UK’s best young engineers announced

Hundreds of young engineers from across the UK submitted either their GCSE, A-Level or BTEC Design and Technology Course Work Projects to be judged by a panel of experts drawn from Industry.

The final of this year’s Technology, Design and Innovation (TDI) Challenge took place at Yamakazi Mazak’s headquarters in Worcester.

The TDI Challenge is split into three categories. There are two age groups; 14-16 and 17-19, with six finalists in each, and a brand new third category for group projects, which saw two teams competing in the 17-19 age group.

The competition, which has been running for more than a decade, is organised by the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA) to inspire young engineers to pursue careers in manufacturing and engineering.

The winner in the 14-16 category was Dan Kimber from Brighton College, whose project was a stylish desk lamp.

The winner in the 17-19 age category was Halimah Ershad of Forest School in London, her project was a high-end chick brooder, named ‘BrooDen’.

The winners in the group category were Jacob Hardy-King and Daniel Timmerman of Team Unite from Oakham School in Leicestershire, for their project optimising the cooling process of alternator hubs.

The winners of each category were able to choose from a range of prizes on offer which included iPads, GoPro cameras, Minirig speakers and drones. Each winning project also received a £1,000 voucher for the winning school in each category to spend on D&T equipment for the classroom.

Renishaw business manager and chair of the TDI judging panel, Stewart Lane commented: “Everyone who took part in the final should be really proud of getting to this stage, it was an extremely hard decision to pick the winners, as the depth of talent on display here was remarkable.”

“It is really heartening to see the amazing talent we have developing across the UK and with any luck some of the finalist here today will go on to have long successful careers in engineering.”