Member Article

High fliers scoop regional award

Two teams of budding inventors have won £1000 for their schools and an iPod for themselves for winning the grand final of the region’s largest design competition. Durham High School was announced as Key Stage 3 winners of the Futures Challenge, while Lumley Primary School in Chester Le Street won the Key stage 2 award during the ceremony at St. Peters Campus, University of Sunderland on 17 July.

Designing a Moon base to support human life, both teams worked with experts from aerospace company BAE Systems, Birtley, on a three month project to solve a brief set by European Space Agency partners, Space Connections. Pupils were challenged to apply real life technology to the challenges of living in space. The pupils will now get the chance to present their award winning ideas to real astronauts at a series of lectures to be staged in the region during September.

The competition is run by the Education Futures team at technology consultancy RTC North and was established to help schools foster an interest in design, science and technology and encourage innovation at a young age.

Dave Berry, Chief design engineer at BAE Systems, said: “All the teams in the final made an incredible effort. The detailed research and models reflect immensely well on all these schools. In the end, I think it was the delivery of the presentations which made the difference. Both winning schools gave very slick and confident presentations. It’s great to have been involved in encouraging young people to take an interest into science and engineering.”

Sarah Black, Project coordinator, said: “This competition is about bringing science and technology to life through giving young people the freedom to invent and the quality of this year’s work is proof positive that North East schools are full of talented innovative minds.”

For more information visit www.rtcnorth.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .