Young engineers triumph in national engineering challenge final

Students from Kings’ School in Winchester won the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) national Faraday engineering challenge and £1,000 for their school after beating four other school teams from across the UK on 15 July at the National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes.

The final five teams of 11-12 year olds, had to develop a product for their BBC micro:bit in one of the four themes used on the Faraday Challenge Days (health, sport, travel or home and leisure). This product could build on their best ideas from the challenge day or could be a newly developed product. The aim of this challenge was to introduce students to coding and programming which engineers are and will be using in the future.

The team from Kings’ School presented their NoNap hat. It was a device to prevent drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

“This year’s IET Faraday season has been the largest ever with over 4,500 students taking part across the UK. The quality of the student’s work throughout has been fantastic and it was an extremely close final,” said Gareth James, head of education 5-19 at the IET. “The digital world is evolving all the time – and with it, the demand for more young people with coding and digital skills. It’s therefore been great to see students learn about coding, giving them an insight into the life of a real engineer, the variety a career in engineering can offer and the central role it plays in our everyday lives.”

The Faraday Challenge Days are part of a wider Faraday education programme, made up of a whole host of teaching resources and activities to inspire and attract the engineers of tomorrow.