Apprentices from Gloucestershire win a UK-wide People’s Prize for engineering

The sought-after People’s Prize at this year’s prestigious Engineers Without Borders’ Engineering for People Design Challenge competition has gone to a team of apprentices from Gloucestershire College.

The team, a partnership with the University of the West of England made up of apprentices from county firm Renishaw, was one of 36 teams to make the finals to pitch their ideas to an expert panel of judges for one of the three awards.

The People’s Prize was decided by a public vote which saw finalists also promote their ideas across their networks and encourage feedback, which saw the Gloucestershire College’ and UWE team win 565 of the total 4,000 votes cast.

Vincent Seow, lecturer in engineering at Gloucestershire College and the teams’ project curator, said: ‘I am very proud of what our apprentices have achieved. It has been another amazing year for them being able to contribute their ideas on tackling sustainability challenges in the nation-wide competition.’

The engineering challenges in the competition are framed around the UN Sustainable Development goals and span everything from water and sanitation, energy and the built environment, to transport, waste management, information communications technology and local industry.

This year competitors were tasked to research the most crucial needs of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders in Cape York, Australia.

The Gloucestershire College and UWE team focused on food storage challenges, designing a sustainable fridge powered by a combination of a water wheel and solar panels made from repurposed and cleaned oil drums often found as litter on the beaches of Cape York.

The winning team included Jack Chomette, Jack Madly, Cameron Wilson, Toby Stevens and Elliot Davies who are all Renishaw degree apprentices.