Students Create Winning Structures

On Tuesday 7th December, Walsall College’s Green Lane Campus hosted a design and manufacturing competition for pupils from surrounding schools.

The Leon Jessel Memorial Challenge is an annual event facilitated by the Walsall Education Business Partnership and sponsored by the Walsall Chamber of Commerce.

The annual challenge is named after the late Leon Jessel, a member of the Chamber of Commerce who had been extremely keen on promoting science and engineering to young people.

30 pupils from St Francis of Assisi Catholic Technology College, Brownhills Community Technology College and Joseph Leckie Community Technology College took part.

This year’s challenge was a structural activity using ‘lean manufacturing’ principles. The teams were assessed on their planning for the project; explaining and understanding of how a structure is designed, team work, overall attitude and finally, the quality of the overall structure.

Prizes were supplied and presented by the Walsall Chamber of Commerce. The overall winning team came from St Francis of Assisi Catholic Technical College, who received the Leon Jessel Memorial Trophy and £25 Waterstones gift vouchers for each team member. There were also prizes for the second placed team, who were from Joseph Leckie Community Technology College.

Joe Standen, 13 from the winning team said: “It was a really good experience. It was quite confusing at first and difficult to work out, but we eventually managed to even out the weight on each side to create the winning structure. I am very interested in engineering because it’s hands-on and you get to do things rather than just being told how they are done in books”.

Alex Reynolds from Walsall College’s Engineering Department said, “The challenge was an excellent way of introducing engineering to school students and showing them how fun it can be. It gave those students with an interest in the subject a chance to get some real hands on experience, as well as giving them a taste of college life”.