STEM Blog

School teams from Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire attended The Robert Gordon University on Tuesday 7th February to compete in the Go4SET Aberdeen Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD).  The judges selected Torry Academy as the winners of the Best Overall Project Award for their outstanding work on the use of biomass as a source of renewable energy and the team were presented with a trophy and a cheque for £250 Alan MacLeay from Subsea 7 who sponsored the event and the awards . The team from Torry Academy will now go forward to the Go4SET Scottish Final which will be held in the Scottish Parliament in May

Torry Academy were supported by TOTAL E&P UK Limited during the project and their mentor Oliver Nicholls, commented “Congratulations to Torry Academy on their achievement. The Go4SET challenge has highlighted the subjects of science and maths in student’s minds, and this is a really positive result. It is positive for the students themselves as it means they can make informed decisions when deciding on a career path. In a wider sense it is healthy for the UK as there will be an obvious need for engineers and scientists both now and in future days.”

 The Go4SET biomass project began at the launch event in November 2011 and the teams of six 12 to 14 year olds (S2) continued to work with their teacher and mentors from industry on the challenging 10-week project.  They were tasked to research a biomass fuelled renewable electricity and heat plant for their school and provide a written report on their findings, produce a model and display these at the celebration event.

At the event the students demonstrated their individual projects and models to a group of assessors and discussed their projects with guests attending the event. The other award winners at the event were Hazlehead Academy supported by AMEC who won the Innovation Award with a cheque for £250 and Lathallan School Team 2 supported by BP who won the Students Choice Award with a cheque for £100.

 Alan MacLeay – Engineering Director – Renewables at Subsea 7 was also one of the judges and guest speaker at the event and commented “Subsea 7 is delighted to sponsor this event. As one of the largest employers of professional engineers in the North-east of Scotland we recognise the need to encourage secondary school students to take up careers in science, engineering and technology. It has been inspiring to see the enthusiasm and effort put in by the students and hopefully many of them will now consider careers in the industry.”

 The Robert Gordon University hosted both the Launch and the CAD event and Grant Maxwell, Associate Head of the School of Engineering commented, “We are very pleased to host this event. The quality of work and the enthusiasm displayed by the pupils were very impressive and this bodes very well for the future.”

Duncan McSporran, EDT Director for Scotland commented “This dynamic and innovative curriculum based programme has proved to significantly change the perception of young people on careers and opportunities within science and engineering industries.”