Primary school teams in Leicestershire and South Nottinghamshire took part in the Cargo Carrier Challenge, Mighty Monument Challenge and Slo-Mo Marble Challenge and secondary school teams faced one another in the Fragile Freight Challenge, Science Detectives Challenge and VizTech Challenge.

Judges were once again impressed by the high standard of entries for all six categories, including the two added to the competition for 2019 – the Mighty Monument Challenge and Fragile Freight Challenge.

Judging in the four Bracknell categories – the Mighty Monument and Slo-Mo Marble challenges for primary schools and the Fragile Freight and VizTech challenges for secondary schools – took place in 3M Centre, Bracknell, over two weeks, with the judging team praising the high standard and originality of the entries.

Lacerta Technology Ltd technical director, John Fisher, was one of the judges for the Cargo Carrier Challenge in Loughborough. He said: “The standard of entries was very good. We had many that were highly precise in terms of engineering, as well as well decorated, although there were a couple that we had to wring out after testing!”

The VizTech challenge, aligned to the Design and Technology curriculum, invited students to design and construct a sensory toy or product to make an everyday task easier for a young person with sight loss.

Bracknell judges Charlotte Rampton from Berkshire Vision and 3M engineer, John Wright, were impressed with the entries, ranging from a sensor to help people with sight loss swim independently to a shape toy that makes a noise when the pieces are fitted correctly.

Said Charlotte, who is the Children, Young People and Families officer for Berkshire Vision: “Judging the 3M Young Innovators Challenge was an amazing experience and I was really impressed with the ideas that the students came up with and the quality of the products and technical solutions they demonstrated.

“Many of these focused on giving young people with sight loss more independence and a better quality of life, demonstrating real empathy and a knowledge of different eye conditions.”

The Mighty Monument Challenge to design a lightweight free-standing structure, supporting as much load as possible up to a maximum of 5kg, was embraced by the pupils who came up with some imaginative creations modelled on famous landmarks including Windsor Castle, the Tokyo Tower, the Shard, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower as well as local landmarks including the Butter Market in Mountsorrel and the Carillon Tower in Queen’s Park, Loughborough.

3M strategic medical writer Paul Browning, who was one of the Loughborough judges, said: “We have been overwhelmed by the number and standard of entries in this category, particularly as it is new to the competition this year. The depth of research carried out by all the teams was outstanding, as were the monuments themselves.”

The other new challenge, Fragile Freight, invited pupils to solve a problem faced by communities in Nepal who grow produce on high mountain terrain and need to transport it, without damage, to a market below.

This also attracted some impressive entries with the students devising a number of different loading and transportation concepts including a pulley system, a slide and a funnel, a funicular cable railway and an aerial ropeway connected to a conveyor belt.

Richard Putland, a process engineer from engineering company Wood plc, was one of the Bracknell judges. He said: “We were impressed with the way that each team met the brief and demonstrated how they had learnt from their early mistakes and used this to improve their designs.”

Winners of each Challenge receive £750 for their school to buy science and engineering equipment and all students taking part in the competition earn a British Science Association CREST Award.

The winners of the four Bracknell categories will be announced at a special presentation evening held in Bracknell on 6 June with managing director for 3M’s North Europe Region, Irfan Malik, presenting the prizes. The winners for the six Leicestershire and South Nottinghamshire categories will be announced on 14 June at a ceremony held at Loughborough College, where Loughborough MP Nicky Morgan will present the awards.

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