Congratulations go to our talented young designers from Year 11 at Scarborough College who have just won a prestigious award, presented to them by Richard Noble.The Griffin’s Nest Engineering Challenge was run by North Yorkshire Business and Education Partnership (NYBEP) as part of their Engineering Week at The Spa in Scarborough, and was open to all the schools in the Scarborough area.
The challenge was to come up with a design for a product to provide a renewable and sustainable green energy source for laptops, ipads or x-boxes.
PLAYING CATCH-UP
The information for the competition didn’t reach us until two days before the deadline. An extension of a couple days was obtained by the organisers, so we had a total of just four days to come up with something. It transpired that the other schools had been working on their designs for several weeks!
Two teams of Year 11 pupils came forward to accept the challenge. Team ‘Razzle Dazzle’ consisted of Charlie Goodlass, Beau Wyatt, Alistair Williams and Jed Gradwell, whilst Owen Renwick, Conor Holdsworth, Chris North and James Marsden formed ‘The Greater View’.
This was not a teacher-led activity. The teams were given a brief and told to go away and come back with well thought-out designs which satisfied the criteria of the brief. Given the time constraints, our expectations of receiving a prize were fairly low.
When the proposal forms came back four days later it was obvious that these low expectations had been somewhat premature. Both designs were original in concept, well thought-out and well presented. There was no time to make adjustments and the forms were faxed through to York within the hour!
SHORTLISTED
Two days later we were pleasantly surprised to be told that both teams had been placed on a shortlist of six out of a total of about twelve submissions. They were invited to present their proposals to a panel of ‘Griffins’ during the first day of the NYBEP exhibition at The Spa. The panel consisted of a distinguished selection of local industry leaders and engineers and the teams had to make their proposals using media presentations and also answer questions from the panel.
FIRST PRIZE!
Both the Scarborough College teams acquitted themselves well, exhibiting both confidence and articulate delivery. After all six teams had presented their proposals, a decision was quickly reached by the judges. We were delighted to hear that The Greater View had won first prize, £100 for the team and £300 for the school. Their original design of a foot-powered hydraulic based power supply had wowed the judges. Team ‘Razzle Dazzle’ had just been pipped at the post for the ‘Most Creative’ design.
PRESTIGIOUS GATHERING
The following evening, the winning team attended a prestigious gathering of local business leaders and training providers at The Spa. They were presented with their trophy and cheques by the entrepreneur and land speed record holder, Richard Noble. Phil Wilson, Head of Year 10 and 11 at Scarborough College, commented: “ I am immensely proud of the students, they had limited time to prepare and execute their plan but they worked extremely hard to come with an innovative and saleable product.”
Extra Information about Richard Noble and The Bloodhound
The event at The Spa was attended by numerous local business people who were there to see speaker Richard Noble. Richard Noble OBE is a Scottish entrepreneur who was holder of the land speed record between 1983 and 1997. He was also the Project Director of ThrustSSC, the vehicle which holds the current land speed record, set at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, in 1997. (Source: Wikipedia).
The photograph which shows the rocket propelled machine, is a ‘vehicle’ called the ‘Bloodhound’, in which Wing Commander Andy Green hopes to shatter the land speed record by travelling at more than 1,000mph!