Felsted Pupil’s Invention Made a Reality at Kingston
Felsted Prep School pupil, Toby S, had the opportunity to see his invention come to life when he visited Kingston University, after winning the Primary Engineer Young Leaders Award earlier this year.
Toby entered the competition with his invention ‘The Electricity Trampoline’ whilst still in Year 6, as part of a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) project. Since winning the prize, Kingston University in London have been developing his invention into a functioning energy converter.
Toby, joined by a few of his Year 7 classmates, had the opportunity to see the production of his design and meet Head of Faculty, David Utton, who had taken the design from paper to reality. The pupils had a chance to jump on the trampoline, which used six laser engraved power generators to convert energy to electricity.
The budding young engineers were also given an inspiring tour of the Engineering, Technology and Computing faculty. In the 3D printing room the pupils learnt about all the different grades of printing, from made to measure titanium hip replacements, to the opportunities to print houses on Mars in the future. They also visited a wind tunnel with winds up to 90 km/hr and had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of a real Lear jet and learn about its operating mechanisms, as well as experiencing a real flight simulator.
Visiting Kingston was an amazing experience and it was incredible to see my trampoline idea come to life. I couldn’t quite believe how much detail the circuits contained. I want to keep coming up with ideas to solve big world problems and hopefully one day I will be an engineer.
Toby S
This year also saw success in the Young Engineers competition for Felsted Prep pupil Harrison C, who won the Year 6 Trophy Prize for his SOTERIA energy saving project, held at the University of Hertfordshire. Out of 37,000 entries nationally, there were only two prizes per year group, so this is a fantastic achievement for 10 year old Harrison.
Teacher of Design, Technology and Engineering (DTE) at Felsted, Mr William Harding comments; “It is vital that pupils understand that a career in Design & Engineering can be exciting and often incredibly rewarding. Toby is a great example of why pupils should think big and not limit themselves by current technology, but to push the boundaries and question what could be possible.”
Felsted pupils are fortunate to have the most wonderful facilities for Design & Technology, with a dedicated workroom in the Prep School and a specialist centre in the Senior School. This impressive area comprises of two dedicated metal and wood working rooms and two teaching rooms.