Young engineers triumph at County-wide bridge building challenge

Stamford School’s Lower School Engineering Club, made up of 10 pupils across Years 8 and 9, were presented with the ‘The Bridging the Gap’ trophy on Wednesday 25^th September following their success against local schools in a county-wide engineering challenge earlier in the month.  The Engineering Club’s creative design triumphed, scoring an impressive 95/100 for both aesthetics and engineering; ultimately winning the Club their Trophy. ‘The Bridging the Gap’ challenge tested the design and construction of a miniature bridge, which would withstand as heavy as load as possible whilst being the lightest in weight.This competition is coordinated by The Imagineer Project, The STEM Ambassador Hub, Engineering in Grantham (EiG) and InvestSK and forms part of the  South Kesteven District Council’s wider ‘Grantham Bridge’ project; a district-wide endeavour culminating in a beautifully designed temporary bridge being constructed in the centre of Grantham. The bridge itself hosted a number of community events, performing arts and creative displays.The 10 pupils, who have worked hard on this co-curricular project, whilst completing their studies, include six students from Year 8; Edward W, Patrick W, Finn H, Oliver W, James P and Harry W; alongside 4 students from Year 9; Louie R, George W, Matthew W, Charlie V.Judging was undertaken by Dani Shaw of InvestSK, Jamie Clare of Iconic Engineering and Darren Addlesee, Dean Lawson and Kai Newby of DLS Plastics. Kai, who is in the second year of his toolmaking apprenticeship with DLS Plastics, was assisted by DLS Plastic’s Managing Director, George Brewis, to craft the competition’s trophy.Dean Lawson, Assistant Operations Manager at DLS Plastics and competition judge, commented: “We were very impressed by the high standard of entries in the competition. The variation was good, and the winning bridge had obvious design features based on real life bridge design. All the students involved clearly worked very hard building their bridges and they should be very proud of their achievement. We very much hope to see more entries next year, congratulations to the students of Stamford School on winning the first ever Bridge Challenge! Look after the Trophy, be ready for the Schools to challenge for it again next year.”