Newcastle pupils celebrate their UK subsea victory

Phillip Daniel, Faizah Ashraf, Abi Tang, Sandrik Andriychenko, Jiawen Dang, Aidan Ewart and Katy Read (pictured l to r) emerged victorious in the contest with Helston Community College (Cornwall), St. Andrew’s RC Secondary (Glasgow), The Portsmouth Grammar School and Sutton Grammar.

Some 30 youngsters from across the UK competed to build a floating wind turbine in an event organised by Subsea UK and supported by engineering and children’s engineering and technical charity, The Smallpeice Trust.

The teams received a ‘Think Kit’ from the trust, containing tools to build a floating offshore wind turbine. Each model was piloted in a test tank at Aberdeen Science Centre before presentations to judges from from Oceaneering, SMD and Saab.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the students who took part. The aim of this event is to inspire young people to be part of our sector

Trish Banks, operations manager, Subsea UK

Entrants were graded on the amount of electricity produced by their turbine, how well it kept afloat and their engineering knowledge of the subsea sector.

Trish Banks, operations manager at Subsea UK, said: “We’ve been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the students who took part. The aim of this event is to inspire young people to be part of our sector and we’re hopeful the pupils embraced the opportunity to work directly with industry figures.

“I would like to congratulate all the teams who took part for their hard work and determination to succeed, which helps make the competition such a success. We have hopefully inspired those who weren’t aware of the opportunities the industry could offer, that a career in subsea is exciting, rewarding and diverse.”

The £7.5 billion UK subsea sector employs more than 45,000 employees and around 650 companies, while The Smallpeice Trust worked with 49,683 students across 600 programmes in 2015/16 alone.