GROUP CATEGORY (17-19)

TEAM UNITE, OAKHAM SCHOOL

The introduction of group projects allowed the students to explore projects of greater complexity than individual entries.

Working with Mecc Alte, the world’s largest producer of synchronous alternators, Oakham School students Jacob Hardy-king (right) and Dan Timmerman were tasked with finding a cost-effective and easily portable means of reducing the cooling time of an alternator hub from 600°C to a workable temperature in under an hour, all without changing any properties of the coupling or the hub itself.

Together, they devised a solution using an adjustable and intuitive fan device, which impressed the judges with a sensible business case and a wealth of research.

Given the enormous technical challenges involved, both learned a huge amount from the process.

“We started from scratch, then brainstormed a few ideas and from there it progressed to the final product. Luckily it worked, so that was good!” said Jacob, now a Mechanical Engineering student at Loughborough.

“We’ve learned a lot about cooling and also how not to change the properties, which was a key thing for Mecc Alte.

“The best advice I can give is to find a problem and try to solve it. The feedback we got was that our presentation was good, we knew what the issue was and we knew how to get it across, which is good feedback to have for the future.

“I’m really proud that we’ve won this together; it’s a really good achievement to have. It will be a huge help to have this on our CVS and make us stand out as well.”