Dott 07 Success
Congratulations to our Y9 Design Team who achieved success in the recent Dott 07 Eco-Design Challenge held at The Baltic in October. Their idea to create an environmentally friendly transport system for Lord Lawson and Birtley was met with approval from a panel of prestigious judges from the design world who liked its sustainability and realistic approach.
Although success has been recent, the challenge actually started way back in February 2007 when we looked at our school carbon footprint and identified areas for improvement. One area was how we travel to and from school, looking to reduce carbon emissions and lower our impact on the environment, while the other was looking at reducing the amount of packaging used in the dining hall to minimise waste. These projects were the starting points for our 2 groups of budding Y9 designers.
Our teams were:
- ON YOUR BIKE
- Helena Wallace
- Phillipa Ogden
- Emily Moffit
- Laura Kennedy
- Lee Alcock
- Olivia Knight
- Jordan Sabourn
- Chloe Nevin
- Robbie Scorer
- Kate Harris
- Leah Cosgrove
- Lauren Johnson
- Hanna Lancaster
- Zoe Timney
- Jordan Fleming
- ECO EAT
- Sophie Evans
- Sophie Eagle
- Lewis Whybrow
- Helen Brewis
- Christopher Charles
- Ben Nicholson
- Eleri Cowlyn
- Samantha Brown
- Nicola Carter
- Carmel Woolmington
- Christian Harbison
- Thomas Dunn
- Lauren Malloy
- Lauren Gray
- Georgie Hulland
For "On Your Bike", the team's highly inventive designs were supported by Michael Atkinson from Newcastle architects Purves Ash who came into school for a day to run a workshop. He showed students how architects work out a design - including all the technical stuff that happens in between the drawing board and the building site - and was a great help when we took our own drawings from paper to 3D models. The Eco Eat group had the benefit of Sebastian Conran's expertise, and he left his highly successful international design group in London to work with us for the day. As a director of the Conran Design empire, he gave us all an insight into how a hugely successful company promotes eco-friendly design across the world and offered top tips for improvements to our own ideas. We also gave him a few to take back to HQ...!
Following a great deal of hard work from the students outside of school hours, they submitted designs for initial judging and were delighted to hear the transport group (project title "On Your Bike") had made it through to the final 5. Out of 90 schools this was quite an achievement.
Next came the difficult job of turning 8 months of work into a 3 minute presentation, but after a great deal of drafting, rehearsing (and stress!) they made it to the finals on October 16th feeling confident. Presenting in front of almost 400 people on the night and to a panel of 6 judges can't have been easy but our team took it completely in their stride and made such an impressive show that we achieved Runner-Up prize and a hefty £5000 to develop our idea further and turn proposals into reality - now the fun really starts!!!
Our students said...
"It's fantastic! I'm so proud to be representing the school in a big competition like this"
"At first I wasn't sure who Sebastian Conran was, but when I Googled him I found out he filled 161,000 pages on a Goggle search! It was a great opportunity to meet and work with him"
"I'm really glad we took part in the competition. It's given me a greater awareness of what being eco-friendly actually means"
For more information about the competition log onto www.dott07.org.uk where you can also read about our projects in greater depth and see our students in action.