Birmingham school girls win Engineering Award

Five Year 8 girls from Ark St Alban’s Academy are today celebrating after winning an engineering award from Birmingham City University.
Held as part of National Women in Engineering Day, the Engineering Challenge was hosted by Birmingham City University and sponsored by Doosan Enpure.  It brought together Year 8 girls from across the region to find out what it means to be an engineer and to hear from women working across all fields of engineering about their experiences, their jobs and how they got there.
Working in teams of five, the girls were asked to try and solve a real life engineering problem – how to help Nepalese tomato growers transport their crop down a steep mountain to the market below, without it being damaged.  The girls had to develop plans and drawings, and then build their solution using equipment provided by the university.
The Ark St Alban’s team developed an innovative system using tubing and netting which successfully delivered 182 tomatoes in the two minutes allowed to the destination in one piece.
Year 8 student Ahlam, said, “taking part in this challenge has inspired me to think more about engineering – it’s not about fixing cars – it’s about design and solving problems.  I’ve realised that it is something I could do it as a career.  I really enjoyed it”.
Ehtekam added, “before I took part in this challenge, engineering wasn’t something that I had really thought about doing but now I’m definitely considering it.”
Ark St Alban’s Academy specialises in both engineering and mathematics.  In 2014, the school achieved a 100% pass rate in GCSE double award engineering, and an 83% pass rate in GCSE product design.  80% achieved A* – C in mathematics, maintaining the standards that saw the academy rated the top performing school in the country for progress in maths in 2013/14.
Nourimane, another member of the winning team, said, “we were so surprised when we won.  We really wanted to but I couldn’t believe it when we did!”

Latest Posts