Horsham school’s success in budding engineer awards

Pupils in Falcons class at Holy Trinity CofE Primary School, Church Close took part in the national If You Were An Engineer competition, with outstanding results.

Falcons teacher Mrs Jackie Jameson said: “The children watched a webinar from Ella Podmore, the Materials Engineer for Mclaren, to inspire them. We discussed what engineers do and looked at how they solve problems in the world around them.

“The children then picked a problem that they wanted to solve and invented a product that will solve that problem.”

Their creative projects were wide ranging - Thomas Gardner, 9, designed the TIE_D, an electronic device which helps people in hospital, inspired by his French grandpa who Thomas visited in hospital before he passed away; Jolin Brown, 8, invented a solar powered Remember Bot to help people remember things inspired by her Dad forgetting her lunchbox; Edward Krebs, 9, created a revolutionary water system to provide water to people in places where water is scarce and Angelo Amofa, 8, designed the Super Magnet, powered by waste, that can help elderly people pick up things such as their walking sticks. It magnetises objects which wouldn’t normally be magnetic and Angelo suggested it could even be used by doctors to help remove things from patients during operations without the need for incisions.

The If You Were An Engineer judging panel, which is made up of working engineers, were impressed by the standard of the children’s inventions and at the beginning of June gave three of the school’s students - Edward, Jolin & Angelo - the highest award of Distinction Shortlisted. This means their entries were put forward to be judged in the winners category.

Thomas was picked as the winner in his year group against entries from across the South East.

The children along with their families were able to attend the competition’s award ceremony on Thursday, June 22nd & visit an exhibition about all of the entries.

Jolin’s mum, Siqi Zhao, added: “It was very interesting going to the exhibition and award ceremony, to be wowed by so many creative designs and even see a couple of them being made into prototypes.”

Headteacher Mrs Tracey Bishop said: “We are all very proud of our budding engineers.”

The If You Were An Engineer Awards are run by Primary Engineer and University of Lancashire to encourage young people, aged between 3 and 19 years old, to consider STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers.