17-19 CATEGORY

HALIMAH ERSHAD, FOREST SCHOOL

Forest School student Halimah Ershad impressed the panel with her high-end chick incubator, complete with lighting, feeding tray and a user-friendly grille for waste to fall through.

One of three female finalists in the 17-19 age range, Halimah called on her past experiences as a chick-breeder to create the ‘Brooden’ – a wordplay not lost on the judges. Her plywood structure was easy on the eye, demonstrated a strong understanding of the market and combined an impressive range of manufacturing processes.

Halimah aspires to a career in manufacturing and is currently an undergraduate engineer at Dyson.

“It’s amazing that I made it to this stage,” she said. “When they called my name I couldn’t believe it!

“My product is a high-end chicken brooder, which is what chicks live in for the first two months, and it’s got all the facilities they need to be healthy. It’s inspired by high-end cat and dog houses so, rather than just being a plastic plain box, it’s much more modern and it looks like a piece of furniture.

“I’m hoping to develop the project a bit more and develop it into something people can buy and have in their homes. The product is targeted at quite a niche market, but there is definitely a market for it.

“I think doing a lot of independent research is always good because there is only so much that your teachers can tell you, and that’s how I found out about this challenge. If you are worried about applying then I would say just go for it, there’s literally nothing to lose and you never know where you could end up.”