Fighting plastic pollution -- UK students bio vehicle design scope top honour at international STEM challenge
Future engineers to tackle global plastic pollution head-on
02 July 2020 (London, UK) — The British International Education Association (BIEA) was proud to host its third STEM competition on 1st July. The 2020 BIEA International STEM competition to 'Save Our Shores from Plastic Pollution' encourages young innovators from around the world to use technology to help counter the plastic waste epidemic and save threatened marine and land-based life through means of waste collection and recycling said waste.
36 finalist teams aged 9-17 from 14 countries and regions (US, UK, Bosnia, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Philippines, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, UAE, Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Hong Kong) showcased their designs and prototypes to an international judging panel.
At the online award ceremony, teams from all over the world shared their experience. The grand prize was won by Team Amet Activists from the Beacon School in Banstead, UK. Despite the disruption caused by COVID-19 to their education, these GCSE students made the valiant effort to continue with their project remotely. Their designs involved the application of enzymes dissolve plastic waste, redeployment of military tankers and automated robotic mechanisms in order to collect the plastics from riverbanks and beaches.
Evie Mackenzie, aged 17, was thrilled with the win, ‘The BIEA competition has expanded my learning, environmental awareness and my confidence and had encouraged me to pursue a STEM career with all the skills I have learnt. To be globally recognised is an honour and now more than ever I think competitions like this are so important to get younger people to apply their learning and expand their interest in STEM to make the differences to the world they want to see.’
“I am absolutely delighted the Amet Activists took home the grand prize and I am excited to see what they will go on to achieve in the future. Their project featured one of the most complex and ambitious design ideas I’d seen as part of the programme, and their hard work and deep thinking resulted in an extremely multi-functional device that I am confident, if developed further, could have real application. The team showed amazing resilience and strength of character in light of the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought about, completing the entirety of their project by collaborating online amidst the lockdown.” Amelia Perry, Big Bang Competition Manager at EngineeringUK.
The announcement was made in time to celebrate the International Plastic Bag Free Day on 3rd July. David Hanson, STEM competition chairman at BIEA hope the competition will engage everyone to tackle this global problem, “We know that the world has a plastic problem as our oceans and lands have become polluted with our carelessly discarded plastic waste. This plastic will take thousands of years to decompose on land, whilst the plastic in the oceans break up into toxin-laden tiny particles, causing chemical pollution in the oceans. By bringing attention to this crisis and discussing how scientific technology can help clean up plastic waste before it becomes environmentally dangerous, we at the BIEA hope to engage today’s international youth to use education to become the ones who can help save the planet of plastic pollution.”
For more information about the STEM Youth Innovation Competition, visit www.bieacompetition.org.uk or follow BIEA @BIEAeducation on social media.
For a full winner list, finalist team profiles, photos and videos, please contact: Helen Hu, hhu@biea.org.uk, +447766554217