Want to get young people racing? How about a few laps around Goodwood for starters?!

For hundreds of schools around the country the weekends of June and July mean one thing - race time! - as the small electric-powered Greenpower race cars hit famous race tracks.

There’s a massive interest this year - we got hooked at last year’s finale - with the race series powered by the sponsorship and enthusiastic support of Siemens PLM Solid Edge, which has included the first entry from the USA.

The team from Huntsville Technology Centre, Alabama, have arrived from the home of the American space program to race against teams from across the UK in a battle of race handling, electrical economy and aerodynamic design that is rather exciting to watch.

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3D Systems and its quest for world domination in the 3D printing spectrum had been a little quiet of late, so we’re happy to see they’re still spending the moolah on acquisitions - this time Phenix Systems.

The O-eschewing company designs, manufactures and sells proprietary ‘Direct Metal 3D Printers’ - laser sinterers - that are good for 6 to 9 micron-layer dense metal and ceramic parts from powder.

This opens up a whole new world of materials for 3D Systems - including stainless steel, tool steel, super alloys, non-ferrous alloys, precious metals and alumina - giving them a foothold in the fast-growing aerospace, automotive, defense and medical sectors.

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Legendary Italian design house Pininfarina has unveilled its designs for a new concept car - The Sergio - in honor of its honorary chairman, Sergio Pininfarina.

Created solely in Dassault Systemes Catia using innovative virtual clay modeling and 3D sketching features, Pininfarina designers got creative with the open-top sports car, experimenting in the earliest stages of development with a variety of different approaches, quickly converging on the most appropriate shape and configuration.

The resulting 3D virtual model is a detail rich, production-ready, with a class-A surface, generated using ICEM Surf.

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Building an art installation, called ‘Soft Array’, from 80 inter-connected Windows 8 devices might seem a little out of our purview, but it gave us a chance to view the credentials of Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet.

First the installation: The array links up, allowing developers in a short space of time to develop apps that operate across all the devices. Plonked into a Microsoft event today in Cannes, France, visitors will be able touch its screens that are all linked to work in real time together.

It’s a great deal of fun - such as viewing the solar system through the ‘Universe’ app, which uses distributed processing to control mass particle flow across the 80 Surface Pros.

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Sir Paul with one ofmany stacks of books, and a paper mache rabbit

This morning we were lucky enough to be squashed, shoulder to shoulder, with the British fashion legend Sir Paul Smith as the Design Museum announced the forthcoming exhibition about his life’s works to assembled journos.

What is most exciting about this November’s exhibition ‘Hello, My Name Is Sir Paul Smith’, is not only the retrospective of the distinctive fashion styles that have built this brand into a global operation, but the recreation of Paul’s personal office space.

This room is the subject of many legendary stories (some of which he hinted at today, including the deliveries of LOTS of random presents sent by fans across the globe - spinning tops or cow bells anyone?) and much of his inspiration.

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The June edition of DEVELOP3D will soon be with you and is now available for free download.

If you’ve yet to claim your FREE SUBSCRIPTION - simply click here

This month we offer some helpful hints to graduate designers; look at how Ford is using 3D printing from its secretive base; find out what is new in Autodesk Inventor 2014 and MODO 701, plus all the latest news, reviews and jobs.

The June cover story:

The Nissan DeltaWing is striking not just for its exterior but what lies beneath that matt black surface too. Tanya Weaver visits the automotive engineering company, RML, which ensured it got to the Le Mans starting grid in record time.

The downloadable magazine is FREE every month, so get it now!

Having already put together a special report on how manufacturing companies are using SpaceClaim, we’re co-hosting a webinar on the topic.

Our very own Editor in Chief Al Dean, and SpaceClaim’s Application Engineer John Graham will be looking at:

• preparing concept models for quotations

• working with all manner of engineering data

• speeding up faster thinking and documenting those ideas

• preparing models for machining

Register here for this must-see webinar on Thursday 20 June, from 15:00 GMT (10:00 EST)

Click here to read the report.