Engineering a design for eco classroom wins top award (From Swindon Advertiser)

Engineering a design for eco classroom wins top award

7:40pm Tuesday 14th February 2012 in News

DORCAN Technology College won an award for an eco classroom under a scheme set up to reward environmentally-themed science and engineering projects.

The college scooped the Go4Set Best Overall Project Award at the initiative’s Swindon Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD).

The event, sponsored by Dorcan-based company TE Connectivity, took place last week.

Ten teams presented their projects to the judges and guests on the day, with more than 100 people attending.

Another winner was Nova Hreod School, which won the award for the most innovative project with an idea for an eco structure which relies upon alternative energy. Greendown School won the best teamwork award and Kingsdown School won the pupils’ choice award.

Mark Sawyer, of TE Connectivity, said: “I talked to all the teams during the event and I was amazed at what they had achieved. They had gained so many skills from the three-month project and had a lot of fun too. It was a pleasure to present the pupils with their prizes and it was clear that all the schools and company mentors taking part had spent a lot of time and effort on the projects.

“The UK has a great tradition of producing some of the best scientists in the world and I am sure the next generation of great engineers and scientists were amongst the pupils at the event.”

The Go4SET projects were announced at the launch event in November 2011 when the schools teams also had tours of TE Connectivity and Praxair Surface Technologies. The teams from years 8 and 9 worked with their teacher and mentors from TE Connectivity and Praxair Surface Technologies on the challenging project, which included providing recommendations.

At the CAD event the pupils demonstrated their individual projects to a group of assessors and discussed their projects with attending guests.

The scheme has been run over the past three months by TE Connectivity together with charity Engineering Development Trust and Praxair.