Pupils announced as winners in aluminum industryS National schools design competition

Four Year 9 pupils were among the winners in a national competition to find the designers of the future. The Year 9 pupils to Birmingham last week to receive their prizes in the Alu D&T Challenge, a competition for 11-14 year olds.

In the ‘Innovative Packaging Solution’ category Ysgol Glan y Môr pupils Amber Treharne, Sofie Jenkins, Teagan Horsley and Laila Francis won the team prize for the best design.      The talented young designers have won a 3D printer and 3D pens for the school’s Design & Technology Department, plus vouchers for themselves.  They received their prizes at an award ceremony held at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum.

The Alu D&T Challenge is a national competition for secondary school pupils, linked to the Design and Technology curriculum at Key Stage 3. It teaches pupils about the material properties and sustainability potential of aluminium by challenging them to design a sustainable product for the future using aluminium.

This year’s competition set individual and team challenges based on real-life briefs faced by designers, engineers and manufacturers in three categories - transport, building and packaging. Judging took place in two stages, reducing over 200 entries to a final shortlist of 30; with the final winners chosen by senior figures from the aluminium industry, and specialists in engineering and architecture.

Speaking at the prize-giving ceremony Diana Caldwell from competition organisers the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) said: “I think the judging panel may have had the privilege of seeing some of the first work to be produced by our country’s next generation of engineers, designers and materials scientists. These are the people who will make a difference to industry in the future.   All of the judges were impressed by the high quality of the entries and there was some intense debate during the process to select the winners. The winners demonstrated a real understanding of aluminium as a material and how it can be applied to real-world product design.”

Mrs Sue Quirk; STEM Coordinator said, “This is the second year we have taken part in the Challenge, last year our pupils won both the team first prizes in the Garden Building and Vehicle categories and this year we have won the Innovative Packaging category, so this is a huge achievement and we are very proud of all the pupils who have been successful in the Alu Challenge.”

The Alu D&T Challenge is run by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the UK aluminium industry.