A TRIUMPHANT team of Rugby High School Year 12 students who designed a self-sufficient energy system for their school have scooped an Engineering Development Trust Midlands award.
Francesca Yaxley, Dylan Emery, Maddie Fletcher, Neehru Tumber and Maddy Tolley won the Industrial Cadets Gold award for the Midlands region for devising an electricity Microgrid system which would allow the school to become more energy independent.
Having been given eight months to work on a real-life challenge set by their mentor engineering company, the students looked at alternative energy resources such as wind and solar – and constructed virtual and real models of the school to demonstrate their ideas.
To prove their Microgrid could work, they learnt how to use specialist software from scratch to run computer simulations.
At an awards ceremony at the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre in Coventry, their report and presentation were assessed by a panel of five experts, and the team then faced intense questioning to explain their results and defend their conclusions.
They will now go forward as one of 26 finalists from the Midlands region.
They said: “We were really surprised to be announced as Overall Winner 2022 in the Midlands. Though it was hard work on top of studying for our A-Levels, it was well worth the time and effort and is something we would recommend to anyone thinking about a career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Manufacturing (STEM).”
Dylan said: “I have greatly enjoyed the project, which gave me insight into future careers and the workings of STEM companies.”
Maddie added: “I wanted to take part in the scheme to gain some valuable insight into the life of an engineer and ensure it was the career for me.”
And Maddy said: “I became a part of this project in order to develop skills beyond what we study during A-Levels. The abilities I have learnt and improved – organisation, project management, and communication skills – will no doubt be invaluable as I take my studies further.”
The school’s Physics Teacher and STEM Co-ordinator Dr Juliet Fletcher said she was proud of the team’s achievement.
She said: “It’s a very worthwhile scheme and the students gain self-confidence and valuable experience of working under time pressures, reporting and giving presentations.”
