Designers of the future

Congratulations to Chloe J and Georgia B (Year 7) who were among the winners in a national competition to encourage and recognise designers of the future. The Pipers’ students were the youngest finalists in this year’s Alu D&T Challenge, a competition for 11-14 year olds and attended an awards ceremony at Thinktank, Birmingham in March.

The talented young designers were runners up for their garden building concept, and won an Expert magnetic robotic kit and a Mini Mambo drone for the school’s Design & Technology Department, plus vouchers for themselves.

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 sustainable products for the future using aluminium.

This year’s competition set 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 100 entries to a final shortlist of 18; with the final winners chosen by senior figures from the aluminium industry, and specialists in engineering and architecture. 

Speaking about the winning submissions at the prize-giving ceremony in Birmingham, Alu D&T Challenge judge and sponsor Andy Doran of Novelis said: “Meeting the winners of the competition has been a fantastic experience.  The enthusiasm and talent these young people show for designing products that will benefit society and protect our environment is so uplifting.  Between them, the winners demonstrated some really progressive ideas about designing sustainable products using aluminium, and I hope we have inspired some future engineers, designers and materials scientists who will make a difference to industry in the future.”

Chloe and Georgia said, “We had a really fun time participating in the Alu Challenge. It was an amazing learning experience and a competition well worth entering. We both look forward to entering again in future years.”