The Department of Design & Technology

Thishas been a different and challenging year for the Design and Technology department with Covid precautions and restrictions impacting heavily on students in the Department across all year groups. With limited access to the workshop facilities GCSE and A Level students responded to the challenge with determination to succeed no matter what obstacles came their way.

Student projects developed with the same breadth and depth as ever, with students selecting interesting and varied briefs to solve real and challenging problems and developing creative solutions. In other year groups students enjoyed D&T lessons in maths, languages and humanities classrooms but did not let this dampen or hinder their enthusiasm or creativity.

Outside of the classroom many extra-curricular activities were not able to be run, but despite the barriers and challenges students continued to take part in F1 in Schools with Team Electron competing in the remote World Championships and other student teams qualifying for the remotely held National Championships.

The UK Space Design Team also continued to succeed, taking their skills to the online competition platform, winning their regional and competing in the National Final.

We are really looking forward to getting all of our classes back into the workshops and being able to get more Extra Curricular opportunities up and running over the next year.

International Space Settlement

The St. Olave’s team won the national final of the International Space Settlement Competition last term and ten of them won a place to compete at NASA in Florida for the UK team. This event was unfortunately cancelled, but the competition continued via video link. Due to their commitment and performance over the days (and nights) of the competition, the UK team won the international event. Congratulations to all the students involved. The UK team worked hard to overcome technological and cultural barriers with a degree of professionalism and composure beyond their years and received praise from our company supervisors, who included an Engineer at Boeing and Old Olavian, Shayne Beegadhur.

The International Space Settlement Design Competition is the highest level of space design competition in the world, and qualifying is an impressive feat in itself. After winning the London Regionals and the National Finals at Imperial College, 12 students from St. Olave’s were invited to represent the UK at the ISSDC. Usually held over three days at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, students from St. Olave’s and Eltham College formed the UK contingent for this year’s four-day virtual competition.

Big Bang Competition

Congratulations to Year 11 students, Siddarth, Vaibhav, Harsha and Chintan who were nominated for the Stantec Developing Future Communities Award and The Siemens Award for Digital Skill due to their design of a Wildfire and Drought Prediction Drone in the Big Bang Competition 2021. The Team were interviewed for the awards by Teams from Stantec and BAE Systems.

In Schools

Team ‘ELECTRON’, made up of Year 11 students, took part in the National Finals of the F1 in Schools competition. Their car, which hurtled down the 25m race track at over 50mph, came just 0.003s behind the winners, to be the second fastest car in the UK. Thanks in part to the generous support of their sponsors, Toyota Jemca Sidcup, the team also finished 2nd overall, which means they will be representing England in the F1 in Schools World Finals! Year 11 students, Kaylan, Moosa, Kavin, Nathan, Rohan and Virujan secured their place in the Nationals by their outstanding performance last November in the South East Regional Final, where they came 2nd. The National Finals had been due to take place in the Airbus Bristol factory, but the competition was in a completely virtual format this year, with teams recording and editing video presentations for the judges, and finishing the manufacture at home, before posting them off. What makes the students’ achievement all the more impressive is that this is only the second year that St. Olave’s has taken part in the event.

Student Achievements

Navaneeth Madhavan achieved a Silver award in the Galactic Challenge.

Devaansh Lulla, won a Silver award in the Galactic Challenge for the design of Horizon, a space rescue organisation.

Engineering Scholarships

Congratulations to Aaditya, Daksh, Hardiv, Jamie, Nathan and Saakshi who have won Arkwright Engineering Scholarships. This is the most prestigious scholarship of its type in the UK to inspire and nurture school-age students to be the country’s future leaders of the Engineering Profession. Scholarships are awarded to high[1]calibre 16 year old students through a rigorous selection process and these support students through the two years of their A-Levels.