Now in its fifth year, the Design & Make Challenge 2024, organised by the Manufacturing Assembly Network (MAN), attracted nearly 100 pupils from 15 schools in what is one of the largest independent STEM events ever held in the UK.
Taking place at the University of Warwick’s Innovation District, students took on the challenge of using a box of simple materials to build a device that can securely lift a 23kg metal block with nothing more than a pulley system.
The Year 10, 11 and 12 students split up into teams of four to design, test and build their solution, working closely with apprentices from the 8 MAN companies and graduate engineers from WMG’s SME Group, who acted as hosts for the day.
Barclay Academy, Hertfordshire; Southam College and Lawrence Sheriff High School, both in Warwickshire, took the main prizes, winning the Innovation, Efficiency and Manufacturing Awards respectively.
“The competition is all about inspiring young people to get hands-on with design and engineering skills, working together to come up with a solution that then competes with other schools in terms of efficiency, innovation and design for manufacture,” said Austin Owens, MD at Grove Design and co-chair of the MAN.
“We’d love to make it even bigger and are urging other manufacturers, funders and schools to come forward and get involved. Together we can start to bridge the skills gap industry continues to battle against.”
Southam College, Barclay Academy and Lawrence Sheriff High School each received a 3D Printer as part of their prize package, which was sponsored by 3DPrint UK.
There was a fourth prize given out to recognise the different careers in engineering, with the Thomas Telford UTC, West Midlands, beating the competition to win the Communications award.
