Stepping into the Dragon’s Den

As part of our values-based education, each month in Prep there is a focus on a key value which runs through the Department’s ethos and curriculum. For March the value was “creativity” and as part of that girls from all year groups were encouraged to submit an idea for an invention to be considered as part of a Dragon’s Den inspired project – “Invent 2018”.

In the last week of term, the chosen finalists stepped into the Dragon’s Den to pitch their ideas in front of a panel of “investors”. There was a diverse array of products on show including:

• K9 Cleansing – A new and easy mess-free way of washing your dog using a dog tunnel connected to a water supply.
• Solar Number – A solar powered house number to enable people to easily identify houses in the dark, particularly in places where there are no streetlights.
• Glow worm – A Light strip that sits comfortably in the pages of a book allowing the reader to read in the dark.
• LED Rucksacks – LED lights that are attached to the bottom of the inside of a rucksack compartment and automatically light up allowing the user to easily see what’s inside.
• Quickshop – An app providing the user with the quickest route around supermarkets to find items on any shopping list in the shortest time possible.

The panel members quizzed the girls about their products asking questions about what marketing research they had done, what the anticipated profits were and the reasons why each individual or team believed their invention would be a success.

It was a very difficult decision but, after the inventions each received some initial investment (in the form of chocolate coins), the top three products chosen by the Pipers Dragons were as follows:

• 1st place: Hilda H’s Solar Number
• 2nd place: Millie B and Anna W’s Glow worm book light
• 3rd place: Maia G and Ruby W’s LED Rucksack