Global Marine Systems Limited, with joint venture partner Huawei Marine Networks (HMN), has mentored a team of four, sixth form students to the 2016 Engineering Education Scheme (EES) National finals where they were crowned champions.
The team, comprising of students from the Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School including Charlotte Buttery, Jahnina Queddeng, Alicia Trew and Abbie Cook, undertook a six-month engineering project with the EES, a programme run by education charity, the Engineering Development Trust. At the 2016 finals held at the Institute for Engineering and Technology in London on Wednesday 7th September, the team was announced as the overall winners, surpassing over 260 schools from across the country.
The EES provides students the opportunity to work on commercial projects within a range of engineering companies; a rare and powerful educational experience for the young adults from Brentwood Ursuline. Over a six month period, the team designed, constructed and developed a tar cleaning device known as the ‘Tarminator’ which has been adopted by HMN and is expected to bring both time and cost savings during the maintenance of transatlantic communication cables.
HMN engineer and scheme mentor Adrian Jarvis said, “The students exceeded our expectations in developing a product that solved a real problem for us, with the added bonus of winning the national award. It has been a pleasure working with the students who have developed many new skills and grown into confident young professionals. I wish them all well for their future in their chosen profession and would like to personally thank Mr Dif, Head of Physics at the school, and the students for their enthusiastic support.”
Head of Physics at Brentwood Ursuline, Mr Dif said, “This represents a great achievement for the girls who have become role models to their younger peers at school where interest in engineering is growing.”
Student Abbie Cook said, “The scheme has been invaluable in both my choice of A level studies, as well as my future career. Winning the EES national competition was truly amazing and the feedback we had from the judges and public was very inspiring.”
Fellow student, Alicia Trew also commented, “The EES project has been an amazing experience. Before entering the project, I had an ambition to enter into a career in engineering. After finishing the project as national winner, I am one hundred percent certain that engineering is the career I would like to follow.”
Following the project success, the team has gone on to set up their own science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) club at school, helping to inspire younger students and grow their passion for engineering further as they look to pursue their learning at university next year.
The ‘Tarminator’ itself has a bright future and is currently going through a more rigorous product testing and commercialisation process with the view to it becoming a standard piece of equipment on both HMN and Global Marine vessels based across the globe.
