Eco-Day Prize Winners

A team of Year Five children have been working with Mrs Joint to meet this year's Perkins Eco-challenge. The brief was to create electricity and light a bulb without the use of a battery. After deciding to use water rather than wind or solar energy, the group worked in sub-teams; for example, Molly, Izzy and Savanah produced prototypes for the waterwheel, Louie designed the gears that he realised that the model needed and Will used Tinkercad to ensure that there was a 3-D model of the cogs ready for 3-D printing. Each team member contributed to an important aspect of the design and make process. However, it was not a smooth journey! There were far more failures than successes! These were incredibly helpful as they allowed the children to work out what was not working and drove the children to consider solutions. In the end, after many attempts, the children managed to light an LED bulb using the power of water.

Some of the team members presented their ideas at Perkins in Stafford in front of judges from the company, the police force and the county council, as well as the mayor and mayoress. Thanks to the script that the children edited together (a special mention is needed for Sam who demonstrated a flare for presentation-writing!), the judges could see that the children had gone beyond the model making, to learn more about engineering and the necessity of sustainability.

The children were delighted to win second prize for their design and £400 for the school to be spent on DT! A huge well done to Josh, Will, Savannah, Izzy, Otto, Elliot, Molly, Sam, Addy, Logan (who wowed the staff at Perkins with his in-depth engine knowledge!) and Louie.

A special thank you to the staff at Perkins for their preparation, for the excellent day and for inspiring the children about the possibilities of engineering.