Wellacre Wins Industrial Cadets Challenge

Posted at 9:46 am on 14th July, 2022

Students Develop Best STEM Solution

Wellacre students came out on top at the EDT Industrial Cadets graduation ceremony, held at the University of Liverpool, on 1st July.  The event celebrated student success from the 10-week STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) challenge. 

    

There were two Wellacre teams of students, from Years 9 to 11, responding to the EDT’s Zero Waste World brief.  Each team was assigned industry mentors, and Wellacre students worked alongside professionals from Siemens and Luxfer  who assisted in the work-related learning.   As well as helping to develop their professional skills, the challenge also raises awareness of how studying these subjects can lead to a rewarding career.

     

The Siemens team were nominated and won the Best STEM Solution in the North of England for the App they designed, which could be used to monitor and reduce energy consumption in households and businesses. Congratulations to Jack and Tom (Year 9) Anthony, Amir, Nicky and Callum (Year 10).

  

The ‘Frugal’ team working with Siemens wanted businesses and households to be more sparing with energy usage and more economical.  Their research investigated energy wastage and costs built up by individual households and small and large-scale  businesses, and they focused on the impact of leaving on small appliances, laptops and lights.

With the limitations of Smart meters, which monitor gas and electricity usage, team ‘Frugal’ designed an App to monitor data from, and manage, small appliances to provide more control and therefore reduce energy usage and impact costs.  As well as designing a working model, they also designed the App code with the assistance of their Siemens mentor, before filming a video presentation for judges. 

Anthony, Year 10, said: 

“My favourite part from partaking in this competition is learning how the mentors from Siemens got to where they are now and how many different paths can be taken to get to the same spot.  The other part I enjoyed was wiring all the components and mode together.”

The work of the Luxfer team was also recognised with a nomination for Best Overall Project and received a commendation for designing a model for an ocean trawler that moves around collecting microplastics. The ship will carry enzymes, which are able to digest the microplastics and turn them into useful products. Luxfer invited the students to visit their labs in Swinton. The mentors gave the students a history of the company and a tour around the labs where the students could see what work in industry looks like. Well done to Zane (Year 9), Harrison and Samuel (Year 10) and Oliver, Daniel and Rajan (Year 11) 

  

Mrs Siddall, Assistant Leader in Science, said:

“All our students made connections with their mentors and were shown the different career pathways in that industry, including invaluable workplace visits. We’re so proud of all the work they did to design and develop solutions and workable models to showcase their ideas. Their teamwork skills were second to none, and it was an excellent opportunity to develop their engineering and computing knowledge.” 

EDT’s Industrial Cadets programme aims to build critical skills, celebrate achievements, and provide young people with the confidence to succeed.

EDT said:

“This is a fantastic achievement, especially given such a challenging year.  We hope that through this experience your students have developed a valuable insight into the STEM industry and the world of work, and discovered that they are capable of, both individually and as a team.  We hope to see them again on our other programmes and as future scientists, technologists and engineers.

“The teams never fail to impress us with their creative, innovative and effective solutions to solve the task at hand but this year, more than any other, the teams have demonstrated their ability to be adaptable and shown great perseverance and resilience in completing the project”