation of a real satellite, integrated within the volume and shape constraints of a soft drink can. The challenge is to fit all the major sub-systems found in a satellite, such as power, sensors and a communication system into this minimal volume. The project was required to have a primary and secondary mission, and each team was allocated an industry ambassador, who was able to offer support and guidance.
The Reliance Orbiters submitted their critical design review in January and were delighted to learn that they had been invited to participate in a Regional Launch Event at Elvington Airfield. The next few months were spent building their CanSat so that it could be launched on a small rocket.
Harry said: “We were all very excited when the launch went smoothly – it was fantastic to see all our hard work pay off. As a team we had some really interesting engineering ideas and it was great to see them actually work in practice. It was also good to see how the other teams had approached the challenge. Although we didn’t progress to the National Final Launch Event, we were all proud of our CanSat and how we had worked together to design and build it. The Engineering Excellence Award feels like a recognition of what we accomplished.”
The Engineering Excellence Award was granted to around one in nine teams participating in regional launch events and is intended to recognise areas including:
The size, strength and design of the parachute system.
The quality and construction of the CanSat shell.
The innovation and successful execution of the team’s secondary mission.
Robert Farrell, Training School Manager, commented:
“The team should be incredibly proud of themselves. They approached the competition with enthusiasm and were able to put everything they’ve learnt so far as apprentices into the project. During the process, they have developed practical skills in areas such as systems design, data handling and problem-solving, as well as gaining experience of working to deadlines and responding to technical constraints. I’d like to thank Aftab Hussain at Kirklees College and the team’s industry ambassador, Viktor Doychinov, for the guidance they provided during the competition as well as everyone at Reliance who offered their support.”
