News

Aloysians Receive Highest Grade in National Competition for Creative Engineering

Delight in Learning

St Aloysius’ College Junior School was thrilled to have five pupils shortlisted for the final round of Scottish Engineers Special Leaders Award (SESLA) after all of the College’s entries received the highest grade, ‘Distinction’, for their creative engineering proposals.

Taking part in the SESLA competition which aims to “foster enthusiasm for future careers in the Engineering world”, five of the College’s young Aloysians dreamt up answers to the question: “If you were and engineer in Scotland, what would you do?”, proposing ideas with detailed illustrations and descriptions.

Matthew Clarkson of P2, Sebastien Harrison and Ruben Walsh of P6, and Ciara Brown and Amy Lind P7 were all awarded the highest grade from the competition’s first round of judging and given the opportunity to interview a real engineer.

Matthew of Primary 2 said that if he was an engineer he would design a Water Carrying Scooter to help people who live long distances away from water sources access and transport their water more easily.

In the final judging, Matthew’s proposal was awarded “highly commended” by the judges meaning that he narrowly missed out on being selected as the best Primary 2 entry in the country.

Sebastian Harrison of P6 proposed a design for an energy efficient space plane that could travel to Mars and back to help discover whether or not life could be sustained.

The idea submitted by Ruben was STAIR (Suction Technology and Integrated Rotators), a special motorised trolley that would use retracting suction pads to pull itself up flights of stairs to help people who live in tenement flats carry shopping and heavy items up flights of stairs.

In Ruben’s proposal, he said,

“I realised that a lot of people in Glasgow live in tenements, which don’t have a lift.  I wondered how people would manage to get heavy shopping or luggage upstairs, especially if they were elderly. I think this design should be developed because it could provide a solution to a common problem, particularly as it could be of great help to the elderly and frail.”

P7’s Amy designed an inflatable and deflatable swimming cap called the Go-Grip-Swim Cap that would make putting on and taking off swimming caps easier for those with less dexterity in their hands.

Whilst Ciara of P7 designed a special Photographic Mirror, designed like a traditional mirror but with a built-in Raspberry Pi computer to let it respond to pre-programmed actions and take pictures of those using the mirror.

Following the final round of judging, the projects of Matthew, Sebastian and Rueben have been selected to go on display at the SESLA Exhibition in the Barony Hall at Strathclyde University on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 June.