The Stoke-on-Trent suburban secondary school Birches Head Academy is once again taking part in the KMF’s Young Engineer of the Year – YEOTY – competition with the help of a 3D printer. Engineering group Goodwin and sheet metal manufacturer KMF donated a Makerbot Z18 3D printer to the students to help them win the highly competitive educational contest.
Last years YEOTY competition had British students working together to revamp a race car, and Birches Head Academy managed to take home the Spirit of Young Engineer prize. This year students are being asked to think beyond engineering principles and to engage with the business side of product development by designing and 3D printing a concept gadget. The only limitations being placed on the gadget being developed are the limitations of what the donated MakerBot can print.
Here is a video of this year’s competition theme being announced:
“Birches Head Academy is starting to consolidate its portfolio of innovative engineering projects. Last year, our pupils set up a radio station, a hyperlocal news website and a hack lab, not to mention they designed and modified a race car for KMF’s YEOTY competition,” explained the head teacher of Birches Head Academy Roisin Maguire. “We try to take the STEM curriculum out of the textbooks and transfer it to real world applications that develop our pupils’ practical skills. We know from experience that projects like KMF’s YEOTY competition capture our students’ imagination, while also growing their engineering, business and interpersonal skills.”
Staffordshire’s KMF – one of England’s largest and most successful sheet metal manufacturers – holds its annual YEOTY competition to encourage local schools to focus on the principles of STEM education. This year’s 3D printed gadget competition is intended to expand the scope of the competition into related STEM fields and encourage schools to run it as a “live project” that fits nicely into the current curriculum.
Seven Birches Head students have stepped up to compete for the YEOTY prize this year. Zakhir Hussain, Lewis Atherton, Yousaf Ahmed, Mohammed Abubakr, Charlotte Holdcroft, Mohammed Riaz and Katie Moayedi-Arazaour have already submitted their gadget idea, along with market research, a feasibility study and outlined the manufacturing process.
The next stage of the competition in March will have the students competing to enter the final round of the competition by participating in a Dragon’s Den type pitch event in front of a panel of judges. The panel will be made up of local business and industry leaders, including the Royal Academy of Engineering and Jason Bradbury, of Channel 5’s The Gadget Show who will be selecting the final winner on June 18th, 2015.
