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No fewer than nine teams took part in the robotics world finals as the Technology department recorded achievement after achievement in a Summer Term to remember.

Building on QE’s strong international reputation in robotics established over the past five years, four senior and five junior teams qualified for the global VEX finals, which are usually held in the US but this year were run online because of the pandemic. Teams also took the opportunity to compete in offline, in-person events locally, including one hosted by QE.

In addition to the VEX robotics triumphs, the term was punctuated by regular news of successes in national Technology-related competitions.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “I commend all our boys on the way they have maintained their enthusiasm during some difficult few months and on their commitment to getting involved in competitions and activities outside of lessons. That commitment has been richly rewarded.”

The four senior robotics teams all went through to the divisional knockout stages in the VEX World Championships and one of them – Hyperdrive – won an Amaze award for their division. “All four teams – Hybrid, Hyperdrive, Override and Tempest – were very unlucky to lose out to eventual champions and division finalists,” said Mr Noonan.

The same four teams took part in an VEX EDR Showcase hosted by Merchant Taylors’ School, which attracted teams from as far afield as Coventry and Stevenage. Hybrid, Hyperdrive and Override took the event’s Division 1 Design, Innovate and Think awards respectively. Tempest and Hyperdrive reached the overall final, narrowly losing to the eventual champions. In the skills category, the four QE teams took second, third, fourth and fifth places.

For the younger boys, the five qualifying VEX IQ teams (Gearsquad, TechFusion, Superdrive, Overdrive and Cyberstorm) relished competing with teams from across the world at their international finals, said Mr Noonan.

At a VEX IQ Showcase held at QE, Gearsquad not only won the Teamwork award – jointly with GCA Gearers, a team from Greig City Academy in Haringey – but also took the Excellence award, as a result of which they have already qualified for next year’s world championships.

In addition to the Lord Mayor of London’s prize won recently by 2021 leaver Ukendar Vadivel for his 3D printing work to produce face shields for the NHS during last year’s lockdown, Nirmay Jadhav, of Year 13, also drew plaudits for his innovative effort to improve 3D printing itself. Nirmay was national runner-up in the Manufacturing Technologies Association’s Technology, Design and Innovation Challenge, with his design for a dehydration chamber to combat excess moisture in 3D printing, one of the common problems with this popular modern technology. The School is using the £750 he won to upgrade its CAD/CAM equipment.

Devia Karia, of then of Year 13, pictured above, was one of ten finalists in the prestigious Triumph Design Awards with his Airtime device. “He was very unfortunate not to win with his fantastic solution to air cleanliness in the pandemic,” said Mr Noonan.

The pairing of Dhruv Syam and Ashwin Sridhar (now Year 12) – Team Salutem Validus – reached the final of the Amazon Longitude Prize Explorer competition with DevSalutem, their AI-powered wellbeing assistant with a companion app.

The competition challenged young people aged 11–16 to design, develop and build ‘tech for good’ prototypes to solve the big challenges of our time. Dhruv and Ashwin’s entry, DevSalutem, aims to enhance users’ mental and physical health by detecting symptoms, monitoring movement, providing suggested workouts or other activities, and supplying specifically tailored feedback.

Eight boys are participating in the international COVID-19 Engineering Design Challenge and are due to feature in the autumn edition of the Design & Technology Association’s magazine.

Sixth-former Ukendar Vadivel has won an award from the Lord Mayor of London for his innovative work producing face shields for the NHS during last year’s lockdown.

He worked closely with classmates and a newly formed group called the 3D Crowd to reduce 3D printing time for Personal Protective Equipment in a collaborative effort that used both the School’s machines and pupils’ home 3D printers. Much of the effort both at QE and across London was spearheaded by QE’s Head of Technology, Michael Noonan.

Ukendar, who is an apprentice with the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers (WCSIM), was presented with the Lord Mayor’s COVID-19 Livery Award by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, William Russell. The award recognises the contribution made by livery company members during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Thank you very much to the WCSIM for putting me forward for the award!” said Ukendar, who is in Year 13 and is one of this summer’s leavers.

“I am honoured to receive it, and it is a testament to what everyone at 3D Crowd has achieved over the past year and a half. I’d also like to especially thank Mr Noonan for getting us as QE students involved in such a wonderful cause.”

With the NHS urgently requiring PPE as the pandemic hit the UK, Ukendar worked closely with the 3D Crowd, who had designed, and been authorised to supply to medics, a bespoke 3D-printed face shield.

He purchased a stock of the raw materials needed before setting about the task of drastically reducing the time needed to manufacture the masks. By exchanging ideas and designs with the group, he managed to get production time down from 3–4 hours to well under 2 hours.

“At one point, I was one of the top ten producers of face shields in the London area, alongside one of my fellow schoolmates!” he says.

“The past year hasn’t been easy on any of us, but when we can put our minds together, the community can make a genuine difference. Being a part of 3D Crowd and WCSIM taught me about the value of collaboration, and the power of working towards a common goal.

“I loved helping out the real heroes of our country, the NHS workers, who of course have given so much to the public to help the country get through the pandemic. I am incredibly proud of my own mother, who was on the front lines for at least two months, alongside all the other nurses at her hospital, and indeed across the country.”

Ukendar is currently awaiting the results of his A-Levels in Product Design, Mathematics, Further Mathematics and Physics.

QE’s Year 12 Engineering Education Scheme team have been nominated for the Innovation prize in this year’s Constructing Excellence Awards after their design for a machine to reduce dust on construction sites impressed judges.

The four boys overcame the challenge of having to work through lockdown – depriving them of access to tools and of the opportunity to do a live construction site visit – to put together a fully-illustrated 66-page project report.

They will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of several successful QE teams of the past. In 2020, the QE entrants, working with office design company Morgan Lovell, won not only the Innovation category in the Constructing Excellence SEBCE Awards, but also the People’s Choice Award – a prize that this year’s team is eligible for, too.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “These awards are competed for by adults working full-time in the construction industry, so our four Product Design students have done very well indeed to be nominated. They worked extremely hard and used their engineering, design and research skills to good effect in putting together a comprehensive and well-thought out report, which they then presented well.

“I commend them on their success and thank their sponsors, Morgan Lovell, for all their mentoring and support throughout the project.”

The team comprised leader Lucas Lu, lead designer Ben Pang, lead researcher Rohan Sira and Jayden Savage, who led on the project planning and organised the tasks to be done. Technology teacher Tony Green facilitated the boys’ involvement in the scheme.

Morgan Lovell’s Health, Safety & Wellbeing Manager, Alex Wood, set them the challenge of tackling the large amount of harmful dust found on construction sites.

Workers normally guard against inhaling dust either by wearing face masks or by using square-shaped dust-reduction devices, such as the one made under the tradename, DustCube.

The boys had the option of either improving on the ‘DustCube’-type device – they actually stripped one down to investigate how it worked – or of designing an entirely new product.

Having identified a number of drawbacks with the existing machine, including the high cost of replacing their HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filters, they chose the latter route.

After exploring no fewer than 13 concept ideas and producing more detailed analyses of around half of these, the team eventually devised a product that they dubbed the ‘Dust Cylinder’– since it was cylindrical, not cube-shaped.

Ben says: “It makes use of a water filtration system: essentially, the dirty air is passed through a tank of water, all of the dirt is trapped and suspended within the water tank, and all of the clean air is released back into the room.”

It has, he says, a number of advantages over machines currently on the market:

• The ease with which operator will be able to tell when the water needs to be changed.
• Minimal maintenance costs
• The high volume of air it can filter
• Its ability to filter particles smaller than those removed by HEPA filters.

“All of this was done either in school, or at home (during the lockdown). Doing the work at home meant that we we were unable to manufacture the actual product due to a lack of tools. We faced many issues ranging from poor internet connection to glitches with the conferencing software.”

With coronavirus restrictions ruling out a physical visit to a site, Mr Wood instead arranged for them to make a virtual site visit to 80 Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia, London, where the interior was being renovated by Morgan Lovell.

After delivering their presentation online, the team were exhilarated to find out that they had reached the finals of the Innovation category, says Ben.

“We were never expecting to make it this far, especially considering the fact that almost all of the other teams consist of people who do this kind of thing for a living – to to be pitted against them is a huge honour.”

The Constructing Excellence SECBE Awards virtual ceremony will take place on 1st July. Online voting for the People’s Choice Award is expected to open early next month.

Year in Industry placements are neither a common target for QE leavers nor are they easy to obtain – just 750 are offered nationwide annually – yet sixth-former Deshraam Ganeshamoorthy has successfully gained one, thanks to a glittering CV and some deft interview preparation.

Deshraam, of Year 13, capitalised on his national successes with a QE robotics team over the last four years to impress bosses at the Cambridge engineering consultancy interviewing him for his placement.

Now he is looking forward to spending next year at Springboard Pro, which develops advanced medical devices, before going on to university to read Mechanical Engineering.

Head of Year 13 Helen Davies said: “Whilst a large majority of our A-level students head on to leading universities straight after school or after a conventional gap year, there are some other interesting and potentially valuable vocational routes, with the Year in Industry programme among these. Deshraam is to be congratulated on the work he did to investigate and achieve this, and we wish him every success.”

Deshraam first came across the UK’s Year in Industry scheme when he was looking through the Engineering Design Trust website to learn more about the trust’s summer courses. The scheme places around 750 young people annually in engineering, science, IT, and business, where most work full-time before going on to join degree courses.

His interest piqued, he realised that a placement would enable him to pursue the things he loves most about engineering: “The ability to take a client’s challenge, create a design brief and through iteration go from simple sketches to a final product.”

“I felt that the skills I would learn from working as an engineer would help me greatly when studying for my degree and into the future.”

After consulting QE’s Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, he decided to apply.

“The application process involved creating a CV highlighting my engineering strengths. Here I had the opportunity to briefly describe my IT skills – from using Office to [3D programs] Solidworks and Cura and programming in Python – as well as past projects such as: my GCSE automatic pill dispenser project, the robots built over four years competing in the VEX robotics competitions, and most recently my independent EPQ project exploring the use of soft robotics.” (Soft robotics is a subfield of robotics dealing with the construction of robots from compliant materials similar to those found in living organisms.)

“Over the following months, new vacancies opened up and I had the opportunity to apply to the ones that most interested me.” He was especially keen that his placement should cover Mechanical Engineering, his intended degree subject.

A few months after submitting his first application, he received an invitation to interview with the Cambridge company. “I was sent some documents regarding what the interview might entail, and prepared accordingly.”

The first half of the one-hour interview on Microsoft Teams was spent talking about a project of Deshraam’s choice. “Here I spoke about the most recent robot built by my team, HYBRID, for the VEX Robotics Competition to compete in the game Tower Takeover. During this mini-presentation, I spoke about how we initially analysed the problem, our early more adventurous explorations of design possibilities, and how I used CAD to aid us in designing, manufacturing, and improving this robot. I spoke about where our weaknesses were and how we fixed these, allowing us to succeed at the end of the season and become VEX Robotics UK National Champions, winning both the Tournament Champions and Excellence trophies.

“The second half of the interview centred around a physics problem that started by looking at the forces and energy involved in the motion of a bungee jumper, but progressed to look at the properties of different materials that could be used for the cord.

“Overall, the interview was an enjoyable experience, and whilst it was challenging at times, I felt that I had done my best to explain how I was thinking through problems before reaching an answer.”

“Having spoken to three employees at the company, researching their work further, and after also speaking to Mr Noonan and Mr Feven [Michael Feven, Assistant Head (Pupil Development)], I felt this opportunity would allow me to learn lots of new things and become a better overall engineer.”

When the offer to work for the company duly arrived a few days later, Deshraam was happy to accept. He will start work there after finishing his Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Physics and Economics A-levels this summer.

He is grateful to the staff who have helped him – “primarily Mr Noonan, for always being willing to answer my questions and give me advice both during this process and over the course of the last seven years.

“I would also like to thank my closest friends at QE for always supporting me and believing in me; I couldn’t have done this without all the great people around me.”

A seven-strong team from Harrisons’ House won a Year 9 careers competition with their carefully thought-through design for a ‘smart’ water bottle that would use UV light to kill bacteria, viruses and fungi.

Team 4’s Water UVC bottle could thus benefit many millions across the developing world without access to safe drinking water, the boys explained in their richly illustrated, 31-page PowerPoint presentation. They even included an option for the UV lamp to be solar-powered to make the bottle viable for people who could not afford mains electricity.

The aim of the activity was to encourage boys both to develop their entrepreneurial skills and to make use of Science, Mathematics and Technology as they prepare to make their subject option choices.

The teams were given a choice of four briefs to work on, with Team 4 choosing the fourth  – “design and make a ‘smart’ water bottle that has at least one other function”.

Making the announcement that Team 4 had won, Assistant Head (Pupil Progress) Sarah Westcott said: “During last term’s lockdown, our usual face-to-face careers activities for Year 9 in this important period of their School careers had to be reimagined. We amended our plans so that boys could work from home, while still developing important work-related skills such as creativity, teamwork, independence and the ability to communicate their ideas.”

Dr Westcott judged the entries together with Head of Year 9 Sean Kelly, who is a Technology teacher.

“Both Mr Kelly and I loved the creativity and simplicity behind the winning design: all members of the team worked equally to realise the design brief and develop the marketing materials – which included a website!”

The boys’ PowerPoint presentation featured hand-drawn illustrations, as well as photography and computer graphics.

After an introduction, the presentation set out the whole process of turning the stainless steel bottle into a mass-produced product, with major sections entitled Design and Creativity, Manufacturing, Marketing and Pecuniary Matters (finance).

• Team 4 comprised: Shivam Vyas; Rohan Varia; Jenarth Thavapalan; Manthan Thakkar; Shrey Tater; Abyan Shah and Shreyaas Sandeep.

After a busy spring of online competitions, the Summer Term opens with all four QE teams now qualified for this year’s VEX EDR Robotics World Championship.

Hyperdrive and Override first reached the virtual international finals next month and then Tempest and Hybrid safely made it through, too, reports QE’s Head of Technology Michael Noonan.

Their achievement capped a term that saw the School host two successful international remote robotics events.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “Both events saw the QE teams demonstrating great problem-solving, teamwork and communication skills as they made lots of last-minute adjustments online in order to optimise their robots or deal with technical faults.

“Boys are very happy that they can physically work on their robots now we are back in School. Everyone is looking forward to the world championship, and, with restrictions now beginning to ease, we are all hoping for more events before the end of the year, too.”

Teams from Canada, Taiwan, the US and UK, including one from QE, took part in the first QE-hosted event, which was held during lockdown.

The second QE event was a bigger remote skills tournament close to the end of the Spring Term. Twelve places were available, three-quarters of which were reserved for UK teams. Hyperdrive, competing in their first event, represented QE, together with Override and Tempest. Hybrid were unavailable. The QE teams took on five UK and three US teams close to the end of the Spring Term.

Each robot first had to pass an inspection before taking the field. Conducted over Zoom, the competition involved each team having 30 minutes to try to complete three ‘driver’ runs (where the robot is controlled by a driver using a remote control) and three ‘programming’ runs (where the robot moves around the field based on pre-programming – so once it starts there is nothing more you can do).

When competing on their own in such events (as opposed to directly against another team on the field of play, as would happen in an ‘in-person’ competition), the aim is to amass the highest score by picking up red balls and tipping them into the goals, while also ‘de-scoring’ as many blue balls as possible, dislodging these from the bottom of the goal stacks.

The winners were one of the two teams competing from Galion High School from the small city of Galion in the state of Ohio; they scored 110 points in the driving section and 45 points in the autonomous control section. The remaining US team were an independent team from Newnan, Georgia, who were placed second in the competition, with a score of 114 for driving and 28 for autonomous control (and were competing from a garage at 6.30am local time!).

The highest-placed UK team went to an independent team, which included one QE pupil, Year 11’s Yash Shah.

QE’s Tempest team came fourth with their highest score to date – a “highly respectable 122 points in total; 95 in driver and 27 in programming”, said Mr Noonan.

The event was administered by Mr Noonan, with Technology teachers Stephanie Tomlinson and Shane Maheady, and Technology assistant Jemima Snelson, handling the refereeing and scorekeeping.

Competition continued even on the very last day of term, when all the QE teams competed in a UK live remote skills event hosted by the Vex Robotics Training Academy in Warrington. Tempest and Override came third and fourth, with total scores of 132 and 113 respectively.