Taking place on 29 June 2023 at Cranfield University, students from Fallibroome Academy in Cheshire, were named champions of the IET Faraday® national engineering challenge, securing £1,000 for their school.
The other school teams that took part included Sandringham School from Hertfordshire, Thomas Alleyne Academy from Hertfordshire, The Gilberd School from Essex and The Corbet School from Shropshire.
The final took place within the University’s Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre (DARTeC) – a fitting location for this year’s challenge. In association with UKRI’s Future Flight Challenge, we tasked teams to design a prototype that could support UKRI’s Future Flight Challenge with regards to accessibility and ease of use, safety and impact on the environment.
The winning team designed a prototype receiver box with pressure pad for drone deliveries at hospitals.
Students who took part in the IET Faraday® Challenge Days this year have experienced working as an engineer through hands-on and practical engagement with real-life challenges relating to UKRI’s Future Flight Challenge. The quality of the students’ work throughout has been fantastic and it was an extremely close final.
There is huge demand for new engineers and technicians and we’re confident that this challenge has helped to change young people’s perceptions of engineers and inspire the next generation. It’s given students an insight into the life of a real engineer, the variety a career in engineering can offer and just how exciting and creative engineering really is.
A total of 176 events took place across the UK to host the 2022-2023 IET Faraday® Challenge Days. These form part of our wider Education programme, made up of a whole host of teaching resources and activities to inspire and attract the engineers of tomorrow. For more information on our initiatives to promote STEM subjects and careers in the classroom, visit the IET’s dedicated Education website.