Event puts students' engineering skills to the test

The Rotary Technology Tournament was staged by Sleaford Kesteven Rotary Club with pupils from all three of the town’s secondary schools as well as the Ruskington campus of St George’s Academy.

There were 27 teams of four involving 112 students, set a problem-solving engineering task, plus a team made up of staff, who were set a more advanced challenge.

It was hosted this first year by Kesteven and Sleaford High School and the task was overseen by four judges from local engineering companies.

Bill Martindale from the Rotary Club said his club funded the materials including pulleys, wood, wires and motors. They set the challenge, based on Rotary International’s Technology Tournament scheme, and provided two glass trophies – one for the winning junior team of Year 8 pupils and one for the winning senior team of Year 10s. Both will be engraved with their names with a view to making it an annual event. The winners were also given vouchers.

The students were asked to design, build and test an electrically powered vehicle which could crawl along inside a pipeline to clear debris left inside and reverse, passing under a bridge, all within 10 seconds.

Mr Martindale said the students could trial their prototypes on a test rig and were expected to decorate their vehicle with a charity logo of their choice and present a portfolio explaining development and reasons for the chosen design.