Design and Technology

The prestigious scholarships give budding engineers, who have been identified as potential future leaders in the industry, the chance to make connections and gain experience as well as providing £600 to support their A level studies.

After applying for the awards in Year 11, the Perse students had to showcase their interest in engineering through a detailed application form and an in-depth online interview as part of the selection process.

Less than 300 Arkwright Scholarships were awarded nationally this year, but as a result of their successful applications, Fred and Eduard are now being sponsored by high-tech Cambridge company ARM Holdings.

Fred highlighted the automatic guitar tuner he had designed and made as part of his Arkwright application.

He said: “I play guitar, so it felt like quite an intuitive thing for me to make and I especially enjoyed the coding aspect of it. I thought the Arkwright Scholarship would be quite an interesting opportunity, so I felt proud to be accepted for it.

“I’m probably going to use my funding to work on another project, but I’m also looking forward to the ‘connect days’ which give you opportunities such as work experience.”

Meanwhile, Eduard already has knowledge of the industry from working part-time with Unipart, where he uses virtual reality and digital twins – virtual models that serve as digital counterparts of physical objects or processes – to investigate warehousing solutions. He used his experiences working for the logistics company’s digital team for his application.

Eduard, who plans to put some of his funding towards a robotics project, said: “I like engineering because I really enjoy creating things to solve problems that exist, so I was ecstatic to find out I’d got a scholarship, and particularly happy to find out my sponsor is ARM, which is a major benefit.”

Physics teacher Sam Patterson, who oversaw the Arkwright applications, added: “This was a particularly competitive year, so our scholars have done exceptionally well to be awarded one this year.”

Run by the British Science Association, the CREST award scheme is aimed at inspiring young people to get involved in STEM research.

Sourish began by researching how word clocks could be made before coming up with his own design, which he prototyped in cardboard, having also built all the electronic circuitry, before making the finished product in wood.

As a budding electronics engineer, Sourish decided to go for Gold level, which is primarily tackled by Sixth Form students, and successfully claimed the award after designing and building his innovative clock, which spells out the time through letters being lit up in a range of different colours.

He said: “My brother did a Silver CREST Award at around my age and I remember thinking it looked like a fun project where you could make something. I actually started it in Year 9, but because of Covid there were breaks in my work as there were many things I could only do in school as it’s a physical project.” He estimated the project took around 100 hours of work, given the amount of development needed to reach the end result.

“I had to make several prototypes and keep making them better each time until I finally got something I was happy with,” said Sourish. “The hardest part was making sure the electronics were safe. I started from scratch and I didn’t want anything blowing up, and as the clock is made of wood, so it could catch fire.”

Sourish had to submit a huge report to the CREST panel outlining his project from start to finish and was elated to claim the Gold Award. He believes the process will stand him in good stead for his future career.