Local Soapbox team visits Acres for inspiration & advice
This week we were visited by a team of 5 aspiring engineers for help with their Soapbox race car project.
A team of five 13-year-old innovators building a soapbox car for the Ashby Soapbox Derby, which takes place on Sunday May 17th 2026, asked us for help in designing and building their car, and for some specialist processes that they don’t have access to at home such welding and cutting.
The boy’s mission statement is: “With a passion for engineering and a need for speed, we’re working hard to design a car that lives up to our name – ‘The Lightning McKings’. We’re currently raising funds to help cover essential safety gear and build costs. Any extra funds we raise will be donated to charity, so we can give back to our community too!”
We love a good engineering challenge here at Acres, so were more than happy to lend a hand, and advice – Although none of us have built a competitive soapbox car, many of us have years of engineering and car/bike-tinkering knowledge.
The first step was to look at what they had as a starting point, a small go-kart, with the engine removed – This is a great start as they already have a chassis, axle, brakes and steering, as well as very suitable wheels (not like some teams that use bicycle wheels and suffer with instant collapse on corners and jumps, these will survive some punishment.
After an initial test run to evaluate what we can do to help, we set about mounting a go-kart seat (donated by an Acres team member) for added safety, and adding a push handle at the rear.
The next modification was to alter the position of the steering wheel, by lowering the angle and extending the column to suit the new seating position.
We also noticed that some of the bolts that hold the steering arm rose joints were working loose so suggested a simple fix.
We ended the visit having made good progress, and have a 2nd visit planned to refine the changes – watch this space!!
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Acres have a range of standard products but also support clients with custom machinery and medium-high volume products such as trolleys, stillages etc.
We have manufactured lots of different tables / workstations / workbenches for various industries.
We also manufacture access platforms, jigs and fixtures and many other types of production support solutions / products.
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