Member Article

Excelsior Academy engineers praised for Caribbean Eco Hotel

A futuristic island hotel offering tourists a dream eco-friendly break in the Caribbean Sea won high praise from competition judges for young Excelsior Academy engineers.

The Eco Hotel featuring bio domes powered by wind, wave and solar power drew plaudits from industry assessors in the Go4SET competition - developing employability skills while changing perceptions about science, technology, engineering and maths.

Six 13-year-old Excelsior pupils painstakingly researched renewable energy sources, collated data and drew up a report detailing how their luxury island hotel would offer a dream escape for visitors while having minimal impact on the planet.

Their Eco Hotel featured three bio domes containing accommodation, spa, dining area, shopping mall and an outside swimming pool filled with sea water – all linked by a magnetic railway to move passengers quickly around the stunning resort.

Working with mentors from Northumbria University, the youngsters – named the Econominators – built a model of their resort and pitched their ideas to judges on the Go4SET scheme.

It works with the Engineering Development Trust (EDT) to deliver the ten-week long project to schools across the North East and the wider North of England – the local heat culminating in a prize giving ceremony at the Herschel Building in Newcastle University.

Assessor Peter Burmann, a project engineer for Avery Dennison in Cramlington, said of Excelsior’s project: “What stood out for us is the concept, the idea behind the Eco Hotel - how to implement existing technologies to make it environmentally friendly and they have come at that with brilliant ideas.

“Combining those technologies with the idea to build a resort and hotel in a very nice location and still make it sustainable, that was really outstanding to us.”

The Excelsior students were all awarded Bronze Level Industrial Cadet certificates by the EDT for their superb project.

Seanan Hussain was Excelsior’s project manager, leading a team comprising Amir Khalik, Paul Foster, Lauren Craig, Kelsey Hildrew and Tony Proctor.

“We decided to use the Caribbean Sea because it attracts a lot of tourism because of its weather, has a lot of current in the sea for water flow and has a hurricane season which is very useful for wind energy,” said Seanan.

“It is famous as well for the sun’s heat so we can have solar power which produces a lot of electricity.

“About 200 tourists could stay at our hotel. The Go4SET project has helped me understand how important it is to take care of our environment and is a great way of gaining knowledge about STEM careers.”

Teacher Katherine Askham, Excelsior subject development leader for design and technology, led the project which aims to highlight the huge array of opportunities a career in engineering presents pupils.

“The students chose the Eco Hotel project out of four different challenges, for them to design a hotel that used sustainable energy sources to reduce costs and its carbon footprint so the cost of a stay in their hotel should be reasonable,” she said.

“They had to do quite a lot of research before they did any designing which made them look at how much energy we use in our homes, how much we use in school and then how much using a sustainable energy resource would reduce that carbon footprint.

“I think what they have delivered is amazing, the level of research and putting it into practice is of GCSE standard, very impressive, particularly in the timeframe they were given.

“The presentation when they presented in front of the competition assessors was amazing, they answered all the questions they had to answer in a really professional presentation and I’m very, very proud of them.”

EDT delivers more than 30,000 STEM experiences every year for young people aged 11 to 21 across the UK.

Its range of work related learning schemes provides opportunities for young people to enhance their technical, personal and employability skills through industry-led projects, industrial placements and specialised taster courses.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gordon Arnott .