UK Young Engineer of the Year winner named

UK Young Engineer of the Year Aaron Lord

Announced at the Big Bang Fair, held earlier this month at the NEC, Birmingham, and the UK’s largest ‘annual celebration science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for young people’, were the winners of the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Competition — including the top awards of the UK Young Engineer and UK Young Technologist of the Year. Run by the charity EngineeringUK, the Big Bang Competition is a nationwide challenge for ‘young engineers, scientists and technologists’ aged 11 to 18 that recognises and rewards talented young innovators.

Aaron Lord, a year 12 student from Greenhead College in Yorkshire, was named UK Young Engineer of the Year for his project ‘Autopill’, which is designed to support people taking regular medication, particularly those with dementia and memory difficulties. Using mechanics, electronics and computer-aided design (CAD), Aaron created this automatic pill dispenser to enable users to insert their pills for the week and respond to a pulsing light and bleeping noise that signals pills are ready to take. The device also includes a health monitoring component that tracks users’ heart rate and oximetry when placing their finger on a sensor.

‘Icarus’ project
The UK Young Technologist of the Year award, supported by Siemens, went to Muhammad Shah, a year 13 student from Queen Elizabeth’s School in Barnet, for the ‘Icarus’ project, which was inspired by his love of the outdoors and trekking and was created to provide an alternative telecommunications system for low-cost and effective emergency communications in remote areas.

Mark Wood, social sustainability lead at Siemens GB&I, said: “Congratulations to The Big Bang UK Young Technologist of the Year. This year the competition was intense, but Muhammad stood out with his decentralised communication system, which avoids reliance on cellular or satellite networks and has great opportunities for search and rescue, leisure, and other business uses. Muhammad demonstrated independent learning and great communication and presentation skills and is a worthy winner of the prize.”

Dr Hilary Leevers, EngineeringUK’s chief executive, said: “Huge congratulations to all our winners, who have shown impressive creativity, knowledge and drive as they have worked on their projects. I hope they, and all the runners-up, are proud of their achievement. There are so many opportunities for them to continue with STEM in education and training and then in the workplace. I am sure they all have a bright future ahead.”