Little Heath School designed and delivered a splendid ‘submarine’ to win this year’s AWE Schools Engineering Challenge, narrowly beating Kennet School and Bishop Challoner School.
The teams had to ensure their design was fit to float, as the test phase involved a large test tank – it was literally sink or swim for the students’ working models.
Organised each year by a team of AWE graduates, the event invites teams of Year 9 students from local schools and their teachers, to design and construct an engineering-related project.
This year, the first time in the competition’s long history, the seven teams had to build submarines. After testing, the submarines were then put in competition against each other in a number of challenging tasks,
AWE’s Jack Robinson said: “Everything came together really well. The students seemed to have a lot of fun and, in the end, science and technology is the real winner. It’s been a really fun day to organise and it’s nice to see it become such a success.”
Dr. Richard Wilson, of Little Heath School, agreed: “A fantastic day! We are delighted to have won and the students have really enjoyed themselves.”
Bishop Challoner School’s Sarah Roberts, Bishop Challoner, said the event had pushed students out of their comfort zone: “We had a great day, the students really enjoyed themselves and the challenge really made them think. The three challenges for the submarine added to the complexity and showed them how they need to think about different aspects.”