On 25th February two Kemnay Go4Set teams attended the Celebration and Assessment Day at Kings College in Aberdeen. Both teams arrived sharply, leaving an hour so to set up out wonderful displays and get ready for the big assessment. Both teams had worked very hard on the project over the past 10 weeks, spending lots of our own time on the project. At 11:00, once our displays were all looking as good as possible, the first schools were being assessed by the judges. At 11:15, it was our turn (Team One), so three judges from Scottish Marines, Stratosphere and Inktech Solutions. These industry experts listened to our rehearsed presentation, and we talked them through our model and display. Our task over the last 10 weeks consisted of four main areas, report, model, display and presentation. We had to research ways that we could save, reuse and recycle water in our school. In the first stages of our task we had to carry out research, to find the best possible ways to save water around our school. We think the research was one of the hardest stages of the project, as no body in the team had any past experiences with saving, reusing and conserving water. Over a couple of weeks, we managed to overcome over come our problem and put together a, what we thought, very strong final proposal.
There were three prizes up for grabs, Pupil Choice, Best Team Work and Best Overall Project. The best team work and overall project were judged by the judges but, as the name suggests, the pupil choice award was chosen by the pupils. Each team was given an envelope with 6 voting slips in, one for each member. They then walked around the room and made a decision on who they thought were the best. After voting and having lunch, all of then mentors arrived.
Our mentor Kieran from Balfour Beatty who had helped us on various occasions throughout the project came to see our finally result which he was very proud of. Once all of the mentors had had a chance to speak with their teams it was time for the moment of truth. All of the teams were gathered at the front of the hall and John McIntyre proceeded with the award ceremony.
Torry Academy was awarded the Best Teamwork and £100 and Banchory Academy were awarded Pupil Choice and £50. Kemnay Academy Team One (Samuel Payne, Lewis McDonald, Matthew Dailey, Ethan Gordon, Amy Emslie and Eilidh Morrison) won the best overall project, £250 and have been invited to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh for the national final on the 16th of May. When our team was announced we were all thrilled that we had won and that all of the hard work of the past 10 weeks had paid off. It was a very close competition and all of the teams did very well including Kemnay Academy Team Two (Sasha Ratnayke, Beth Thomson, Rebecca Mackie, Kirsty Mclean and Alice Hepburn), who all did very well!
Matthew Dailey 2E and Lewis McDonald 2D
