A Year 6 team at the Junior School of King Edward’s School, Bath, has won the Innovation Award for their age-group at the National Final of the 2023 PA Raspberry Pi Competition, after presenting their idea to accelerate energy transition in the home to judges of the competition at the final held in London earlier this month.
The annual Raspberry Pi Competition organised by PA Consulting is open to schoolchildren aged 8-18 years in the UK, who are challenged to develop inspiring solutions to global challenges by using their engineering and coding skills and a Raspberry Pi microcomputer.
This year, teams were tasked to develop inventions which would benefit society by accelerating energy transition. Over 300 schools across the UK entered the competition and six finalists were selected in each age category – school Years 4-6, Years 7-9, Years 10-11 and Years 12-13.
King Edward’s Junior School pupils, Harry Williams and Theo Bevan, were keen to build on their last year’s success when they were part of the team that won first prize in the years 4-6 category. Jacob Robinson, Georgie Evans, Kai Vermeulen, Theo Cox and Fredrik Mackey joined them in thinking of ways to tackle the increasing cost of living by reducing households’ energy bills.
Harry, the team leader, explained, “We looked at the cost of electricity for heating the water people used in their showers. Using renewable sources, like solar energy, was nothing new but we thought of ways to reduce the time we spend using that energy by making use of our love of coding. And that is how Zappy Shower was born – our fun, cost-saving and time-saving solution.
“Zappy encourages the users to spend less time in the shower by a timer which gives reminders but is also customisable because it lets you select a karaoke song to make your short time in the shower fun.”
Theo B added, “In our prototype, we displayed the coding by using a waterproof Raspberry Pi touch-screen, which we bought with the funds we raised by organising a cake sale at school. We tested our prototype at ARMERA bathroom company.”
Jacob mentioned that the coding included a competitive element as it rewards users who have the lowest times against their name. The team worked solidly for 22 weeks, spending most of their break times in the school’s ICT room. In addition to the coding, the team designed their logo, created a website, made an animation, completed a 500-word project brief, undertook market research, tested their product to obtain user feedback and made a detailed presentation whilst documenting the entire process using their video editing skills.
Mrs Maya Mucunska, ICT teacher at the Junior School, commented, “I am very proud of the children whose great efforts were deservedly rewarded at the final. It was a very nerve-racking but super exciting day. The children were thrilled to be met by the presenter and host Fran Scott from the CBBC’s programme Absolute Genius.
“They set up their stand and then completed the special challenge, Race to Ingenuity, organised by PA Consulting, where they had to design and test a super-efficient car. Then they presented their project to groups of education professionals as well as business leaders from a wide range of energy and tech companies such as Rolls-Royce, Network Rail, Royal Navy, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, NHSS, Bupa, Zoopla, Microsoft etc.
“They were judged on their team spirit and teamwork, originality and clarity of build and instructions, world benefit and the commercial potential of their project. The King Edward’s stand generated a lot of interest at the Speed Networking Event which followed the judging session. The general consensus was that our team’s project was very practical, fun, effective and scalable and that the children elaborated on their project expertly!”
“It was the best school day ever!” said Georgie. “We gained so much from taking part in this competition, we learnt valuable business skills from product development to marketing and the importance of teamwork and presentation skills.”
Kai commented on the confidence he gained in participating in this competition. Theo C and Fredrik really enjoyed interacting with the other teams at the final and finding out about their projects. The team is now brainstorming ideas about how the £1,000 prize money could be spent in the school.
Mr Greg Taylor, Head Teacher of King Edward’s Junior School, who also accompanied the team to London, said, “The children were fantastic ambassadors for the whole school impressing the judges and many other adults from a wide range of industries with not only their creativity, innovative idea, ingenuity but also their mature and knowledgeable communication skills. What a great team effort! I’d also like to thank the wider KES community including the staff and parents who got behind this project and supported the team.”