It was a double celebration for Pave Aways at the recent Shropshire Star STEM Schools Challenge.
A team from Whitchurch’s Sir John Talbot School, who were mentored by Managing Director Steven Owen, won the Entrepreneurial Team Award and our Design Manager Keeley Fox, who worked with students from The Marches School in Oswestry, scooped the Mentor Award. Our Commercial Director Victoria Lawson had mentored a group from Market Drayton’s Grove School.
The final of the challenge, which aims to encourage more young people towards careers in science, technology, engineering and maths, was held at The Marches Centre of Manufacturing and Technology in Bridgnorth on July 4.
Teams had to present the product that they had spent the last six months designing and developing. The brief was to design something that had a positive benefit to an individual or group and the environment or just the environment, using the elements of STEM.
Pave Aways mentors had spent the past six months working with the teams, guiding them along the process. This included product selection, design, programme production, building prototypes and preparing for the presentation – at the same time ensuring they were being engaged in STEM subjects.
The Grove team developed an app to scan ingredients in a product to see whether it contained palm oil or not, The Marches’ students developed an adapter to fit on taps and open jars or pots for persons with poor hand control, and the Sir John Talbot group produced an omni wheel that travels 360 degrees that could be used on walking frames for the elderly or immobile to aid manoeuvrability for easy walking, sport and pleasure.
Steven said: “It was a privilege to be part of this STEM Challenge and work with these groups of young people over the past six months. Their ingenuity, passion and hard work was a joy to experience and we are delighted to have been able to mentor these three teams.
“Watching them do their presentations today made us all so proud of what they have achieved in such a short time. The task now is to take the enthusiasm of the children and bring that into our work at Pave Aways. And if we struggle then we have got the best mentor in Keeley to help us through! We are already looking forward to being part of this next year.”
