Culford pupils crowned East of England winners for ‘bright idea’ about wind turbines
Pupils from Culford have been crowned regional winners of a national school science competition.
A team of three Year 9 Culford School students have been named overall winners for the East of England in Shell’s The Bright Ideas Challenge, which aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The competition, now in its second year, asks students aged 11-14 to use their science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills to come up with creative solutions for powering future cities.
The winning ‘Windy Solutions’ team were keen to address the need for affordable, renewable power in future cities, particularly in developing countries.
Their ‘bright idea’ to create multi-function wind turbines across rooftops has won them £1,500 to ‘super-size’ the STEM learning experience at their school as well as a tablet computer for each team member.
Their innovative turbines included blades which would spin a generator to create electrical energy for each building and a filter which would supply offices with a continuous supply of filtered, clean air.
The judges said they were impressed by the team’s creative thinking as well as their sound scientific research and by how practical and simple their concept was.
The team will also be VIP guests at Shell’s four-day Make the Future Live festival of ideas and innovation which gets underway at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Friday, where they will get to meet maths expert and TV personality Rachel Riley, who is also an ambassador for The Bright Ideas Challenge.
Talking about their win Ciaran Rees, Michael Ahrens and Joshua Lewis, of Culford School, said: ‘The Bright Ideas Challenge really got us thinking about the future we’ll be living in. It’s inspiring to see how the things we’ve learnt about in Science can change the world.
“The whole school is excited about the money we’ve won and the difference it will make to our lessons. We can’t wait to celebrate with other teams from across the country and to meet Rachel Riley at Make the Future Live.”
Gareth Thistleton, Shell’s STEM education manager, said: “The quality of creative thinking from the ‘Windy Solutions’ team from Culford School really impressed the judges. Not only was their idea imaginative, it was also rooted in sound scientific research. It’s inspiring to see the creative problem solvers of tomorrow grapple with real issues and come up with genuinely exciting ideas.”
Dan Rees, science teacher at Culford School, said: “Everybody at the school is very excited and we’re very proud of being winners for the region. We managed to get two groups into the final 40, which just shows the calibre of the pupils’ ideas. The £1,500 will be spent on materials for our future STEM projects – we’re thinking along the lines of robotics so the pupils might even be able to build their own robot next year.”
A further 12 teams across the UK won money for their schools for ideas ranging from self-sustaining public toilet blocks to salt water powered cars and eco wristbands that capture and convert sound waves into electrical energy.
For a summary of each of the winning ‘bright ideas’ go to www.shell.co.uk/brightideaschallenge.
