Regional Innovative Design award for our Quarrydale mentored team
The East Midlands CAD is an annual celebration of the completion of the Go4SET initiative from the Engineering Development Trust, a nationwide scheme designed to encourage and engage young students into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects at school and in their future careers.
The 2019 event was held at Pride Park in Derby and attracted 49 school teams, with 4 awards given for Innovation, Best Project, Best Teamwork and Students Choice. Each team was assigned a STEM industry mentor and with their guidance the team had 10 weeks to research, develop, build and write a report on their chosen project. At the end of the 10 weeks, each team was required to submit four hard copies of their report, build a model of their design and prepare a display board to present their ideas in a five-minute presentation to their judging panel. This was then followed with fifteen minutes of questions in relation to their project.
As well as sitting on separate judging panels alongside our Local Authority Business Director Tiz Gibson, our Quality and Lean Manager, Ben Feltham, mentored a team of six year 8 students from Quarrydale Academy in Sutton-in-Ashfield throughout this year’s Go4SET Initiative.
Quarrydale successfully took home the award for the most Innovative Design for their “Stations of the Future” project – with the final design incorporating wireless car chargers, air tubes and elevators to access elevated pod areas, a VR lounge waiting room and sensory garden on the main platform.
Speaking about the news, Ben said, “I’m over the moon for the team! They’ve worked incredibly hard and taken in all of the information we’ve given to them over the course of the project,”
“Their final concept clearly ticked a lot of the judges’ boxes and they really considered all of the intricacies of the design-and-build process when drawing up their station. We could be looking at some of the bright sparks of the future for science and engineering!” added Ben.
The students collected their award from Andrew Smythe – engineer and former contestant on the Great British Bake Off, as well as Erica Stephens from the EDT.
As well as seeing our mentored school take home an award, McCann was also represented on two of the judging panels by Ben and Tiz Gibson – Local Authority Business Director.
Tiz was impressed with the high number and calibre of entries this year and sees plenty of encouragement for the future.
“You forget that these groups are 12 and 13 years old – their ideas and application to the processes of engineering and design are superb.”
“The judging chairs genuinely struggled to choose a winner from the attending teams, all of the ideas put forward deserved recognition and seeing the high standard of entries makes me very positive that the future of our industry is in safe hands.”
For more details of McCann’s latest projects and contract wins, log on to www.mccann-ltd.co.uk.
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