Young technologists vie for prizes at Bo'ness Academy

Co-ordinated by Ken Richardson, Linlithgow and Bo’ness Rotary Club president, the competition highlights the engineering skills of local school pupils.

Every year tournaments allowing budding inventors to test their skills are held throughout Rotary GB&I which are accredited by the British Science Association.

Tournaments are a challenging but enjoyable experience for all participants. It’s an interesting and fun day out which tests the knowledge, ingenuity, innovation, application and manual skills of the team members and their ability to work as a team.

The competition is sponsored by the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) who view this as an opportunity to encourage youngsters in secondary school to consider following an engineering career by participating in local design build and test competitions.

The IStructE not only sponsors the competition, but also encourages local members to take part and four volunteer structural engineers formed the panel of judges together with two Rotary Club members with backgrounds in education and medicine.

The 14 teams of pupils, from Winchburgh Academy, Bo’ness Academy, St Mungo’s, Falkirk High and Larbert High Schools, had to solve an interactive technology-based task and were required to design, develop and build a solution with the materials supplied.

The competition lasted a full challenging and adrenalin-filled school day, with the judges marking the design portfolio of work at lunchtime and judging the finished design, during a tense test of the team’s solution to the challenge, a couple of hours later.

Stewards, a combination of teachers and Rotary club members, were on hand to guide the pupils throughout and offer a helping hand where necessary to ensure everyone got the most from the experience.

Ken said: “The teaching and support staff team at Bo’ness Academy made all of the team members and stewards feel very welcome. Their hospitality was made all the warmer by the delicious soup at lunchtime!

“We are grateful to the Academy for hosting the competition and ensuring all the teams had what they needed to complete their tasks.

“Although there were winning teams in each category, in my opinion, everyone who took part deserves a prize for their ingenuity and teamwork.”

The basic competition winners were the Winchburgh Academy S1 team; intermediate competition winners were Bo’ness Academy S3 team and advanced competition winners were Bo’ness Academy S6 team.

Established in 1955, Rotary Club Of Linlithgow and Bo'ness consists of over 30 members from all age groups and walks of life. Its vision is to ‘see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change – across the globe, in our communities and in ourselves.’ Meetings are held at the Inchyra Grange Hotel every Tuesday at 12.50pm.

To find out more, visit www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/homepage.php?ClubID=96.