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By Mr Hadfield.

This year all year 9 pupils took part in a design competition. The competition was run by Fabricon, a local design and manufacturing company. Representatives from the company visited the school to introduce the project and set the design brief. The students were asked to overcome "grip" challenges faced by the elderly and less able by creating a product that will make their everyday life easier.

The initial 200 designs were assessed by the Design Technology teachers at the school and the entries were finally narrowed down to 25. After this process representatives of the company again visited the school to interview the young designers and to finally narrow down the field to the three best designs.

For the final selection process Fabricon arranged a 'Dragons Den’ style session within the boardroom of its offices to select the overall winner and 2nd and 3rd runners up. The Dragons Den style judges included Mark Bushdyhan, founder of the Fabricon Foundation, Ruth Amos, winner of the Young Engineer for Great Britain and Allan Rennie, head of Engineering at Lancaster University. Prototypes of the designs were produced by the company to help visualise what the final outcomes would look like.

The three Year 9 finalists had rehearsed their presentation with their tutors, but were nervous as they entered the Den. However, all three managed to impress the judges with their design.

Ruth Amos said, “The quality of entries was of such a high standard that we had a very hard task choosing a winner.”

The final winner of the competition was 13-year-old Leigh Murray. He designed a device that enables the disabled and elderly to easily grip household objects such as a sweeping brush or garden rake.

Mr Bushdyhan commented, "I thought the winning product was simple but effective. The simplicity allowed for it to be used by many different people in many ways."

The winner was announced at the Year 9 school assembly in front of 200 other pupils. The prizes — a laptop for first prize, digital camera and an IPod touch — were presented by local Member of Parliament, Andrew Gwynne.

The MP said “the Fabricon Foundation is a fantastic idea, the competition helped local young people understand what life could be like after school” As Leigh Murray stepped up to collect his new laptop he looked genuinely surprised by his success. Ruth said, “Lee seemed shocked but very happy, I see enormous potential for the product. It is such a commercially viable product.” Allan Rennie added, “For these school pupils, the opportunity to conceive and develop a product, with direct input from the industry, will be such a confidence booster. I doubt that there were actually any losers in this competition, as everyone involved will have benefitted in some way.

Later in the week Leigh also appeared on the Channel M news programme, along with Ruth Amos and Jennifer Hobday from Fabricon, to discuss his winning idea.

The Fabricon Group will now assess the winning products for commercial production. The Fabricon Foundation will be launching a new inter-schools competition in September 2009.

The competition was a great success and all the pupils certainly liked working on a ‘real life’ project. We look forward to working with Fabricon again in the near future.

The Photograph shows the 3 winners with their prizes together with Andrew Gwynne MP, Ruth Amos, Allan Rennie, Jennifer Hobday, Ryan Bushdyhan from Fabricon and Mr Hadfield from Audenshaw School.